Heyo! This is meant to be a very short (from me) fic that basically is just an excuse to do some character analysis on our Lucy boy and the of-yet revealed Beelzebub. (But also Lucifer and Homare's relationship because DAMN does that look suspicious.)

That said, you will note that the site does NOT list Homare Todou as a character – blasphemy! Well, you know now that she is a primary character here. And yes, that means some...intimate, moments lie ahead. However, this is not a smut fic, per-se, for I can not physically bring myself to do those. Nope, nothing but angsty, awkward, ubiquitously-written sex scenes here. (I promise, though, I know my stuff. Term papers about sex in literature – they stay with you long after you write them).

So without further ado, I bring you some slightly angsty Lucifer and Homare stuff.

WARNING: Did I mention angst? Well you'll find plenty of it in pretty much anything I write, so it's a given by now. That said, and I simply hate that I have to add this, but dudes, Lucifer isn't human. And non humans don't abide by human rules. So no flaming me about it. There is also some rather lewd material in here as well, so be prepared for that. Needless to say, manga-verse on this one, but not necessarily my usual cannon-verse. If you follow me, you'll know.

DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned Lucifer, but alas, I only own my own rendition of him in a separate, non-fanfiction work. So, I don't own these characters, the brilliant Kazue Katou does. I also make no money off this work, as I don't like being in jail.

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CH I: Licking Flames

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"I was never meant to be

this painting's main centerpiece;

Hidden in a corner

my outlines are fading;

The days have turned into night,

darkness has consumed the light,

assume life of insanity,

Sayonara."

~ Insanity, English Version by REN on YouTube, Original by Vocaloid.

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"Let's roll!" the pilot shouted over the loud whirring of the helicopter blades. There was precious cargo aboard this vehicle, for Lucifer himself had to, for the first time in a long time, leave his base. He was not alone in this – Lieutenant Homare Todou accompanied him as she always did, serving as his primary line of defense in the case of an attack, though he was aware that the likelihood of that happening was small.

He was seldom required to ever leave his airbase, but this particular occasion was one that he rarely came upon, for his presence had been requested by a sibling he hadn't ever particularly had the chance to talk to – Beelzebub. In any other instance, he would have disregarded his brother's insistence that the higher King go to anyone, for doing so greatly threatened his personal safety. However, Beelzebub was insistent, and came with a good argument. His word had it that he had access to information, by way of the spiritual lines, that someone was working of their own accord to open a portal to Gehenna, and though failing miserably at it, that they were a persistent bunch, creating a hitch in Beelzebub's own work*. Such things normally would mean absolutely nothing to the King of Light, but he felt the tug of curiousity pull at his mind over this. Humans did many absurd and stupid things, and too often failed at it. It was one of the things he struggled, as a demon, to reconcile about man – their indomitable persistence, that is.

However, given the present tensions he had with Samael, he supposed it wouldn't be such a bad idea to at least investigate, although he definitely had his suspicions about it; hence, he kept Todou at his command and a backup team of armed men in the helicopter with him now. If he didn't have to use his power, he would not. He was, though, fully aware of the fact that his youngest of Kingly siblings may be trying to lure him away on purpose, as a tactical trap of kinds. A poorly thought one, but Lucifer could only gander at the way some of his younger siblings understood or thought about things, having been "alive" for so long that he could no longer remember his formative years.

"We will arrive at the prefecture in Hokkaido by evening, Sir." the co-pilot radioed to him. There was a moment of what Lucifer sensed was hesitant silence before the grizzled man spoke his mind. "Why, if I may have permission to speak freely, is Beelzebub of all people calling you way out there in no-man's land? Isn't that a bit...suspicious?" Lucifer called back his wandering thoughts, realizing with a strange indifference that he had been speculating about just that thing. "Beelzebub is not suited to human contact. Though ironically one of the more revered of us demon Kings, he is remarkably unaccustomed to their presence." Lucifer paused in thought. "He is a King of low standing, comparatively; however, he is not a presence to be taken lightly. He is, on the surface of things, more towards the general alignment of Samael on the matter of humanities preservation. However, he has his own ideas of how to go about that, and for that reason will not join his forces. Similarly, though he has expressed before a certain reverence for the Illuminati's mission, he will not join our side either."

