He was, as usual, grading papers well into the night.

No one could contest that the aesthetic worked for him, however. Freya, also per usual, elbowed her way through his bedroom door to find him already curved over the elaborate, black-blue wood of his desk.

The fireplace on the opposite side of the chamber crackled with the lowlight of the neglected embers, casting the highlights of his hair into a darkness which seemed to obliterate all separation between him and the night.

The loose, black-button down shirt did nothing to quell how the shadows swirled around him. Only his carnelian eyes and the olive-toned hue of his skin had kept him from dissolving into midnight altogether.

Like she thought. It worked for him.

Lucifer didn't lift his eyes as she approached the workstation, his scribbling maintaining a perfect rhythm while his hand glided over the endless mound of paperwork. Even so, the slightest tilt of his body announced his awareness of her. Each leg shifted minutely in her direction, his chin simultaneously rising into the air.

Freya shuffled wordlessly to the front of the desk. Only when her protracted silence began to settle thickly in the air did he elevate his gaze.

There was a query churning in the profound depths of each crimson iris. Freya returned the eye-contact evenly enough, her features smoothed out in a blank expression while he looked her up and down. Specifically, at the long length of rope she held in her arms.

The silence continued.

Eventually, a single eyebrow sailed atop Lucifer's forehead. The dying embers cracked a complaint from the fireplace. He still held the pen in his hand.

"... Yes?"

She extended her arms, the rope jostling somewhat in her grasp. A few, onyx strands of hair fell into Freya's eyes from the movement.

"Tie me up," she said flatly.

This time, the absence of sound originated from his direction. A quiet question mark seemed to seep out from behind his shoulder-blades and tumble its way over to the space between them. His confusion was so palpable, it was almost a noise itself.

Then, a subtle wickedness twisted his lips into a lop-sided smirk.

"Of course, sweetheart. Wait for me a bit longer, and I promise to oblige your fantasies for as long as you can withstand them."

But all traces of his coy expression soon evaporated. Freya shook her head at him, the dismissive gesture immediately wiping away the overt, passionate flirtation.

"No, I mean, string me up."

The pen in Lucifer's hand went slack at the retort.

"Excuse me?"

"String me up. Like you do to Mammon."

Very slowly, Lucifer flattened each hand on the desk's surface. Straightening himself out, Freya watched him round the edge and come to a stop before her.

The expression he wore was frozen from shock. The taut lines darkening his face glowed in the fireplace's twilight, and he gave her once-over, from her eyes to the pile of cables in her hands.

"Why in the world would I ever do that?" Lucifer folded his arms across his chest, voice quiet and accusatory.

Only then did a smile warm away the blankness on her face.

"Because. It looks fun."

"It… looks… fun?"

His arms dropped to his sides. The unmistakable baritone of horror permeated the air, prompting the grin on Freya's face to grow.

"In fact, it does. I want to try it!"

Lucifer said nothing in response. His face did not change.

Freya rolled her eyes at his lack of reaction. "It's your own fault. If you didn't make it look so fun in the first place, I wouldn't want to do this."

Amazement flashed across his features. The otherworldly garnet of his eyes exploded in awe, mirroring a whip of light cast by the room's hearth.

"You must be joking. There is nothing fun about the way I discipline Mammon. It's why the halls of this House are so often scream filled with the sound of his screams."

He had a point. The House of Lamentation was verbally offensive for a myriad of reasons, one of them being Mammon's consistent indiscretions, and then the subsequent beatings which always came afterwards.

Still, there was something irrationally alluring about the idea of hanging suspended from the ceiling.

Perhaps it was the sheer absurdity of it — the fact that it was a ridiculous punishment to begin with — or maybe it was because she was bored, and the mere miasma of the Devildom brought out the unhinged behavior within her.

Either way, she'd made up her mind earlier in the day while walking past a strung-up Mammon. He'd hanged helplessly from the music room's ceiling, presumably in response to a futile attempt of the theft of Lucifer's personal collection of records.

