A/N - Tysm so much for the response to last chapter, It really means a lot. I had some trouble writing this chapter as I wasn't sure where to cut off, but I think this works without dragging on too much, and I hope you enjoy it.
"So don't say
these currents are still killing me
and you can't explain
but the wind went and pulled me into your hurricane."
- Hurricane (Something Corporate)
Maze hears her phone ringing.
A quick, disgruntled glance at the screen confirms who the phone on the other side belongs to, his name displayed on the screen in white letters.
Lucifer.
At first, she debates the tempting option of just leaving it. To send a message to her former boss, to let him know that she isn't at his beck and call anymore. The idea runs laps in her minds, the device vibrating next to her with annoying persistence as she slumps back on the couch, her program temporarily forgotten as she considers her options. Whether to answer it or not. The latter would purely be out of spite, of course.
Call it a gut feeling- whatever, Maze rolls her eyes, even though there's no one watching her. Generosity, then, stemming from her good mood. Or, more accurately, the fact that no-one's managed to piss her off in the last twenty-four hours.
Mind made up, she grabs the phone and accepts the call. Puts it on speaker mode, because, despite her decision, she can't be bothered to devote too much attention to it. She leans back with the expectation of hearing Lucifer's smooth, drawling accent emerge from the device.
As a result, the considerably softer- yet unusually tight voice of her housemate, Chloe Decker, takes her by surprise. Her heart skips a beat.
"Maze?"
Possibilities and theories, wispy and elusive, begin to weave a tapestry in her mind. This is Lucifer's number. Lucifer's phone.
So why the hell is Chloe contacting her using Lucifer's phone?
Her leg starts to beat an uneven, inelegant pulse against the armrest, betraying the existence of an emotion buried deep within her, stirring. Concern. She'd never admit it, in fact, she's already trying to cover it up with the justification that she'd already know if anything bad had happened to Lucifer. Despite all her efforts to distance herself from him, she's pretty sure that she'd be able to sense it if-
If the worst happened.
Screw it.
"Why are you using this phone?" Maze's voice echoes the tightness in Chloe's. As a result of her efforts to remove any trace of emotion or of weakness from her tone, it just ends up sounding empty, even for her. In contrast, she can hear the Detective's breaths, quick and unsteady over the line, and her response comes in the form of multiple short sentences with a sharp intake of air between each one.
"Me and Lucifer were working. Something went wrong. I don't know what happened. Maze, I don't-.. Lucifer's been..-" She falters.
Maze can tell that Chloe's trying to find a way to soften the blow. A gentler way of putting it, of breaking the news. She doesn't have the patience to care. Or the time to waste.
"He's been what?" She interrupts, forcefully, "Just say it like it is."
"Stabbed." The Detective answers, flatly. "I won't lie, Maze. I thought you should know, I didn't have my phone on me, and I know his password, and Lucifer wasn't conscious, so-"
Stabbed.
Maze swallows, thickly, her throat tightening as an unbidden memory re-surfaces, giving that word a terrible connotation, an inference that she doesn't even want to consider.
"I clean up my messes." Lucifer retorts, understanding washing over his features as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. His shoes press against the soil of the wooded clearing, leaving imprints as he paces around restlessly, as if trying to shake off an aura of unease resulting from Uriel's dug up grave nearby. They can all feel it.
Maze's chuckle splits the musty air. "Well, good luck, you two.
He turns to her, dark eyes flashing, "You'll want to help, Maze."
"No thanks."
...
Azrael's blade. Lucifer. Stabbed.
Maze really hopes the two things aren't related. Her hand clenches. And unclenches. And clenches, again.
"How is he?" The words throb as they leave her lips. Hot. Bitter. Her attempts to feign indifference, not just to Chloe, to herself, are failing, and she's all too aware of it. Aware of it in the way her limbs continue to twitch restlessly, itching with the conviction that she should be doing something. Aware of it in the way that her mind continues to race, spinning like the turbine of a plane about to take off.
Aware of it, inevitably, as she bites her lip and tries to pull herself free from the thorns of worry prickling at her skin. Worry for him.
