fandomtownies | The Devil's Nest, Friday Night

No doubt you'll need one.

Not quite sad, not quite danceable.

He's not heading to the bar tonight, but he does have to take breaks between songs.

Duke knew that Lucifer had at least figured out that light made the bad memories go away, so he was reasonably confident that if he went to the Devil's Nest tonight, it would be well lit.

He was quite relieved to discover he was right.

He picked up a very large, abnormally caffeinated cocktail from Tiny and went to go find Lucifer himself. "Right, so. This place is definitely better lit right now than my diner was."

Lucifer, sitting in the big spotlight behind his equally-big piano, looked up and sighed. "I'm not going to let some bloody nostalgia trip ruin my," Eric's, "Club," he said sourly.

"God forbid," Duke said. "Pardon my French." He leaned on the piano, a respectable distance from Lucifer. "Surprised there's not more business in here. It's prime binge-drinking weather out there."

"And run the risk of spewing all your trauma over the nearest pleasant stranger?" Lucifer said, looking up at him with a real squint. "Happy to offer refuge, of course, but I imagine most of them are hermiting."

"Hermitting hasn't done me much good yet," Duke said. Last night had been rough. "Neither does not-hermitting. Kind of screwed either way."

"And if that isn't cheerful enough," Lucifer sighed, pressing a few scattered keys on the piano.

Of course the first thing that came out was Knocking on Heaven's Door, like that song hadn't haunted him enough yet, either. "Well, have as many drinks as possible and stay roughly in the spotlight area, that should be safest."

Now you were just asking for something to go wrong, Luce.

They were all just so very good at tempting fate.

"That's the plan." Duke raised an eyebrow at the song choice. "You can definitely think of something happier than that, right?"

"Hm?" Lucifer glanced down at the keys. "Oh. I'm sorry, it's--"

The spotlight went dark.

A priest behind the piano, playing Knocking on Heaven's Door, challenging Lucifer to a piano match. The same priest, jumping in front of a young man to take a bullet, Lucifer rushing to his side as he bled out moments later.

". . . Your life is way too full of irony," Duke noted, rubbing his head. He reached for Lucifer's arm, planning to try to drag him into brighter light.

The rattle of the coroner's gurney as they loaded Geoff's waterlogged body onto it. Duke stood some distance away, unable to tear his eyes from his friend's pale, blue-tinted face.

But Lucifer was at the piano, the place he felt safest on this bloody island. He resisted, even as more images of death flooded his senses.

His fingers skipped over the keys until they found something much more simple. Something just as oddly comforting. Heart and Soul. That thing everyone knew how to play.

Just the sound of it put him at the piano somewhere else, the doors sliding open behind him. More vividly than usual, though even during his regular evening brooding, it was impossible not to get pulled into the picture of Chloe's face as she gently leaned over, trying not to startle him too much, and said a soft, "Hi".

Duke stopped trying to pull him away and turned, blinking.

She looked healthy. Happy. Hardly like the woman he'd seen in Lucifer's other memories so far.

He could see now why Lucifer loved her.

"Keep going," he said softly. "This is -- this is a good one, right?"

"I-- yes," Lucifer said, staring at his hands on the piano.

She sat down beside him and smiled at him expectantly. He was confused. He'd pursued her fruitlessly for weeks, and it was well past work hours now, so-- "Bit late for a new case, isn't it?"

She huffed a laugh. "I'm not here for a case. I'm here for you."

So the pursuing, then. "Oh, really?" he said, smirking.

"Yeah," she said softly, her face earnest, interested. "I thought you could use a friend."

And there went the smirk, utterly disarmed. He didn't know what to do about it.

Something in the air seemed to lighten. Lucifer could barely feel it, but it seemed-- there.

"You hadn't had a whole lot of those before," Duke guessed. He could feel it, too. Geoff's body had faded, and nothing else terrible was swarming in to replace it.

In fact. . . .

"You took my clothes."

Duke lowered his paper and gave her an amused smirk. "Good morning."

"You took," Audrey said again, approaching slowly in one of his old shirts, her gun held low by her side. "My clothes."

"Well, now. I laundered your clothes." Duke folded his paper and pointed to the items hanging on his line behind her. "And I saved your life. That's an odd combination, when you think about it. If you think about it."

She looked amused, despite herself. "You must be Duke."

Was that a faint smile on Lucifer's face? He had no idea who whatsherface was, but the amused warmth of it helped him tamp down whatever bitterness threatened to creep up around his own memory.

"Do you play?"

"Ah... uh, no. No. No." She shook her head.

"Oh, you must know something," Lucifer said, grinning at her.

"All right. Well... let me see," she said, staring down at the keys. "I had three years of lessons... and this... is all I remember." And from the piano flowed...

... a clumsy version of 'Heart and Soul'. Lucifer laughed. "Surely you must be joking." But she shook her head, her grin making her entire face light up, and he couldn't help himself: he joined her, his eyes on her the whole time, like he was seeing something new for the first time.

Audrey was like Duke's Chloe, just with 90% less baggage.

At least, so far.

Duke offered her a mug. "Milk, one sugar, right?"

She looked faintly appalled. "No. No, and why would you know how I take my coffee?"

"Nah, I wouldn't." Duke tilted his head at her and smiled. "But it would have been cool if I did."

"Good memories," Duke said. "That's how we fix this. We throw good memories at the bad."

"You really think that works?" Lucifer said.

He hadn't realized he'd closed his eyes. When he opened them, it was to a half-dark club - whatever took out the spotlight had hit more lights.

But for once, he didn't feel anything terrible crawl up his spine and bang on his skull. "And who's that?"

"Officer Agent Audrey Parker," Duke said, as his memory of her dove into investigation mode on the memory of his ship's deck. "FBI agent turned Haven PD. She . . . reminds me of someone I knew. A long time ago."

Audrey Parker morphed into Lucy Ripley, a transformation that that was all hair and clothes and tiny mannerisms, though her face remained utterly the same.

She seemed a bit taller though. Of course, when Duke had known her, he'd been much, much shorter.

She was pulling eight year old Duke into a sideways hug with one arm, laughing at something Duke had said. Eight year old Duke stared up at her, utterly smitten.

"She might have been my first love."

Lucifer made an amused noise. "A puppy crush?" he teased, the nightmare of the moment all but forgotten.

Duke snorted. “You could call it that, yeah. Lucy — she was the first grown up who saw me.”

"As an 8-year-old," Lucifer said, still amused.

His mind ambled back towards a first of his own.

"Lucifer... Morningstar... is that a stage name or something?" the detective asked him, standing in front of the piano with a notepad and an extremely unimpressed look on her face.

Lucifer's fingers moved over the piano, and he looked up with an amused huff. "God-given, I'm afraid."

The exasperated look on her face could've killed.

Edited 2020-08-22 13:25 (UTC)

Slow due to mainlining new canon today, yo.

Have A Drink

Listen to the Music

Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Re: Talk to Lucifer

Back Office

OOC