She'd helped him down of course, using a wind spell to cushion the landing… but the idea of dangling freely like that had been enticing. And now, here she was.

Freya, still cradling the mass of rope, advanced forward, closing the distance between Lucifer and she. He continued to peer down at her as if she had lost her damn mind, expression wide and open in bewilderment.

"I want to see what it's like, though."

Lucifer's frozen outrage refused to abate.

She sighed, shaking a piece of hair away from her face. An idea filled her then. She grinned while speaking.

"Pretend that you're punishing me then," she purred, a cloud of coyness overtaking her visage. "I've made you angry enough by now, right? Discipline me for something I've done in the past if you have to summon the urge."

The awe exploded off Lucifer's face completely, leaving his eyes, the rise of his cheeks, and his chin and jaw vacant of animation. Firelight bit softly into his skin.

He must've been tired. It was the only explanation for why her request shocked him so violently. Surely this wasn't that divergent from her normal behavior?

Freya tracked Lucifer as he closed in, curling his warm, long fingers around her chin – which he inclined, prompting a closer examination.

"And if I say no?"

Freya's brow momentarily collapsed with irritation. But then it smoothed, much too quickly for his comfort. Lucifer waited, his own eyebrows lifting with curiosity.

She bristled, eager for the closer proximity his gesture had brought them. "Then I'll just have to go to one of your brothers."

Meanwhile, Lucifer stilled at her words. He went absolutely rigid, and Freya assumed he was pondering the mental image of what she'd just suggested. She also assumed that he loathed the unholy landscape of hypothetical events which arose in his mind's eye. In fact, she was counting on it.

"Who could you possibly go to?" he questioned, his curled fingers steady upon her jaw. "The wrong demon will end up dislocating every single one of your joints."

A grimace tried to find its way on to her mouth, but Freya pushed it back down. It wouldn't do to lose the game now.

She didn't have to think. The choice was obvious. "Satan."

Judging by his smirk, Lucifer also seemed to have guessed this. "He would refuse you."

"At first, maybe," Freya conceded, shrugging her shoulders a little. The thick, solid rope jiggled in her arms from the movement.

"His protests never amount to much in the end. I can be pretty persuasive when I need to be," she continued, almost comically waggling her eyebrows at him.

Lucifer remained quiet.

"Although, I would prefer not to need to be persuasive," she sighed, flicking her eyes away from him. "It's just too much work–"

She was suddenly knocked off balance as Lucifer ripped the rope from her completely, coiling it around a wrist before shooting her a dirty, agitated glare, each crimson eye burning with annoyance.

"You're spending far too much time with Mammon," he nearly growled, hastily running his free hand through his hair.

Freya waited patiently while Lucifer exhaled through his nose, expelling the rigidity their conversation had clearly afflicted upon him. And, he wasn't wrong in any sense of the word.

She spent many an evening with Mammon, dashing around the Devildom in pursuit of material opportunities… and sometimes even away from those who would catch them red-handed.

Not that Lucifer needed to know this, of course. She knew that he suspected her of all the antics she certainly did commit, but she also knew she often got a free pass because of the nature of their relationship. Mammon, on the other hand, was not so lucky.

Lucifer's hand flexed around the width of the rope, and Freya's eyes widened at the reaction this brought her.

Lucifer – holding rope – in his bedroom – his strong, lean arm gripping it not unlike a concealed weapon –

A wave of heat flashed down her limbs, but Freya ignored it. Barely. As tempting as it was, this was not the time. She already had an itinerary for the night.

And then he was striding forward, further winding the rope around his forearm in fluid, practiced movements. In all of the thousands of years they've lived, how many times has he used this method against his brothers? How were they disciplined in the Celestial Realm before falling? Surely this wasn't done during that era, right?

Her fixed stare betrayed the knot of longing which still lingered in the confines of her belly. It was difficult to mask her thoughts from Lucifer on a good day, but he'd seen the craving in her face, the acceleration of her lashes as she blinked.

