Notes:

Merry Christmas everyone & (most importantly) to you, 'A-timeless-love'! I hope that you are all enjoying the festivities and having a good time with your family and/or your friends. Mine were surely great!

'A-timeless-love', I hope you'll be pleased by this unsurprisingly (for anyone knowing me as a ff writer here) long fanfic given the single word-prompt I received from you by the Secret Santa gifts event on tumblr : "Deckerstar".

My muse went Christmas wild with it! (evil laugh)

So, the story would take place a few weeks after the last scene in episode 9 (heartbreaking and so frustratiiinnnnng, Luci!), a sligth AU or canon divergence, as I would say. It will be a 4(...5?) chapters ff. As English isn't my native language and that (because of the deadline) I had to write straight into English rather than French, there might be grammatical mistakes here and there so I apologize in advance.

Emotional angst, father-son drama, Love proof on the loose — here we go!

HEARTBEATS

1

The secret was in the edges.

A firm touch, not too much pressure for too long, yet slowing it down the moment the lower edge of the item would start brushing the rest of the structure. 'Secret' was a poor choice of word, as it wasn't one for himself and for his long-shaped – billions of years long – dexterity.

"So, you know, no parallel."

Lucifer's fingers changed their course, brushing the main structure that quaked for a millisecond. His frozen hands around the item, the space left to cross froze as long; it turned the air thicker.

He reached for his goal again.

Slowly, now.

"—I was supposed to give you space..."

Lucifer had just lifted the item with the intention of lowering it carefully. This way, it would insert itself to the rest with the slightest damage. However, his right thumb slipped on the tip of the crystal, which slipped even faster from his grasp, no matter his attempts to catch it midway. Although made of crystal and lightweight, the item fell as heavy as a rock and hit the rest of the three-dimensional puzzle; breakable crystal easily disassembled.

"Bollocks!" Lucifer grumbled as trying to catch more splintered pieces than the puzzle was supposed to have in the first place.

Useless movement. Too many shards that he could cup in his hands rained from the coffee table, white stars of different sizes spreading along the carpet or bouncing further on the dark wooden floor. Those ones rolled beneath the couch on which Lucifer sat back, annoyed by this conclusion.

It had started so well until he—

"Lucifer, I'm so sorry."

Exhaling deeply, Lucifer buried his face in his hands then moved these to his cheeks where he stroked his beard absent-mindedly, his gaze upon the disaster caused within what – seconds? Even less? – while it had taken him hours to make the four-fifths of the puzzle, a crystal star as high as the bottle of scotch on the table and three times as wide as the glass next to it, stand without much other help than physics on the coffee table.

Leaning forward, he took the fifth item of the star from between his feet, half-hidden beneath the couch, but surprinsingly unscathed after the fall, if not for its edge shortened from less than an inch and the scratch on it. It was a five-side, narrowed pyramid; its transparency nearly perfect, its reflection accurate. The mirror in his dressing room couldn't have given a better reflection of his messy hair and his 'way-past-three-days' beard.

He stroked the scratch with his thumb and looked more closely at it.

Its way of zigzagging from one corner to the four others….

Like a heartbeath would do.

Like the amount of time between his hand resting on hers and hers reaching for his on the rail.

A heartbeat.

"You deserve to hear those three words back." His words, certain of the death of his. His heart. But his heartbeats raced with his strong, nearly shaking hold around the crystal pyramid. As before. As strongly, when he was vulnerable around her.

But this was his father's doing, right? Of course, it was. Why did he only doubt it? Why couldn't he help but doubt his own heart? Yes, his heart was beating as fast as humans' when they were dealing with emotional responses, but his dad made them all look alike, for details only. When you were looking at it closely...

Just smoke and mirrors.

His reflection on the item was split in half, not clear enough to define the most visible emotions on his face, his eyes and mouth.

Just a blur of scratched hopes.

"We're... incredible."

They were.

She was.

