Chapter 11: Dessert Makes Everything Better

A/N: It can suck to abruptly realize we're not as strong as we wish at all times. It can suck less when we realize it can also be a transient property. Especially with a friend. And dessert, lol. A little weirdness, a little gooey maybe…but nothing terribly shocking. As Linda would say, "That's for later." (and not much later at that. *wink*)

[-]

After the meeting wrapped, Lucifer had followed the trail of warp as easily as a bloodhound after a fetid scent. He'd found Canaan at the far end of the second-to-highest floor of the parking garage changed to jeans and a t-shirt. Not teetering off the puny railing thank dad, but in front of her car, sitting on the hood and staring at a crumpled newspaper sheet puffing along in a breeze-driven circle in the corner. The energy around her was doing the same thing; vortices and pulls. Strong for a human. He was somewhat surprised the paint underneath her rear wasn't crackling. To say she was less than pleased to see him was putting it mildly, turning at his voice in shock, sliding off and backing herself into the railing. He sat down in front of her right where she'd been on the hood. The metal still felt the *wrong* kind of warm, and as she had not responded well to his gentler queries he was becoming more aggressive as he tried to puzzle out this potentially precarious mystery.

"I saw you assaulted and barely blink an eye after. This is…" circling one hand palm down in front of himself at her with the other fist planted on his hip "…is significantly more reaction. To what, may I ask?"

"As I said. You may not." Her voice was a cold bark; brittle skin cracking over the roil underneath.

"Malarkey. Don't get lost in syntax, darling. Clearly, I have asked. And expect a decent answer."

"And exactly who in the hell do you think you are that you can reasonably 'expect' unwanted demands to be met by me?" Her words were expressing irritation, but her voice was going as flat as her eyes already were. She was running to hide while standing stock still right in front of him. Quite adept at it out of sheer habit.

Bollocks on that. 'I know exactly who in The Hell I am. You, however do not. Don't even know yourself apparently, making such a bloody bodging hash around here.' Lucifer kept mum as he thought this, watching her. He could feel the distortion wasn't better; rippling against the mental barriers he always kept as self-protection. Worse if anything, not that she had any idea, obviously. He kept the same fist punched on his hip and merely flipped the other palm over, fingertips wiggling in a 'come on, now' gesture. His brows raised and gleam strengthened in his eyes. He loosed the captivating magnetism under his discretion to get what he wanted. Like he always had. Well…mostly. Two snags in that equation.

And to no avail, apparently. Again. Canaan just blanked her eyes further and crossed her arms at him. Now this was interesting. Like the first time they'd met, when he'd been certain she was aware of his influence but hadn't responded to it (fearful for a brief moment back then he'd only met another version of Chloe Decker – and one of those was plenty, thanks much) she simply noticed it and silently resisted him despite his pull. He was reluctant to increase it, disturbed as she was already. Good thing that wasn't his only toy in a vast bag of tricks. His voice, capable of only truth, was perhaps more powerful than enticed coercion.

"I'm your friend, and what bothers you concerns me." The strength in this frank admission surprised him a bit as well, but there it was out in the open for both of them to hear.

"I can take care of myself, thanks."

Current state of affairs being an excellent indication otherwise, Lucifer begged to differ on that assessment of hers. Fine then, next trick. He actually disliked using this on Canaan as privacy seemed to be ridiculously important to her (what could possibly be so significant to one paltry human life to result in this when disturbed?) but it was a nice change from his normal application of this tool. And this flux could turn dangerous. For her. So…

Sensing. Not specifics, but general.

On mortal planes, as well as in Hell, most individuals were largely mysteries to themselves. Didn't know what they didn't know. He used to have no concept of how any sentient life could exist with shrouds drawn over large parts of themselves (purposeful or otherwise) until it had happened to him as part of his punishment during his long fall. Now Lucifer, like the rest of these mumps just limped along the best he could. Mentally shaking his head and refocusing on the task at hand he concentrated on the woman in front of him. Drawing out verbalizations of desires was one thing, but individuals had to be aware of these in the first place for that trick to work. Being able to accurately suss out what truly mattered to them in any given moment on a subconscious, gut level as well, produced a highly effective targeted form of punishment. It had certainly made the penalty delivered to Saul Prendergast most…'appropriate'. And unlike his coercive draw, this was impossible to detect. Quite an effective property of this tool, actually.

Or so it had always been. He saw a little spark ripple through Canaan's eyes as he sensed her. Odd. A riddle there. No matter. Lucifer had what he wanted.

He almost laughed aloud in exasperated derision. Another one. Another apparently kind person putting needs of others before her own. Another one getting under his proverbial skin further while doing it. This sort of compounded irony must indeed be a horrible invention of his father's to needle him with. She'd felt defensive of him during the meeting and belatedly realized this meant she actually cared about him more than she'd intended to. Him. And that fouled up some personal protection she was convinced she could not do without because she didn't want to simply shun him outright after realizing it. And the mere fact that she felt actual affection at all was also sending her corkscrewing into some serious distress. If Canaan had any idea for whom she was feeling this he'd probably have to scour her mind off the pavement with an existential power washer.

"You care for me. More than you wanted. And that bothers you. Why?" He had new respect for Linda Martin. This was difficult on both ends.

Canaan flashed her eyes wide in shocked surprise then closed them entirely, tired of trying to vacuously stare him down. There was something about that intense gaze of his, his intensity in general. He was a little much sometimes. As now. Quite a potent individual, even in small doses. And scarily astute.

She was still silent, but was thinking about what he'd asked as it had been prodding at her for a while, too. Best she could superficially (all she was willing to think on) come up with was because her self-assigned job was to fix the broken as she could not do for herself. And 'caring' actually had little to do with that, though not in a malicious sense.