When he grinned, the white expanse of his teeth glimmering with the last, gasping breaths of the room's fireplace, Freya capitulated to her body's desire for him in its totality. The circumstance never mattered. She would always want him more than anything else the universe had to offer.

Fucking demon.

"Don't get cocky," she muttered, rolling her eyes at the sheer triumph written all over his face. Lucifer lifted his free hand, a white flag, yet the remains of victory still swirled in the very depths of his eyes.

He paused when they were chest to chest, Freya staring at him with unabashed glee. Bringing both wrists together, she offered them, excitement etched into every corner along her brow and mouth. Lucifer took one look at her hands and shook his head.

"Like I said. Choose the wrong demon and you'll lose the use of your limbs."

The room momentarily spun in with frightening speed as Freya was directed to face away from him, his hand still lingering on a shoulder after spinning her 'round. A yelp sounded off in the quiety, velvet blackness of Lucifer's bedroom, though the noise was promptly cut off by the sudden presence of his lips hovering near her ear. She froze at once, her entire body holding its breath.

"At the very least, I suppose you did have enough common sense to come to me first," he murmured, just low enough so she had to strain to hear.

Freya commanded herself to keep it together, to not sink under the inky depths of his voice, but then he braced a forearm roughly across her chest and yanked her backwards. The heat of his body colliding with her shoulder blades was an explosion in the night.

Perhaps it was useless. She'd gotten what she came for, so in a sense, she was the true victor. However, it was just like Lucifer to finesse a win of his own, regardless if he'd already accepted defeat for something else already.

That was the true nature of their game, with each party — no matter how vicious or long the quarrel — always somehow in perfect and equal balance with the other. Maybe that was even why they'd fallen in love in the first place. For they needed this, and who else could provide this sacred dance that they'd performed over and over?

Freya grinned, exhaling heavily. She leaned her head back against his chest, the long tresses of her onyx hair grazing the bit of sternum left exposed by his button-down.

"Guess that's how you know I love you the most," she says. "You're the first one I'd entrust the safety of my limbs to."

The cool, sweet scent of Lucifer's breath fanned out across the expanse of Freya's cheek as he chuckled. "It's the thought of you trusting it to any other demon in the first place which concerns me."

"Few are as experienced as I." He let the double entendre linger in the air, brushing his lips over Freya's neck in the meantime.

Freya giggled. "Would you be jea-lous?" she sang. "Would you punish me for going to someone else?"

She could feel Lucifer's teeth abruptly graze an exposed collarbone. He must've smiled.

"Jealous?" he crooned. "Whatever would I be jealous for?" Lucifer slipped his free hand along the width of Freya's hip-bone, using each finger to skim underneath her knit sweater.

"How many more times must I make it clear? There's no need for jealousy when we all know just who you belong to."

Freya arched a little, exposing more of her bare stomach for Lucifer's hand to explore. She couldn't help but laugh while doing so. This was another one of their games… a much more primal, aimless romp. Not exactly timely, as he was still in the middle of paperwork. Then again, she had brought the rope – and every euphemism in the book – to him.

"So, you're saying you're only concerned about the state of my physical well-being?" she pouted, exhaling dramatically through her nose. "And not that I'd find someone else if you'd refused me?"

"That's correct."

The trail his fingers left along her skin felt charged with magic. A more natural kind, perhaps. Nevertheless, his raven hair spilled onto hers as she felt Lucifer draw her in even closer. His heartbeat betrayed him – Freya could feel it beneath their shirts and the pace it began to set was downright frantic. She grinned in another, unspoken victory.

Still, Lucifer pretended otherwise. He lifted his hand, drawing a straight line from her navel until it lingered along the length of her sternum. She was sure her own heart beat out of control, though she wasn't insisting upon her own stubbornness to begin with. He'd already lost this battle, and so she'd permit the demon this minute restitution.

The pathway of inferno continued to rage on; Lucifer drew another line with each fingertip until they landed atop her pulse, on the carotid. She'd been right. The oscillation of the pressure point throbbed against his touch. It pounded so hard even she could feel it, and she supposed that this would be enough to satiate his initial defeat.