Lucifer held the pyramidal item thighter until the crystal started to crack, the scratch splitting in an even smaller star at the middle of the side facing him. Before it cracked in half for good, he let go, the pyramid rolling on the edge of the table to the pile of empty boxes of three-dimentional puzzles a bith further.

He reached for his glass. For lack of another distraction for his mind, drinking would do no harm. It wouldn't at all. Drinking alone had always been pleasant. However, it was no longer tasting the same. Nothing tasted the same, alone by choice as—

He laughed bitterly and shook his head.

Choice was all a lie.

His lips a millimiter away from the 'not-so-much-intoxicating' alcohol, he heard a known, although 'not-welcome-the-slightest' voice in his back. "You used to be skiller with them before."

Lucifer's jaw twitched. He lowered his glass at chin-level, even though he would have needed its contents – a dozen times and it still wouldn't be enough – to soothe the bitterness rushing in his throat like a bloody sandstorm.

He looked back at the remains of the puzzle at his feet and on the coffee table, his mouth squeezed in an ephemeral smile. It didn't last two spoken words, "Well, your stars left no room for mistakes, if I remember correctly."

"They were more yours than mine, Samael. They still are."

Lucifer didn't reply. At this point, he couldn't tell about what he was feeling the most resentful. The Almighty Cockroach's presence in the penthouse was a good starting point, if not the most blatant one, but it wasn't just that. The thing was that, among the profusion of puzzles available on the online website he had scrolled on last night, for lack of any sleep; he had chosen the star. It had been a natural choice, with no second thoughts. The real stars had been a puzzle themselves to solve, in far more complicated proportions of physics, of dexterity and patience. But as difficult as they might have been to create, Lucifer remembered these times as times of peace for his mind and times of break for his heart: both tormented by thoughts and fierce desires to change his life like he wanted to.

God had seen the pattern in Lucifer's distractions within seconds; this annoyed him the most.

However, God stating one of Lucifer's creations as truly his; who could have predicted such an outcome? Any creation had always been God's possession in the end, until the end of times precisely. But here He was, gifting a part of the past, of the universe, to the fallen one. Billions of years too late.

Lucifer shouldn't have been surprised, though. His father had always had terrible timing. Tonight would be no exception. And Go— Goldfish, he wanted to stay alone tonight. Even Maze, traitor and seeking revenge, had taken a break hours ago when she had entered the penthouse and had taken one single look at him. He had been seated all the same, on the same couch, surrounded by the same ephemeral distractions. So why hadn't his dad left already?

Maybe it was his wrong profile. Which one did he show to Maze?

"What do you want, Dad?"

"Isn't it obvious, son?" He sounded surprised. Hurt, perhaps?

No, hurt implied love.

"I am my father's son."

Lucifer snorted. His dad's foodsteps came closer, although still not close enough to make Him understand how terrible His timing was, it seemed. So Lucifer's right profile was the wrong one, good to know.

Lucifer placed the glass on his right knee, his fingertips following the curves of the edge a few times. He shrugged a shoulder, pinching his lips. "Obviously, I'd say that you're only here to prove me wrong in whichever bloody cryptically holy concepts of yours I dared to call into question these past days, but I might be wrong about that too, am I right?" He turned his good profile to his dad. His entire, annoyed expression even.

Again, there were surprise, faked emotions in the slight gleam of God's eyes as He looked at Lucifer's half-unbuttoned white shirt and bare feet.

What now? Surely, this wasn't the first time He saw him poorly dressed and disheveled. The only times his dad ever looked down at him on earth were for his most desperate ones. He had felt his presence like never before after Frank's death. As for Uriel's….

Wherever God's eyes were looking, the Devil was feeling small.

Instinctively, Lucifer sat back, the neck as tense as his shoulders and his gaze as sharp as demons' blades. But that made no difference in the gaze upon himself. Worse, he thought he saw a pretense of 'caring' within it.