"Sounds like he's a stubborn one." The pilot, young and aloof, replied. His co-pilot punched him in the arm, alerting him to his discretion. "Don't be rude to the Commander!"

"It's alright," Lucifer pacified them with a raised hand. "He is correct. Beelzebub is quite stubborn, but he is also trustworthy. He has strong morals for a demon, and though they don't exactly align with human impressions, he stands by them with an iron will." Lucifer watched the trees change from solid green to white out the window. "Our mission is not to persuade him to join our forces, nor dissuade him. We are simply doing reconnaissance, gathering intel."

"Commander, if you don't mind my saying so," Homare said thoughtfully. "Why would we take intelligence, in person no less, from such a vague source? Wouldn't intelligence from an ally be of more value?"

"Yes, it would." Lucifer replied simply. "However, if Beelzebub is going out of his way to bring my attention to the matter...it is safe to assume that it can not be ignored." 'or it's a trap.' Lucifer added mentally. 'However...though I have met him little, I have a sense that my younger brother is not the type to lie...unlike my other siblings.' "As for meeting him on his terms, he would abide by no other. Given that humans often...struggle, to comprehend him, I suppose I can not blame him for that." Homare looked at her commander strangely for a moment.

It was always strange to her when he spoke so plainly like that, much less of empathetic feelings for another. Even if the empathy was purely cognitive, the softly disturbed look on his face made her wonder, too often for her own good, what exactly went on inside his mind.

The ride went smoothly for some time, an hour or possibly more. Lucifer himself didn't spend much time outside the confines of his bed, per medical necessity. He never really had – which made him a touch anxious as well as, if he were to judge it, excited, by this type of venture. It was not often that he was able to make such trips, to see the outside world. Looking out his window to the right, he could not deny that Assiah, unto itself, contained a kind of fragile beauty within its equally frail confines of life and death. To a demon such as he, death existed on a different perspective plane, for the death of his body did not necessarily mean the death of himself. For man, though, and all other things in Assiah, it was different. When they died, it would be a very, very long time until they could return via the process of reincarnation. For many, by the time their soul went through the process and was rebirthed, they could hardly be called the same being, and near always had lost any memory of their previous life.

A sudden jolt went through the helicopter, accompanied by a loud thud. The violent motion nearly made the demon king, lost in his own thoughts, lose his balance, causing him to grapple at the seat beside him, using another hand to brace against the co-pilot's seat.

"What was that?" He inquired.

"Commander, are you alright?" Homare placed a concerned, but careful hand on his arm. Lucifer had no time to respond as another jump lurched through the aircraft, followed by a loud, obnoxious beeping sound.

"Aw, crap!"

"What? What is it?" Homare, now leaning into the cockpit, asked direly.

"Birdstrike, I think." The pilot had to yell over the noise as the motor began to whine. "Shit! Brace, Brace!" He yelled back at her, the co-pilot motioning her to sit and strap in. Lucifer, head hurting from the high pitched whine, followed suit without being asked.

"What the hell is going on?!" Homare yelled at the co-pilot as a sickening kind of erratic motion began.

"We lost part of the steering." The co-pilot yelled back, looking surprisingly composed. "We hit something in the air, but we don't know what."

"At this altitude?!" Homare called back incredulously.

"Exactly!"

"Brace for impact! I can't land this thing gently!"

The sound of crunching and thrashing became deafening as the air vehicle landed none too gently among the junipers and firs, the bumpy, erratic movement making it difficult for Homare to keep her stomach contents inside her, though by some miracle she choked them down. The light around them darkened for what felt like eternity before a brilliant flash of white snow could be seen from the front windshield. Homare took a split second to look to her commander, who did not seem to quite comprehend the situation, and as she reflexively braced for the hard impact, also placed a her arm over his chest protectively, forcing him by some feat of strength she didn't know she had to sit as far back as he could.