Lucifer affirmed this by planting one, last kiss, just under the hollow of an ear. "Now, then…"

"Yeah! Hurry it up, would you?"

Freya craned her neck, checking to see if Lucifer grinned at her persistent insolence. His crimson, blood-hued eyes flick to hers, and she was delighted to know that she was right. His face was ablaze with joy, and despite the lines of fatigue rimming his eyes and nose, he looked happy. Even though she'd come to him with another ridiculous request.

The glee in his gaze softened. She'd spent too long peering at him, she realized, giving herself away again. "Ready?" he asked. "Hold still, and keep your arms tight by your sides."

She did as he commanded. "How long can I dangle before I get a stroke, anyway?"

Lucifer shifted, dropping to his knees behind her. "Don't worry about that. I'll leave you up for a while, but I won't let you hang so long that you get sick."

Oh? How magnanimous. Freya heard the musical tinkle of another laugh pervade the air. One loop of the rope snaked around her ankles, and she froze in place, making herself a statue he could lasso.

She sighed, observing the rough texture of the twine upon her legs. Lucifer pulled the rope taut, encasing her like a braided, cable-covered butterfly. She jolted slightly with each dexterous yank, noting how Lucifer seemed to expertly intuit how tightly the rope needed to be versus how easily she could breathe. Experienced, indeed.

Freya's attention tracked Lucifer as he slowly made his way up her body. "What will you be doing in the meantime?"

"What else?" Lucifer met her gaze once more, winking. "Finishing the paperwork you interrupted."

Right. The urge to roll her eyes arose once more, and Freya succumbed to this particular impulse. "My apologies, then, for constantly taking you away from your precious work."

Suddenly, it became hard to breathe. And not because the rope squeezed tight. She paused, catching herself in the reflection of his eyes.

Somehow, he was nearer than before, their bodies flush, and Lucifer closed the distance between them. He skimmed his nose along hers, voice low and seductive.

"You're always welcome to take me away from my work."

And then he was on his heels, refocusing his efforts on making sure the rope appropriately restrained her.

"Well… mostly."

Freya's subsequent giggle rippled through her chest. "I know, I know. Diavolo only lets you play with me after you finish your chores." Her heterochromic eyes twinkled in the room's lowlight.

"Daddy can be so mean sometimes."

The flash in his eyes wasn't lost on her, and Freya bit her lip in an effort to keep from laughing.

"Never," he murmured, the mirth and darkness on his expression warring equally, "Call him that again."

Air filled each of her cheeks with the effort, blowing them up like a squirrel too stuffed with food.

"Ever."

She grinned. Perhaps it'd be best if she shut up for the remainder of the time it took to bind her. After all, there was only so much she could push her lover before he inevitably snapped. He was petty when angry, and actively refused her requests because he thought it was funny to act spiteful.

If she kept teasing him like this, he'd never string her up and she really would have to risk losing life and limb when going to someone else.

Fine. She'd be quiet.

There were a great deal of things she wanted to say in response, but she did not allow any of the retorts to willfully leave her mouth. Instead, she made a show of swallowing them down, tilting her chin and head up as if each blasphemous remark sank back down into her treacherous belly.

Freya tempered her impish grin, leveling the expression until it transformed into something a little sweeter. Even in its artifice.

She winked at Lucifer, reveling in the steely, resolute glare he gave her. Oh, the temptation, but…

"Yes, honey."


For the first time in what was perhaps days, Lucifer's bedroom was a complete, lush oasis of silence. Absolutely no audible sound — besides the scratch of pen on paper and the papery gasp each gave when flipped over — infected the space. This was a highly uncommon occurrence in the House of Lamentation. In fact, it was unprecedented.

It was also, in fact, doomed, and destined to be shredded at the slightest, most ridiculous, absurd inconvenience—

The door exploded, cracking open with a violent THUD! against the wall. Lucifer's hand froze mid-air, a long, slender bird fixed and curved gracefully despite its lack of completed motion.

