No beta. Please excuse the mistakes and enjoy.

It wasn't that he couldn't make friends, Aiden had explained to the demon on their way out of the forest. It was simply that his friends were more acquaintances than friends and there was always something that stopped him from getting a real best friend. He had tried to say more, but his words were stopped by the not so sudden appearance of a root out of the ground on which he tripped and caused his mouth to fill with mud. And Lucien laughed.

Laughing was something Lucien rarely did back in his own domain, but when he was with Aiden, the man was so clumsy and socially awkward –and when a demon says that you, a human, are socially awkward, then you might want to seek out help- that it was impossible for Lucien to observe him for more than five minutes without laughing. So it was easy to say that the devil's mood had greatly increased since he struck the deal with the human. Not that any of his demons were keen to point that fact out.

Aiden, for his part, tried really hard to be a good best friend. Not even a day after striking the deal with the demon, he found himself online, seeking advice as to how to become that perfect best friend. Of course, the advice he took never had the wanted result and, after somehow managing to cover Lucien from head to toe with flour five weeks into their friendship, Aiden actually started crying.

Lucien was completely lost. He was used with people crying, he even had enjoyed that at one point in his long existence. And yet, when Aiden started to cry, he found himself annoyed and angry and wishing to find a way to stop the wails. "What is it?" He had asked in a voice a little louder than he would have wanted it. "I am the one covered in flour, not you. Is it because I am wearing your shirt?"

That question only made Aiden cry even more and Lucien started to actually fret and pace around the room, snapping his fingers and cleaning the shirt while also baking the cake instantly. "Devil's food cake? Really? How are you still alive with jokes like these, Aiden?" the demon mumbled under his breath, shoving the baked good in the human's face, hoping that would stop his crying.

"I am sorry!" Aiden said suddenly and looked up, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands, hiccuping. "I just tried to…The website said…" The explanation was lost in more hiccups and sobs and Lucien carried on looking strangely at the sight before him, still completely lost.

"What are you sobbing on about?" he asked carefully after Aiden's sobs died down a bit and the human slumped down on a chair in the kitchen, afraid that any sort of noise would bring about a new round of tears.

"The cake was supposed to be a thank you," Aiden said lamely, hiding his face in his hands.

"Don't you dare start crying again, or I will give you a reason to cry!" Lucien warned, actually slapping himself when the human flinched. "Look, we have a deal. And while you are by far the strangest human I've met…" He trailed off, unsure of what he had wanted to convey. "Look, you gave me your soul for this friendship. You don't have to try."

Aiden looked like he was about to burst into tears again and Lucian visibly cringed, taking a step back. But instead, the human just smiled at him. "Still, I want to try. I really do. I gave you my soul so you would be my best friend, but our deal said nothing about me being yours. So I want to try my best."

That conversation had never been continued and both of them seemed more than happy to pretend like it never happen. For Aiden, because he was more than embarrassed that he had actually cried at his age, while Lucien was shocked that he had felt happy when he heard that Aiden wanted to do his best at being his friend – at least he thought that was what he had felt. He wasn't one hundred percent sure that his kind could feel that. Pleasure, yes. Happiness…Not so much.

Later, much later, while the two were spending Aiden's lunch time in a little dinner not too far away from his office, the human trying to drink his coffee without spilling it on himself while the demon was busy enjoying a rather painful 'kick-my-human-under-the-table-because-I-had-a-boring-day' game, Lucien admitted to himself that he quite liked the awkward and clumsy human's presence in his…existence.

"So?" Aiden's voice cut through Lucien's thoughts. "I said, I think we should get you some new clothes," he repeated after a few moments of silence and confused stares from him demonic companion.

"I quite like what I am wearing," Lucien said slowly, kicking the human just as his lips touched the coffee mug's rim, satisfied with the yelp that followed and the new coffee stain that became part of Aiden's white shirt pattern. "You have no sense of self preservation. You are the only one I ever met that actually had the guts to insult me," Lucien continued, managing to sound annoyed.

"I didn't mean to offend and you know it. Just thought you might want new clothes in case you decided to not leave me all alone at that party my company is throwing," Aiden said casually, more interested with his shirt than Lucien's fake anger. "The stain will settle…"

Following a kick that, to Aiden, it clearly said 'pay-attention-to-me', the human slowly started his story from the top. How one of coworkers had approached him that morning and asked him if he would attend the party and about how she started insisted that he did when he gave her a negative answer, resting her hands on his left should and asking him in a lowered voice tone if he wouldn't mind bringing his brother.

"You don't have a brother," Lucien pointed out, poking Aiden's chest to make the stain disappear, thus ensuring that he had the human's full attention.