..
"-And let me remind you that the blade doesn't just kill humans. It also obliterates celestial beings, including demons." Lucifer's exasperated voice plays in her head like a recording on repeat. A glitchy recording, scratching, corrupted, one that keeps getting stuck on those three words.
"...obliterates celestial beings-"
Maze runs her tongue over her lips. It feels sore, raw, as a result of her coping mechanisms. She doesn't waste time thinking about it, her mind unsurprisingly buzzing with other, more important things.
"I don't know." Maze hears Chloe's answer coming in after a brief pause, soft and gentle. Clearly, Maze hasn't managed to hide her feelings as well as she might have hoped. Chloe continues, "-I'm waiting at the precinct for news from the hospital. He was alive last I checked, but...- I don't know, he'd lost a lot of blood, Maze. I don't-.- you didn't see the state he was in.."
"He's a fighter." Maze interrupts. Her reassurance comes from experience.
A brief memory sears itself against her irises. Lucifer hunched over, his eyes narrowed in silent, steely determination as she sawed through his wings. Lucifer, surrounded by the bloodied feathers and detached joints of his own wings and stumbling to his feet. "He's seen a lot of shit, this probably isn't the worst thing that's happened to him," Maze blinks as she informs the Detective.
"You're probably right."
She imagines Chloe running a hair through her ponytail, as she has a tendency to do.
"Look at me, " The Detective gives a dry chuckle, "I should be reassuring you, not the other way round, " She breaks off, the laughter abruptly fizzling out as she adds, quietly, "Look, I'm sorry I couldn't give you better news, We're all just waiting, I guess.-"
"Ah, screw it, you need it more than I do. " Maze's voice is light as she pulls herself up from the sofa, "I'm not working right now, I might join you."
"If you're sure-"
"I'm always sure. I might make a quick pitstop on the way, but I'll be there. Promise."
There's a moment of silence.
Maze takes charge, eventually, wandering over to the phone, picking it up, and hanging up the call whilst simultaneously shoving the device into her pocket.
A quick pitstop.
Amenadiel's face flashes in front of her eyes.
...
She needs to tell him, if he hasn't been told already.
He deserves to know.
...
One phone call later, and after a quick drive, not checking but probably going significantly over the speed limit, Maze screeches into one of the parking spaces at Lux. The club is silent, the lights dimmed. There are no parties booked tonight but she enters anyways.
The silence...- she can handle it. Even if she is a demon. Hell's former torturer, who spent years basking in the screams of the damned. Silence was a foreign concept to her, until she came here.
The closest parallel that she was able to find was during the heights of the parties here. The loss of inhibitions, the wild fever that seemed to overcome all of the humans in attendance. All those small, subtle things that only she would be conscious enough at the time to notice, and no one would ever see the smiles darting across her face as she watched from the bar.
Except for Lucifer. Maybe. Occasionally, she'd meet his eye, and his expression would echo hers. Reminding her why she followed him in the first place.
Maze scowls. After all her efforts to distance herself from him, her efforts to build a new life for herself, the bastard had to go ahead and get himself stabbed. Had to hit her with a fast, hard reminder that, deep inside, she still cares for him.
Typical.
The thought leaps across her mind as she folds her arms, leans against the wall, and prepares to wait.
...
"Maze?"
Amenadiel enters a few minutes later.
Her gaze flickers over to him, lazily. She makes no effort to move from her position, instead electing to watch as Lucifer's brother takes in the wide, empty space, dubiously before joining her by the wall.
His own eyes, dark and curious, glitter with confusion. Amenadiel watches her, hands in his pockets. His voice bounces off the walls.
"You said to meet you here?" He lets the question hang in the air.
"I didn't want to call." She replies, smoothly, tipping her head up slightly to meet his gaze as she adds, "I needed to talk to you; I wanted to do it face-to-face. Believe me, it'll be easier to tell you this way."
"Tell me what?"