A long, tired sigh seeped out of his throat. Every inch of his bedroom was spelled and warded with the strongest magic known and unforbidden by Diavolo's explicit instructions. No demon in the Devildom could contest his power besides the future Demon King and his butler—

With the very exception of his persistent and audacious younger brother.

Who apparently had a death wish.

Satan's hair immediately ignited in the throes of the fireplace's parting words, irradiating its tousled strands and alchemizing them into pure gold. He strode into the room confidently, his shoulders straight and soft, obviously devoid of any doubt associated with such a risky intrusion.

Only Satan was ever clever enough to concoct anti-curses to counter his oldest brother's magical protections. It wasn't that he was stronger than Lucifer, but he was indeed intelligent and resourceful. And fueled by an abyss of rage so hot, it rivaled even his own.

It was late. Lucifer was tired. There was little to muster other than a brief frown.

"What could you possibly want at this hour, Satan?"

Satan continued to shuffle closer to the abyssal desk Lucifer sat perched over. His own expression was mild, though there was a slight tension to the tips of each eyebrow, drawing them low towards the bridge of his nose.

"I—"

And it is then that a minute, nearly imperceptible movement at the peripheral of his eye stopped him from whatever he was about to say next.

Satan cast his gaze up, towards the bedroom's most central chandelier — a glorious, ominously pointed and intricate thing. He went rigid, his jaw first flexing before cracking open in shock.

"Freya…?"

But Freya, a butterfly wrapped in a rope-y cocoon, merely grinned down at the demon, her face flushed with the rush of blood pooling at her neck. "Hey, hot stuff!"

There was a moment of absolute silence before black strands of aura violently gathered around the silhouette of Satan's body.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, his usual honeyed voice much more dark. He spoke this to Lucifer, who had gone back to the mound of paperwork before him. Satan's eyes narrowed dangerously, his upper lip beginning to curl in a snarl.

But it is Lucifer's response which freezes him in place.

"Don't bother. She asked me to. Well..." and a slight quirk of his mouth betrayed him, "She rather demanded it."

There was another moment of absolute silence, and then Satan was turning back to Freya, his face still contorted in anger, though the inky, twisted cloud of darkness around him winked out of existence.

His face, inclined and taut, was a mask of caramel in the hazy, dying lowlight.

Satan's voice was flat.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Freya's breathless laugh came spilling down around the two demons. "So, so much."

"Indeed," Lucifer interjected from his place at the desk. He did not look up to meet her joyful gaze. "Freya suffers from a deep, bottomless well of psychological turmoil, and I am afraid that the Devildom has only furthered this insanity."

"Mm, indeed," Freya crooned in a mock-rendition of the demon's voice. She waits for the imminent glare, the scowl of disapproval she was so talented at eliciting, but Lucifer only smirked, determined to give no more than what he'd already had. Freya stuck her tongue out in response.

Satan eyed this exchange warily, all traces of animation on his face absent – though, his eyes never strayed from Freya's lanky form and the way it swayed just the tiniest measure from side to side.

"Don't bother telling me to get down," Freya called, her subsequent giggle a tinkle of silver in the dim room. "I'm committed to see how long it takes before I get a strok–"

"You will get no such thing."

Lucifer's voice was a quiet whip in the darkness. Freya scowled, her jest silenced by his interruption.

"You're free to leave, Satan. I intend to cut her down soon enough."

"Don't you dare!"

Satan continued to look absolutely perplexed. His emerald gaze roamed over Freya's face, searching, it seems, for any minute amount of self-preservation.

After finding none of the sort, however, his brows crumpled in irritation and he cast his eyes to his older brother.

"See that you do."

And without another word, he strode from the bedroom entirely, the large, smooth door clicking shut.

There was a brief moment of quiet, and then Lucifer and Freya exchanged another glance.

"Is this really that insane of an idea?" Freya asked, voice wondering and dubious.

Lucifer sighed, and even the exhale seemed to come from the bottomless depths of the Devildom itself.

"I cannot believe that I'm in love with you."