"In that case, whatever I'll answer you, I'll prove you wrong. Or upset you. And I want neither of that."

"Well then, I'm sure you'll find yourself out, won't you?"

Lucifer stood up and passed his dad, broken crystal accompanying his steps to the bar. It was like walking on gravel, on solidified ashes and extinguished braised. He restrained himself from stroking the soles of his feet against his dark pants.

"Why are you staying alone here tonight? It's Christmas Eve."

"Why do you even care?" Lucifer replied, insisting on each word as he turned around. "Christmas isn't your time, it's Jesus' time! Or rather, 'The Pathological Liar's Time. God, beaten in His own lies by a simple human who was just seeking free food and sleep centuries ago…." Lucifer drank what was left in his glass, continuing, "He's in Hell, if you wanna chat a bit with him— Oh no, wait. Maybe he's not." He raised his hands. "Who knows, with no 'warden', right?"

God frowned. "No warden doesn't mean that Hell is lost, but you know that."

"Do I? If Hell warden times are over, my knowlegde of the place is hardly reliable."

His dad sighed. "Why not answer the question, son?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe I juste wanted to know how it feels to act like God. In mysteriouuuuuus waaaaays!"

The actual God in the flesh stared at his son for a moment, his hands joined in front of him. "From what I see, you're rather acting like you always did in Hell."

Lucifer snorted at that, filling his glass one more time. "And how would you know, mh? You've never been there. And, to be honest, if you could reiterate the non-physical presence of yourself and of my poorly shouldered twin around my penthouse, I wouldn't blame you this time, you have my word."

"You're acting like love is out of option," God continued. "From others as from yourself."

Whisky spilled over the edges of the glass and on the bar. It drippled between the tiny spaces in the wood to his toes, like golden tears, darkened and spoiled throughout their fall. Against the Old Snake's skin.

Swallowing, Lucifer only managed to push further in his throat the dry knot inside it, his next inhalations turning weaker and his exhalations faster. Slowly, he leaned back the bottle to an upright position, placing it next to his glass and the four-inch pool of alcohol beneath it. There, he looked up, in God's eye. "Love has never been an option."

"Why do you think that, Samael?" Again, hurt in God's eyes.

"Why?" Lucifer's eyes squinted slightly with the rage starting to ignite his blood into unstoppable lava. "Why?" he repeated.

Was his dad being serious? As an invite to answer him, God's eyebrows rose. Innocent-looking and patient, as always.

Except for when Lucifer rebelled. An exception never changed a man, however; divinity even less. The Almighty Creator of the Universe exceptionnally walking on earth as any regular dude hadn't changed the fact that He rejected him, it hadn't changed Lucifer's personal feelings about this part of his life. His father still managed to ruin the one he had built here, a life of exception, from Lucifer's first stupidly naive feelings about it, about her.

An exceptional heartbeat.

God ruined this. By just walking down random stairs.

And right now, by just asking a question, He was wrecking Lucifer's walls of indifference who let out a shaky breath. "Because I'm your son, that's why." He raised his hands. "I'm as incapable of love as you are."

With this curse stated, he took his much-too-filled glass from the bar, not caring about spilling another decilitre on his belt, pants and toes while walking towards the balcony with the desire to place litteral walls between himself and his father. Of course, God didn't refute His incapacity to love, even his children; and Lucifer shouldn't have felt as hurt as at the dinner. But the fact remained that he did.

Why; that was the actual, bloody repetite question, it seemed.

Stopping near the curtains that were moving accordingly with the breeze, he looked down. The city was shining even brighter than usual at night. He could see from here the fairy lights overhanging the main road leading to his club, one time shining red, another time shining white. Some had hanging stars – again with that… – or snowflakes at their center. Although either the first one or the other, they were looking the same to him; poor replicas of a dream out of reach.