"You know, if the whole Satan thing doesn't work out, you can open your own dry cleaners," Aiden tried to joke, quickly losing his confidence and ending his joke in a few awkward laughs and nervous scratches on the back of his neck. Lucien wondered, every now and then, if perhaps Aiden would one day scratch that spot so hard that he'd rip some flesh off.

Lucien slowly raised his left eyebrow and looked at Aiden for a few awkward seconds, enjoying the way the other man was slowly starting to squirm under his gaze. "You were saying something about your nonexistent brother?"

"Ah, yes! She was actually talking about you. See, she saw us leaving together for lunch these past few months and…"

"And because I hang around you every day, I have to be related to you somehow? She sounds like such a wonderful person," the demon finished for Aiden, tapping the table with talons instead of normal fingers, running his snake like tongue over his upper fangs.

Confused at Lucien's rather sudden anger, Aiden felt the need to apologize and explain his coworker. "She is quite nice, really. She is kind to me and I can't quite find a reason to blame her for thinking we are related…"

"Even a blind person can tell that we are not related," the demon grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, reverting back to more human-like features and ending up reminding Aiden of a pouting child.

In the end the "Okay so maybe being related to me is not the greatest thing in the world…" seemed like a really unwise choice of words since the demon flew into a blind fit of rage as soon as they left Aiden's lips.

The demon hit the table as hard as he could and split it in half. Aiden flinched, but otherwise remained as still as he could, watching with the corner of his eyes as the world in the diner came to a pause, time ceasing the flow. Shadows were the only things that moved around them now, shadows with millions of eyes that moved between the human and their Lord, eyes that narrowed and fixated on him, eyes that looked murderous and promising thousand years of pain.

When two very warm hands with very sharp claws rested on his shoulders, Aiden felt a shiver of fear go down his spine and he tried to get his mouth to move, tried to find the right words to ask Lucien to calm down. But he couldn't look away from a particular pair of bored eyes that never moved from him and he felt his hands clutch at Lucien's arms.

"What is it?" Lucien seethed, his hold on the human relaxing a bit despite the present anger in his voice, the contact between the two acting as a sort of reminded that he had a grip on the one human he didn't really want to hurt. "I am not angry with you, I promise" he added in a more human voice, trying to reassure Aiden.

"Not you…" Aiden whispered, closing his eyes. "They," he whimpered, moving his head a bit, showing Lucien the way the world had twisted around them.

Lucien was silent, his eyes focusing on the demons that danced in the shadows around them, quietly telling to return back to their world and turn away from the private conversation. Just as the last shadow was disappearing – Ba'al himself, Lucien was sure- he heard a question which he refused to acknowledge or think about.

"I don't think she meant to offend, Lucien" Aiden spoke after a few moments, releasing the demon's arms and relaxing a bit when he saw that the shadows were gone. "I kind of like her. A bit. Not too much. She has always been nice to me," he continued to mumble, face going red. "Please, please, do not send…" He trailed off, looking up at Lucien a bit with pleading eyes.

"The deal was for a best friend, in case your feeble memory failed you yet again," Lucien said slowly, letting go of the human and throwing himself back on his chair, time resuming its natural flow, the table back in one piece. "And, as a best friend, I will come with you. At least, it is something a best friend would do if those websites you totally do not check out anymore know what they are talking about

Aiden rewarded the demon with a smile and a cascade of thanks, stopping from his semi-dance of joy only when the waitress – an old woman with incredible hearing for her age as far as Lucien was concerned- tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the small puddle of coffee that was in front of him.

The woman actually looked like she was one step away from tapping her foot at them, the way she glared while holding the coffee pot really close to Aiden's face. "If you two are done playing footsie, would you like more coffee?"

Aiden was quick to shake his head, Lucien openly laughing at the man's embarrassment. But before he could explain to the waitress that they weren't playing footsie, the woman was already three tables down, grunting out the daily special. Lucien had to double check just to be sure that she wasn't one of his kind.

They spent the last ten minutes of Aiden's lunch break in a friendly banter of sorts about how Aiden insisting on actually buying clothes while the demon kept on morphing into new clothes, just to prove a point – no one noticed, he'd told Aiden when he thought the human was becoming too jumpy, always checking the door to make sure that no priest would suddenly appear and start hosing them down with holy water.

But as he watched Aiden leave, the closest cast shadow moved a bit and two pair of eyes appeared. "Why did you lose your temper, my lord?" It repeated, disappearing fully when the devil hit it with his fist. Really, you shouldn't ask pesky questions that don't really have an answer, Lucien though before walking out of the diner.

~~TBC~~