The angel's voice is brusque, on-edge, guarded. Equally, however, the tension coiling through his shoulder blades tells Maze that he understands that she wouldn't call him here without a very good reason. She was, in all honesty, worried that he wouldn't show up at all. She doesn't plan on acknowledging the spark of relief that had burst in her upon his arrival, or the fleeting moment of warmth that came with the proof of him actually trusting her for once.
The moment passes.
Maze pauses, planning her next words in advance. Amenadiel lingers in the corner of her vision as she does so, twitching with impatience.
"It's Lucifer." Maze roughly breaks the silence; it feels like she's about to suffocate in it.
The angel's demeanour changes almost without warning as his eyes widen, giving Maze an open window to bear witness to the sudden conflict, the flash storm crashing and thundering abruptly in his head brought on by her words. And Maze.. - Maze understands it all too well because it's the exact same battle that she found herself fighting when The Detective told her.
Except, his isn't as fierce, or prolonged; she doesn't expect it to be. Maze isn't surprised when she sees his brotherly instinct quickly surface and come out on top.
Despite everything, Lucifer is still Amenadiel's younger brother. They've gone their different ways, but Maze knows that that fact, combined with Amenadiel's sense of responsibility, means that there was only ever going to be one possible outcome to his brief dilemma.
...
The two exchange glances, a silent, mutual understanding reached between them. Amenadiel, clearly, grasping the gravity of the situation.
...
"He was trying to retrieve Azrael's blade," Amenadiel states, with a faint, almost imperceptible tremor in his tone.
"The Detective told me he got stabbed." She contributes, "Badly. He survived.. but-"
"You don't think it's a coincidence."
"Do you." Maze challenges him, "We knew he was looking for that blade. When Lucifer looks for something, he usually ends up finding it."
"True," Amenadiel concedes, pacing around, his shoes grinding into the smooth flooring as if trying to dig a hole in it. "I should have offered to help. I shouldn't have left him to deal with something like this-"
"Don't-"
"He's my brother." Amenadiel retorts, with a trace of anger as his movements intensify, his steps, jerky and abrupt, and Maze doubts that the angel is doing them intentionally as he stares at the ground, "If anything happens to him, if he's suffering right now, then-"
"It won't be your fault. Besides, Lucifer'll pull through. He's a stubborn ass. " Maze's mouth twitches, "That's not usually a compliment. But it's true, believe me. He won't stay down for very long."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, the angel snorts. His amusement, however, is short-lived. Maze can practically see the cogs turning in his head as he allows her words to hang in the air as if they provide comfort to him. Some tentative reassurance to combat his concern for his little brother, perhaps. But there's something else as well, another feeling simmering beneath the surface of his skin, something molten and boiling.
Amenadiel is, at this point, a storm of contradictions. Maze remembers the scene at Uriel's grave, and, if- no, not if, when he next talks to his brother, she imagines the words, 'I told you so', will come up, even if it's just a way of pretending that the concern that's visibly threatening to drown him right now was never a thing. She already knows, however, that Lucifer would be able to see right through that particular bluff, when Amenadiel tries to pull it.
The Former Lord of Hell has a way of reading people. It's almost impossible to hide things from him. Maze knows this better than anyone. She sits on that for a few fleeting seconds before Amenadiel's voice derails her train of thought, interrupting her with a sharp -"Do you know who did this to him?"
His tone is faintly accusatory. He's lashing out, then, looking for someone to blame.
She doesn't blame him.
Maze swears, softly, under her breath.
"Shit- I forgot to ask Chloe if the police department had the weapon - it's fine. " She brushes it off with impressive speed, "I promised to meet her at the precinct right after this. I'll ask her then...- and I'll ask if they know who had it- and who used it."
The angel's eyes dance with fury. For now, it's suppressed and held back, but she feels a brief pang of sympathy for whoever finds themself subjected to it.
It's his turn not to move, as Maze, playing with the car keys dangling from her fingers goes to leave.
She calls back, "I'll tell you if I find out anything."
Amenadiel says nothing.
To be fair she doesn't expect him to, and doesn't wait around for a response, either.
...
...
It's nearly day or morning at least. Fragments of dawn splinter through the dusky blue clouds, brushing them with pastel hues, although the precinct is still fairly dimmed, cloaked in shadows that are broken up intermittently by ceiling lights and desk lamps.
