HEATHCLIFF STUDIOS - SECURITY OFFICE - AFTER MIDNIGHT

Unless there was something cheerful going on like a wrap party or an orgy, the mid-watch over the high rise at Heathcliff Studios was generally pretty depressing. Empty, with quietly buzzing neon lights and humming machines. Usually, Moeko and Keiko handled it, but this time Balthazar had sent them away for a bit so he, Shipley, and Lydecker could go someplace where no one would overhear what he had to ask them.

And since recapping it would be redundant for y'all, we'll skip past the part where he explained the mind-reading and the guilt and get right to the part where Shipley and Lydecker stared at him like he just whipped out a shotgun and blasted a hole in the bottom of the boat they where all standing in. (In a way, he kinda did.) Lydecker had to take a seat in the watchman's chair as the gravity of the situation had robbed him of his knees.

"Well?" Balthazar asked, just a little desperate as if he expected the demon P.A.s to solve this for him.

"Collins," Lydecker said.

"What?"

"He was one of Crowley's assistants before Shipley. Remember? He opened Crowley's bedside table drawer and Crowley threw him into chopper blades. Painted the infirmary roof with him."

Shipley looked horrified. "Is that why it smells like ham salad up there?" he asked.

Lydecker nodded solemnly. "That's what Crowley does to people who invade his privacy."

Shipley took a moment to fear for his own life before shaking it off and turning back to Balthazar. "That's not the real issue here. You didn't just sneak a peek at his unmentionables. You been lyin' to him for years, violating him, popping his head open like a Snack Pack. This guy, who doesn't trust anybody, trusts you. When he finds out what you've done with that trust, he's gonna flip you inside out like an umbrella in the wind. Why'd you do it?"

Balthazar frowned at him like he was stupid. "I wanted to know what he was thinking so I read his mind. Not much of a story there."

"Really? And you didn't think of maybe askin' him what you wanna know?"

"I do ask him," Balthazar said, getting defensive, and a little snippy with these uppity minions. "Sometimes it feels like all I ever do is ask him how he feels, what's wrong, what I can do. But he never tells me when it counts. The more it hurts, the less he's able to talk about it. And if I don't know what's wrong, how am I supposed to fix it?"

"Why do you gotta fix it?" Shipley asked.

Lydecker raised his hand. "He's tryin' to have it off with him," he said, helpful as ever.

"You know what?" That was basically the last straw for Shipley. He turned to Lydecker. "We're having a conversation about feelings. Fee-lings." He leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, and talked to him like he was talking to a very dumb child. "And since you're a shallow, howling void of hairspray and V.D., you might wanna tag out of this one, buddy. Okay?"

For a void, Lydecker was actually a little offended. "Yeh, okay," he snipped. "Only, no, not okay, 'cause the angel just told us. Which means it's not just him lying Crowley and going behind his back, and being flung into chopper blades. It's all three of us. We're in this together, so if there's something I don't understand then you might need to explain it to me."

Shipley's face fell. He stood up straight, sobered by the danger they were in and how surprisingly right Lydecker was.

"Fine," Shipley said. "This isn't about Balthazar wanting a roll in the hay. The guy has a trim pit for a bedroom, he could have sex when ever he wants, how ever he wants, in and with any body he wants. So what comes after sex?"

Lydecker frowned, rusty gears turning in his demony brain. "...Shame? Shower. Have a wee, then shower."

"I mean after you get all the sex you could ever want. And food and money and power and... gratification. When you don't need to eat, don't need to sleep, don't need to screw. Everyone you drink with is unconscious, everyone you sleep with is out the door, everyone you hate is dead, and you've seen all the movies on your Netflix list. And the town pulls up its sidewalks and the bars are empty and there's nothin' on tv and the drugs wear off. It's just you and eternity. Day after day, night after night. What do you feel in the dark when you're all alone?"

Lydecker blinked. The question was a little detailed and it sunk in. Struck a nerve. "Empty," he said quietly. Sounding like a person.

Shipley tried not to be shocked to finally get a sincere answer out of him. "And how does 'empty' feel?" he asked, his tone a little kinder.

Lydecker's eyes shifted, uncomfortable. "I dunno. Like... when they pull your guts out in Hell. After the worst. But before they put them back in. When you just... feel where they used to be. A sort of... cold... ache."

"Okay. Now imagine you know someone who makes you feel not-empty."

This was a little too much for Lydecker. The thought exercise had gone too far. He had to get up from his chair and walk a little. "I can't feel not-empty, alright? I'm a demon. All surface, nothing inside. I'm like a beach ball."

"So you never feel it ache less?"

"I don't know, alright? I can't think, so just stop screwing with my-. Ohhh!" He pointed at Balthazar accusingly. "You! This is what you're doing to Crowley! You dick bag! You actual bag of dicks!"