The sound of metal caving in on itself was deafening. The after just a moment of skidding atop the snow, a dark figure identified to be a tree came into view, immediately followed by an even louder noise of indescribable intensity and violence, the windshield shattering into millions of tiny fragmets and scattering themselves through the cockpit and into the back seats. There was a hard, violent lurch – and then stillness. Silence, to the terrorized hearing of Lucifer; but Homare did not recover her full senses quite so readily, her head spinning and ears ringing so loud she thought her brain might explode.

It took several moments for Lucifer to put together his thoughts, though, having been taken just as off guard as his human counterparts. Was this an attack? He strained his tired ears to hear the backup helicopter, full of armed men, waging a battle above them, but no such sounds came. In fact, he didn't hear the vehicle at all, a strange thing that he blamed mostly on the trauma his delicate hearing had just been dealt. Doing a surroundings check, he noticed immediately that the air had a distinctive odour to it, and as he took in the smell, the taste of iron became strong on his tongue.

He turned to Homare then, who for all her while looked green in the face with nausea, her pupils dilated dramatically and hands noticably trembling as she fiddled with her buckle. She managed to undo it after a moment, Lucifer looking on placidly. She then reached up to the front, wincing as she did so. She checked the two pilots – and nearly retched at the sight of the older co-pilot's limp body, covered in gashes and oozing thick crimson onto the dash his body slumped against. But that wasn't necessarily what had shocked her – no, it was the very telling angle of his neck where his chin rested on top of the instrument panel that made her leery of even checking his vitals. Even if he were alive, he was surely paralyzed and not liable to live long, if the rivulets of red soaking through his uniform was any indication.

A sharp cough brought her attention to the pilot, who was also pretty gashed up, but not nearly as bad – looking back through the windshield, her senses finally picked up on the tree bark in front of her, which was situated to the co-pilot's side. She glanced downward momentarily, her eyes instinctively following the line of the tree – and glanced away again once she concluded sufficiently that the co-pilot was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, not ever going to walk out of this helicopter.

"Damn, that was a hard one." The pilot coughed again reflexively, the abrupt intrusion of cold air beginning to seep into his lungs. He looked over at his co-pilot, a glimmer of hope in his gaze. But the light shining there died as quickly as it came, a bizarre look of shock and resignation taking over his features. He knew at first glance too – the co pilot was dead.

"You've crashed before?" Homare replied to his statement.

"In pilot school, yeah. Every pilot does." He went to move and clutched his shoulder, gasping in pain.

"Ah, crap. Looks like I got slashed pretty good." He remarked, and as Homare studied the torn clothing under his hand, observed a significant amount of red fluid leaking into the cloth.

"Are you alright?"

Homare nearly jumped at the sound of her commander's voice, having momentarily forgotten in the rush that he was still sitting there, for he hadn't moved an inch since they landed. "Y-yes," She stammered in spite of herself. "I'm fine, but what about you?"

"I am not severely hurt." He stated bluntly. Homare felt...comforted, in a way, by the fact his composure remained unspeakably intact.

"Good," She paused, thinking, looking out her now broken window to the field of snow before them. A concerned expression crossed her face before she set herself into reluctant motion, her body feeling stiffer than it ever had, an involuntary limp befalling her as she stepped out into the snow, a piercing pain shooting up her left shin. She didn't dare look down to examine it, instead turning her confused attention to the sky.

"What is it?" Lucifer, following behind her, stated. He looked back to make sure the pilot got out of his straps without difficulty, the young man coming to stand awkwardly beside him. Compared to Lucifer, the man was fairly short, no taller, or perhaps even smaller than Homare.

"Where is the other helicopter?"