Christmas was a lie, a promise of family reunion, of demonstration of love. But so were any celebrations invented by mankind and Lucifer never pouted one for its lack of true meaning to have fun through parties of all sorts until the next day, or even longer than that. He invented the "Reach my monster holes" game for Halloween, as demons and bad spirits were supposed to reach theirs once the first sun of November would rise. Christmas had its games as well, years ago. However, since that time, Lucifer had met a certain Detective of the LAPD, he had found himself vulnerable, able to feel something last in his chest, grow and burn stronger within each moment spent in her company. He had fallen again.

"If you choose to be vulnerable around me, then I choose to be vulnerable around you."

Except he wasn't, not anymore.

He was back to his old-self, alone and hopeless. Back to have nothing left but meaningless parties with meaningless people that would stay long enough to make anything last within his chest. So what would have been the point to party at all tonight and the nights after?

Lost in his thoughts and distracted by the view, he didn't hear first his dad's steps joining him, but he felt his presence in his back. A shadow of sorts. Funny that. No one would ever compare God to shadows. As about accusing Him of shadowing the Devil? When Hell would freeze over, that was for sure. However described, the feeling wasn't pleasant. Not so unpleasant either.

God was.

That was all.

"You know, it's not good to stay alone at Christmas time," God said at his back, like his son's previous words had never been said out loud.

Of course. Ignoring the elephant in the room, as always.

Lucifer scoffed. "So that's why you're here? For another family disast— Sorry, 'dinner'? Pass."

"Even if I'd propose one, you could have been elsewhere, with your other family."

Lucifer turned around, frowning. Tension paralyzed his throat muscles around the last sip of whisky as he watched his dad take the crumpled, red paper on the carpet. God smoothed the paper, showing it to his son. "It looks nice, and with enough alcohol for you. Will your Detect—"

"Don't you dare speak her name…." Lucifer's tone was slow, poisonous.

God smiled at his threat, like it was just one of these past outbursts, back in Heaven times, when he couldn't go flying or playing with his siblings instead of studying in his father's office. "So she'll be there. Well, I think you should join the festivities. I shouldn't even need to encourage you in that, you always loved to have fu—"

"LIKE!" Lucifer expelled as much air as he breathed in, his chest rising and falling between fast-beating rage. He registered a damp sensation on his side and beneath his bare feet, looking down at the broken glass between them and the 'star'-like splattered alcohol on the floor. He gulped, avoiding looking up at his father's expression. "I… 'liked' to have fun. I liked a lot of things before you showed up and ruined everything."

He waited for his dad to refute His own responsability in the situation. God sighed heavily instead; not like before, with this induced annoyance for Lucifer's attitude or holy patience. This sigh was the most honest sound that Lucifer ever heard from Him tonight.

"That won't do at all…" God whispered.

Lucifer's lips began to word a silent "what?" when his father's hand touched his shoulder, just like He did in the golf kingdom last week, although the sensation that followed was new. In a heartbeat, the penthouse disappeared from his sight. Every air molecule seemed to reach for a spot, right at the middle of God's hand. Even these filling his lungs, squeezed dry and empty like bloody lemons. The lack of oxygen should have been impossible to feel, as he was invulnerable again, but anything in God's hands was turning possible and Lucifer's head was starting to spin, hard. If he would have closed his eyes, he would have thought that he was falling again; although the blinding storm of lights around him with one hand as its source was a good enough replica of his last punishment.

His conscious thoughts within a blinding spinning of surrender, God's hand let go of him, his fall therefore unstoppable.

Notes :

I know, I know : Where is "Deckerstar" prompt? It will show up in time, I promise. Trust me! X)
Chapter 2 is well engaged, but I can't tell when it'll be ready for the next update. ('got new video games for Christmas, I'm trapped!)

Don't worry, though. I'm never far for too long from my computer and Devil-muse craziness.

I hope you had a good time reading this first chap a-timeless-love, as u all :)

Comments/kudos are appreciated, as always.

See ya in 2022, that's for sure!