Balthazar looked a little busted by the accusation and was going to say something in his defense, but before he could, Shipley took the mic back.

"Hold on, now," he said. "He just wants to know what's goin' on in the guy's head, it's not like he's dissecting him."

"Might as well have," Lydecker said indignantly. "Maybe Crowley doesn't wanna be known. Yeah. Maybe he doesn't want some choirboy with a hero complex acting out on him like he's a bloody therapy puppet."

"Maybe Balthazar's just tryin' to help Crowley process what he's already feeling," Shipley said, starting to fume.

"And maybe," Lydecker said with all the attitude, "the idea of saving Crowley from himself makes Balthazar feel all needed and goodly, and distracts him from his own baggage."

"Maybe if Crowley knew what the hell he was doing and how to ask for help when he needed it-."

"Enough!" Balthazar shouted at them both. He took a beat and waited for them to shut up. It was kind of amusing but it wasn't any help to him. "I don't know your deal. I don't want to know your deal. We're talking about my deal. How do I fix this?"

"You can't fix it, dude," Lydecker said. Shaking his head sadly, as if he was the one Balthazar betrayed. "It's gone too far."

"You can fix anything," Shipley said, "you just gotta talk it out."

"If he tells Crowley, Crowley will kill him," Lydecker said.

"Well, there's gotta be a way to tell him where he won't. He's been reading the guy's mind for years, he must know him."

"That's the trouble," Balthazar said. "When I read his mind, it's not like a search engine, I can't get exactly the answer I want. I'm only feeling what he feels in a memory, seeing what he sees the way he sees it. But I can't get a bead on him because... because-."

"-Everything he does contradicts something else he's already done?" Shipley asked, frowning at his own conclusion.

"Exactly," Balthazar said. Shocked at the very idea of some demon hench-bro sniffing out the truth like that.

"And he doesn't respond to anything you say the way you thought he would. And no matter how deep you dig for answers, you keep turnin' up new stuff that you don't know what to do with 'cause nobody else that's walked the earth before is that friggin' complicated."

"Yes, thank you!" Balthazar sang out to the heavens, so happy that someone finally understood his frustration. "Look, I know what I did wasn't... spectacular."

Shipley and Lydecker both face-sassed him.

"Alright, fine, it was bad. I made one little mistake... for three years. Do I have to apologize for the rest of my life?"

"When did you ever apologize to anyone for it?" Shipley asked.

Balthazar gasped: how dare? "I'm stopping now. Isn't that what counts? I mean to do right by him. I just don't want him to, you know, scorch the earth in a fit of despair. He needs to understand why I did what I did."

"Why?" Lydecker asked, huffy and still taking sides. "I mean, you hurt him, why should he have to hear you out?"

"Because he's going to think... that I don't love him. That this was all just a scheme to backstab or humiliate the King of Hell. Or I'm trying to steal his devil-secrets or something. Because every time anyone's gotten close to him, it's been to take advantage or find a place to strike. He needs to know that I meant every word I said to him." It was a little hard for him to say this part out loud. Guilt or shame or whatever it was, wasn't the road he wanted to go down, and he resented it. "After that,... I deserve what happens."

"So," Shipley tried to get on the right page, "you're not trying to get outta this?"

Balthazar took a deep breath, let it out, exhausted. "I just want him to know the truth. But I don't know how to make him listen, I'm not good with these things the way he is, that's why I need help."

"Well that's it, isn't it?" Lydecker said. "Maybe you should get Crowley to help."

Balthazar and Shipley both reacted to that with expressions of yeah, right. Just ask Crowley to help you tell Crowley? But after a moment, Balthazar's expression changed. Something dawning on him. He could do it. He could ask Crowley for help.

"That's actually not the worst idea," he said. "Excuse me, gentleman." He left, off to do whatever it was.

"I got no idea what just happened," Shipley said. "But it looks like I was right about those two bein' a thing."

"Yeah," Lydecker said, still sore. "Yeah, looks like." He walked back to the monitors and took a seat. Arms folded, staring at the feed from the test lab with his lips pursed.

"Okay, what's wrong?" Shipley asked, his tone just a bit mocking.

"With me?" Lydecker said. "Nothing. Nothing at all, just a blank. A void."

Aw, crap.

"Look, I'm sorry I called you a... shallow void of... whatever-."

"Hairspray and V.D.," Lydecker said.

Shipley rolled his eyes at himself. He dragged a rolly chair from the other side of the office so he could sit next to Lydecker. "I didn't mean it. Okay? You were the one who said the thing that made Balthazar leave us alone. You helped more than I did. I just get a little frustrated with demons sometimes, that's all. I thought that when I came outta Hell, I'd finally be like everybody else, but I guess I'm not. There's nothing wrong with you, it's my problem."

Lydecker finally looked at him, no sympathy. "Yeah. It is." He went back to staring at the monitor.

It was gonna be a long night.