Lucifer turned his attention to the whiteish sky as well, a look of consternation crossing his face briefly. "I wondered that myself when I didn't hear them when we..." He looked back to the totalled helicopter as if expecting it to give him the word he was searching for. "...landed."

"You would think they saw us crash," the pilot said, running his hand through his short, brown hair. "So why aren't they here?"

"Good question. Maybe they went down too?" Homare postulated, looking to Lucifer as if for confirmation.

"No, I don't believe they did." He said simply. "We would be able to see some evidence of that, or else I would be able to hear it – but there is nothing there. Nothing to even sense." Lucifer's mind scrambled at the possibilities. He knew as well as they did that helicopters didn't just disappear. He hadn't heard them when they landed, but blamed that on the deafening effect of the crash. Could they have simply moved on? But how did they miss the crash?

A harsh gust of wind sent a flurry of agitated snow in their direction, the chill it brought with it biting Homare's flesh to the bone. She shuddered involuntarily – and remembered with a sharp clarity that she hated the cold.

"There's bad weather ahead." The pilot stated flatly. "That wind is cold, and we don't exactly have a warm base we can just jump into." His company stared at him, searching for the relevance of his statements. He huffed. "We ought to seek shelter, yeah?" His companions pondered his suggestion for a awkward moment of silence, broken only by the rush of the wind through the trees.

"He is right. For now, we are on our own." Lucifer agreed with a nod, seeing his lieutenant shudder violently, wrapping her arms around her instinctively to combat the sharp, icy wind. "We should seek shelter, likely for the evening. We can then discuss an effective method to reestablish communication with the other helicopter, or if we can't, then a way to make it to the base. I don't think we are too far off our course, but to walk there would probably take at least a day or more."

"You're right," the pilot said with a curt nod. It then occurred to Homare then, of all times, that she was unaware of the man's name. "And with a potential blizzard coming in, we'd better make it hasty. Or we – those of us that are human, anyway," He added, glancing at Lucifer briefly, "won't make it through the night." Lucifer nodded, watching with a curious, but subtle tilt of his head as Homare spared an almost threatening look to their pilot, as if expecting the demon to take offense to the statement. Though he spared nothing of the look on his face, he regarded the action as both bizarre and almost...endearing.

An hour of trudging through knee deep snow brought them up the side of a mountain, to a scraggly set of boulders and a weather-worn cliff. The pilot kept behind them some ways, and was slowing down as the slope increased. Homare, too, was beginning to wear down as they climbed, nearing the cliff face with a glimmer of hope – if anywhere was likely to have a sheltered area, it was a jagged cliff. Not exactly the most inviting-looking upon first impressions, what with all the sharp edges created by great sheets of basalt and slate that folded over the mountain like the scales of Yamata no Orochi, but as far as survival odds went...

Homare's shin ached from the cold, and she was half convinced there was a spiral fracture in there somewhere. Bones didn't ache like that and something not be damaged, though she couldn't feel more grateful that her injuries weren't more severe. As she went on, though, the pain got worse. Every step became a game of trying desperately not to flinch, leveling up as they came within a few hundred meters of the rocks to an ice-pick like stabbing, intense enough to make her feel slightly faint. Or maybe it was just because she hadn't eaten today? She didn't know.

"Homare?" Lucifer called her name, her first name, and immediately captured her attention; unbeknownst to her, he had been trying for several attempts already, noticing her falling quickly behind and limping hard on her left leg. "Are you alright?" The question caught her off guard.

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"You don't look so 'fine'." The pilot, keeping just behind her, prepared to catch the lady if she fell over, said. He had gone back to the copter to retrieve a first aide kit and some blankets, holding them awkwardly in his arms. "You're hurt pretty bad, by the looks of that limp."

"Limp?" Homare quipped softly. When had she been limping?

"Yeah. C'mon, I think I see a little overhang we can rest under."

"I'm fine." Homare snapped defensively. It was a reflex, one she'd picked up growing up with four roudy brothers who couldn't have cared less in her youth.