Maze sits on the desk next to the Detective, who is slumped in her chair with the lighting serving to exaggerate the heavy shadows under her eyes, indicating to the demon that The Detective hasn't slept tonight. She's still refusing to give in to the urge, even though she obviously needs it. Instead, The Detective's eyes flit frequently to glance at her phone at regular intervals as she waits for news from the hospital.
Her fingers, too, tap erratically against the desktop. Her anxiety for her partner seems to wrap around her like a particularly thick cloak, or like a particularly strong brand of perfume, like an aura. It's unavoidable, and immediately noticeable, so much so that even being blind wouldn't stop you from detecting it.
Maze remembers her conversation with Amenadiel.
"Hey, Chloe." She drawls out. The Detective jerks up as if given an electric shock, and turns to stare, bleary-eyed, back at Maze.
"Huh?"
Maze shakes her head as she changes her mind on a whim. The questions press at her mind still, and they aren't forgotten, but she decides that it's probably best not to start with them. To say that the Detective's had a long night would be an understatement and although Maze isn't looking forward to the task, she senses, reluctantly, that some form of comfort would be more appropriate.
The demon wracks her brain for something - but comes up short. It's not her fault that she isn't a comfort person. Besides, she doesn't even have a full grasp on the intricacies of Lucifer's and Chloe's relationships because it might as well be a spider's web to her, and she sure as Hell doesn't want to get stuck trying to understand it.
Bottom line: She knows they're close. She knows that Chloe makes Lucifer vulnerable, and that, now he's seriously injured, the worry appears to be eating her alive.
But Chloe doesn't know or doesn't believe that Lucifer's the actual Devil.
Right.
Brilliant.
Again, that memory of Lucifer's back, exposed muscle, angry flesh and the severed wing bones comes swinging back into Maze's mind. She hesitates. Something about those images feels personal - like an invasion of Lucifer's privacy and she can't help but feel that sharing that moment of his vulnerability would be a betrayal of his trust. So she doesn't go there.
It gives her an idea, though, one that she can work with.
...
"Are you worried he won't make it, is that it?" She asks, watching the Detective carefully in order to gauge her reaction. Chloe hesitantly meets her gaze.
"What, are you not?"
"Not really." Maze admits, allowing her legs to swing from side to side as they hang off the table. "If he was going to die, he would've carked it on the scene. I've seen him survive worse than this... I've even done worse to him. On purpose."
Her plan works. A tiny, sarcastic smile leaps across the Detective's face.
"Are you saying that I'm over-reacting?"
"A little."
"Arse."
Maze snorts at the insult, a thankfully familiar hint of Chloe's usual personality beginning to break through, a ray of sunshine piercing the clouds of her all-consuming worry.
"I need answers, too." Chloe, swallows, hard, as Maze watches, "I- We don't know what happened. Hopefully, Lucifer can shed some light on this whole shitshow when he wakes up. But right now, I- we're in the dark as to how he got stabbed. And by who. No one seems to know. Dan was first on the scene. But I think he's still in shock from seeing Lucifer..- you know, like that. I think he needs time to process that, but I'll ask him what he knows when I next see him. I just... can't stand the idea of someone trying to kill him and getting away with it. " She glances at the demon, "If that makes sense.
"Huh- Oh, yeah. yeah." Maze nods along, absently.
Unknowingly, the Detective has given just her all the answers that she was looking for. And she does understand what the Detective must be feeling because it isn't enough and because she isn't satisfied with those answers. All she can take from them are inferences and guesses. Wild leaps in the dark.
Whoever hurt Lucifer probably still has the weapon, then. Probably.
...
Maze's jaw tightens.
They're going to pay for what they've done.
...
A/N - This chapter's a little longer than my usual length, but fear not - I'm hoping to reunite certain characters in the next chapter, so that's going to be fun. Things are going to get worse before they get better, but they will get better, promise. I've decided that I'm probably going to stick to the three POVs I've used already, among other things.
hope you're enjoying so far ~