Perform to exhaustion doing something, anything from which good could come of her effort. With no feeling required, simply skill. Only proficiency working through her hands could help save a life: not useless feeling.

Mere feeling had never saved anyone. If it only could...there would be no wailing behind hospital walls.

And feeling begets loss of control. Loss of control means allowing sleeping horrors to wake and breathe and leach their poison into mind and affect. And that cascade of inevitability bleeds to destruction and one doesn't have to stop a heart to die. Sometimes 'stopping a heart' is the only way to keep on, as one can't help the past, can only control present and future action. Locking anything unmanageable in an impenetrable box as method of control was vital to her. And feeling begets loss of that control…and on and on and on ad infinitum in the only closed loop she allowed herself. For five years. Five years since she'd known anything other than mind-numbing toil. Marking time in penance until her body disintegrated as she'd pushed her heart to.

Until maybe now.

And she didn't want this, whatever it was, with him: what was the point? Well, most of her didn't. And certainly he couldn't, choosing to play only; and that actually mattered less to her than feeling covetous of his confidences. And she hated herself for this unexpected crack in her construct, detested him a bit for even being to create this trip-up AND loathed herself MORE for being angry with him over something that wasn't his fault. Like simply existing, for chrissakes'. And all that turmoiled odium and angst got under her armor like hot oil, finding the little cracks of affection to seep through and torment her underneath it. Burning where she was trapped. In herself, by herself. By her own protective design. It was her singular experience that where affection could bloom horrifically corroding pain always followed …always. Another closed loop.

This had been Lucifer's only experience with deeper connections as well, other than Mazikeen. Here, his family, his father...He understood this, even without knowing her specifics. Canaan was quite damaged, indeed. Quite damaged, if this much disturbance was any indication. Just as he was.

However, one had to work with what one had. Or had been left with.

"Still not speaking to me, hey?"

Apparently not. Subdued, her eyes closed, arms crossed and trap shut. Like a child who thought she could make the world disappear simply by refusing to look at it. However, rather than being comical he was forlornly barbed to see how such a simple thing as this could unwind her. He'd been enjoying all their interactions, sexless though they were, and thought for the most part she had been, too. Other than the incidental scalds and falls, that was. The woman chose to jump into bloody horror day in/day out without a twitch, and here being his friend had reduced her to silent catatonia and tossed a serious ding in her proximal reality. Enough to give a chap a terrible complex, that was.

"Well try this on, silly git. I care about you as well. Truly. Inopportunely. Bloody irritating, I'll tell you, but by your scamper off perhaps you've got some idea of how inconvenient that is to discover, yeah?"

Canaan heard his flippant words but the solemn tone didn't match, and knew he'd said he didn't lie. Still stuck in her fissured armor, she thought, 'You can't. Can't possibly. Shouldn't if you do. Don't know how broken I am; what I've done.'

He was actually thinking exactly same thing regarding her but being his impulsive self it didn't stop him from pulling her in as he'd done when she was sleeping. With her arms crossed and eyes still closed he'd surprised her and before she knew it was nestled against him between long legs as he leaned on the hood of her car. Strong hands clasped loosely behind her back. Canaan initially stiffened in resistance but hearing a low, 'stop, now…just be' softened her. She stood, arms still locked against her chest and just allowed herself to settle in. The unexpected stress began to abate as she noticed the difference between the wash of warm summer breeze on one side of her face and the brush of soft material from Lucifer's shirt on the other. Comforting heartbeat underneath it. Some of the weight she hadn't realized she'd been carrying was lessened, and she appreciated him for that.

Lucifer was relieved as well as he felt the distortions around her dissipate and wisp away. This energetic jag was an unexpected wrinkle, credibly dangerous for her, but at the moment this improvement was all he could reasonably expect. He wiggled his chin a little where it rested on the top of her head.

"Feel better?"

"I feel really stupid."

"You should."

"Apparently you're stupid too, so…"

"Yes, thank you for pointing that out. Quite tactful, you are. Some friend."

"Mm." She turned her head and kept the lean. This did feel nice. Soothing as the bench; maybe a little more so considering they both knew she was awake. And the good words, too. He nixed the comfortable vibe with his next ones. Speaking nimbly, "Know what else is nice with a cuddle?"

"If you take advantage of my condensed breakdown to say something dirty I'll jam a thumb in your liver." She poked him a little with the one on the outside cross of her arms, immediately noticing how well-muscled his torso was. Deciding she'd had well enough angst for one day and shoving that appreciative thought out of her head.

Faux hurt tone, "Such violence. As if I'd ever…how could you possibly think me capable of such…? I was simply going to say, 'ice cream'."

"Well, apologies, then. I'm an idiot." Clearly being sarcastic as they both knew something lavishly lecherous was one of his favorite ways to add humor.

"Yes you are. Running away from me like that. And, you can buy to make up for your poor behavior. Making me worry about you…annoying little slip of a thing. Besides, you missed the bit of the meeting where I let everyone in on my surprise and I simply must tell you. I'm certain you'll love it."

Canaan groaned slightly. From his tone she was pretty sure she wouldn't. She was unceremoniously hustled into the passenger seat of her own car and was subjected to a litany of epithets about 'diminutively legged humans' (still had a hard time with those weird turns of phrase) while he adjusted the driver's seat. About twenty minutes later she found herself back on the hood of her car under some trees at a roadside stand. Trying to eat water ice without choking on grimaces from being merrily harassed for 'choosing something with mere frigid flavor when you could have something rich and creamily delicious, looky, it's right here why don't you?'. Being regaled with big plans from a big smile with a big chocolate smear on it. She couldn't decide if it was the gulps of frozen blueberry or more-than-minor dread that was giving her a sudden headache as Lucifer waxed on in cheerfully deliberate oblivion.