"Lieutenant," Lucifer addressed her formally this time, stopping just in front of her, forcing her to stop as well. A strange compulsion to keep moving came over her as soon as they stopped, but she knew where the line was, and didn't bother toeing it. "You are injured." He stated simply, though there was a certain finality in his voice. "You need to rest." He said it with the same clandestine pall, but lacking as much force. It was more than just a statement – it was an order, and one she couldn't say she wanted to refuse.

They made it to a dark overhang with a diagonal buttress, and Homare felt a swell of relief when she seen that it was deeper than it initially looked, cutting back into the mountain by a good six meters or so. Plenty of room to keep the wind at bay and keep a fire going. They shuffled inside, with Lucifer taking the lead. Homare watched his body language closely, relying on his heightened senses to pick up on something her pain-fogged mind just didn't have the energy to.

"You two should rest. I can set out to gather supplies for a fire." Lucifer waited until Homare was nearly seated before saying such a thing, which caused her to rise abruptly with a concerned objection on her tongue. He raised a hand to halt it, feeling the itch of responsibility creeping up on him. He was entrusted with the welfare of his lieutenant just as much as she was him in this situation, and he would not stand for any sort of insubordination or arguing about it. Homare must have seen in his expression that he was not going to be coerced, for she sat back down reluctantly.

"I am feeling...remarkably well, actually." The statement seemed to surprise Lucifer almost as much as it's truth – though he had a healing gash upon his upper arm, it wasn't remotely painful to the touch. In fact, by some cruel irony, he felt better today than he had in the long while he had spent aboard the airship. Perhaps there was some truth to the human expression of 'needing fresh air'. "Besides which, I am not perturbed by the cold in the same manner as you – I have much more energy to expend, and can utilize it to keep myself insulated, as it were. Now," He turned to the pilot, feeling a touch of pity extend from the recesses of his mind as he looked down at the kneeling man, who appeared the worst off, breathing harshly as he was. "Set up the blankets and use them to warm yourselves. I will return soon." He addressed the pilot briefly, turning as he did so before walking back out into the cold with just as frigid an air of nobility.

"Geeze, you'd almost think he cared." The pilot snarked with a sarcastic smile, shaking his head.

"What is your name?" Homare asked politely, purposefully ignoring his jab.

"Well, since you asked," he said with a dryer kind of sarcasm, "it's John."

"John?"

"American." He pointed with his uninjured hand to himself.

"Oh. Makes sense."

"What's that mean, 'makes sense'?" He complained with a comedic flourish. It failed to impress the stoic lieutenant.

"You're rude."

"Wha?" He palled, "it's not my fault Japanese people are so easy to offend."

"It's not just that." She glared at him weakly. He caught on, though, rolling his eyes dramatically.

"What, the 'commander'?" He huffed. "Scary guy, but I don't understand why you all act like dumb sheep around him. But then, I'm just a hired gun – a hired pilot in this case – so what do I know?" Homare balked a little at the admission.

"You're a – "

"Mercenary? Yeah, I guess you could say that. I go where the money takes me, basically." John said, fiddling with the blankets as he tried, without overexerting his injured shoulder, to lay one out. "I don't have loyalties to anybody, really."

"Not even the co-pilot?" Homare asked the question before her mind could stop her, subconsciously holding her breath as she awaited his reply. But rather than affronted, his response was to look down with a kind of weariness you would expect of a military man. "His name was Yamada. He was a pretty good man." John said quietly. "But I didn't know him before I was given a contract, which was about three days ago." the pilot raised his posture then, his voice holding a more resigned tone.

"I see." Several moments of quiet passed as John continued to fiddle with the blankets. Homare felt the icy ground begin to numb her backside, causing her to shift about uncomfortably.

"Here, take this." He called before tossing a felt blanket her way. "Unfortunately, there's only four blankets. So somebody's got to make do with laying on the cold ground, and personally I elect the creature that can't catch a cold."

"He doesn't sleep." Homare remarked softly, accepting the blanket. He tossed another at her, presumably to wrap herself with.

"Does he now?" John replied wittily. She wanted to scoff.

"That is to say he doesn't need to sleep." She corrected. "None of the Ba'al, that I'm aware, do. They can sleep, if they want to, but it's not a biological necessity for them unless they're quite unwell."

"Hmf. Well then keep that blanket for yourself. You need it more than he does." Sensing that she was going to argue, he cut her off. "Look, you're like a nurse to him too, right?" She didn't respond to that. "You're a lieutenant in name, but you also look for his well-being, am I right?"

"Yes."

"Well, how are you supposed to do that if you aren't well yourself?" She seemed to ponder the idea a while, but didn't offer a reply. "Just keep the blanket, okay? No need to go sacrificing yourself for something that can't ever really die." She felt a hot retort on the tip of her tongue, but was interrupted by the return of her commander.

Lucifer returned with what he hoped was a sufficient amount of wood, having taken to stripping branches off the trees themselves for lack of any that weren't taxing to dig out of the snow. "Is this enough?" He asked casually, confused by the awkward atmosphere he walked in on.

"Yes, that should be plenty for one night." Homare said, her voice lilting with fatigue.

"Except it's wet." John pointed out with a disappointed look. "Wet wood will burn, but it's not going to be the...safest, of fires to sleep around. Wet wood splinters and pops, and can send embers shooting from a fire like it's a volcano." He sighed when Lucifer seemed, if anything, intrigued by his words. 'I guess someone like him really wouldn't need to know basic survival skills.' "...but I digress, in weather like this, you aren't likely to find any dry."

"Thank you for stating the obvious." Homare barked at him, but it came off to the jaded man as though she was a chihuahua, rather than a rottweiler.

"What are you laughing at?" Homare growled when he let a chuckle slip from his throat. Good to know that blood loss hadn't gone to his brain – though considering things, Homare thought that it actually may have.

"You bark like a lapdog. It's cute, but not intimidating."

"Says the man who's shorter than I am."

Lucifer watched with a mix of curiosity and mild concern as the two bantered. The pilot, who was young and, according to his files, of foreign origin – he expected some amount of playfulness from. He did, after all, accept the offer to pilot the helicopter with absolute abandon, practically throwing himself at the idea. Lucifer later came to know that the man had a temptaint, and didn't seem to fear losing his life in the slightest. So he expected some reckless and brash behavior from him.

But his lieutenant was a different story. She was always such a reserved, quiet soul, and though she had a certain ferocity to her, and a quick wit, she wasn't the kind of person he would equate with being...childish, as he seen it, what with how she kept the banter going, even in his presence.

Lucifer set the wood down, and the distinctive clatter seemed to be the bell which ended their trivial conversation. He noticed then, that Homare was quite pale, and though the stiffness in her shoulders indicated that she was trying to stop them, shiver after shiver wracked her smallish body. Lucifer set about putting the wood into a semi-familiar pattern, and with a flick of his wrist and a small flicker of light, the wood began to smolder.

"The important thing is that it generates heat." He said absently, talking to seemingly no one. "As long as it smolders, it will keep warm. Open flames may be a challenge to render on such a damp surface." He spared a sidelong glance at the pilot, who pouted when he noticed the look.

'Petulant one, isn't he?'

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Chapter one is done! I had intended on keeping the first two chapters together, but at nearly 8,200 words, wasn't sure that was a grand idea for a first chapter, lol.

Next chapter contains some explicit material – of...eh, dubious nature, I guess? All I know is that it isn't for the weary of heart.

Until next time!

(Also, if you liked this, could you hit that favourite/follow button at the bottom/top of the page? Yeah, works great as encouragement to keep the muses satisfied. And bonus – you can always remove it from your favourites/followed list if you decide that this is not for you at some point, so no obligation! Yay!)