A man named Jeffrey sat at the bar that night. He was there alone, not because he was friendless, but simply because he needed some time to himself. Between work and classes, he was feeling a bit stretched, and had felt a night out alone at a bar would help to ease his mind. He had chosen the Hookah Bar, as it was a cheery enough environment that did not force one to be social. He was having a nice time, in all honesty, but the bartender was a bit of a dick.

Brown eyes glanced up from over his glass of shocktop beer and landed on the grump behind the bar. He was tall, tan and covered in tattoo, with slicked back black hair. It seemed a permanent frown marred his face, but every once in a while, his expression would grow soft as Natalie passed.

He must be sweet on her, he thought with a snort. He had met Natalie a year ago upon his first visit to the bar and she had made sure to catch up with him every return visit. That's what he liked about the Hookah Bar the most, they welcomed everyone back like a good friend, but didn't push for information on how they were doing like close friends or family would. It was a good balance. Nathan was the usual bartender and was quite good at engaging with those at the bar, so Jeffrey had no clue why they would replace him with the intimidating man that stood before him now. It seemed he had a soft spot for Natalie, at least, so he couldn't be too bad.

He stood now, wiping out a glass with a rag, eyes shut against the sound of the chattering crowd.

Jeffrey swirled his drink thoughtfully. He poured the perfect glass of beer, at least. He did not know what prompted him to open his mouth. Maybe he did want to be a little social that night after all, but he found himself taking a breath before he asked, "When did you start working here?"

"Two days ago," he answered curtly, continuing to wipe the glass.

"True," Jeffrey responded thoughtlessly and set his glass down, "You Natalie's boyfriend or something?"

The wash rag paused and yellow eyes landed on him with an utterly bored but challenging stare, "What's it to you?" he drawled.

Jeffrey shrugged, not wanting to show an ounce of intimidation, "You smile every time she walks by, just wondering."

The hint of a blush blossomed across his high cheekbones and he looked away with a hum, "You could say that."

Jeffrey snorted in good humor, "You guys are perfect together." The bartender quirked a questioning brow in his direction and Jeffrey shrugged, "She's little and sweet, you're big and mean, it works."

The bartender let out a bark of a laugh at that, "She'd tell you otherwise."

"I'm sure," Jeffrey responded in kind with a laugh. "She could talk terrorists into tea."

"And more," he added quietly and set the glass down to pick up the next to be dried.

Jeffrey wasn't sure what he meant by that but he took a sip of his beer to fill the following silence as someone claimed the seat next to him. A woman with long black hair and a sickeningly thin frame, wearing a tight dress to show off said frame, set her purse down at the bar and drummed her fingers against the polished wood.

The bar tender seemed to refuse to acknowledge her existence.

She cleared her throat.

His eyes opened to give her a good long look before he refocused on the glass in his hands. "What do you want?" he asked rather rudely.

The woman scoffed but wore a teasing grin, "A glass of wine is what I want."

"You're bad for business, go somewhere else for your wine, and leave me be," he responded irritably and set the glass down to pick up another.

Jeffrey cringed, wondering how he could feel so comfortable in turning away a customer who had just sat down and done nothing wrong, as far as he could tell.

"That is rather harsh, Lucifer, I only came to say hello," she shot back in a quiet but comedic tone.

"You aren't one for pleasantries," he shot back with a straight face, yet to grace her with so much as eye contact.

"Leave," he commanded curtly and threw the rag onto the counter behind the bar, "I'm tired of you and Pestilence's manipulating ways."

"He's so mean," the woman turned to Jeffrey as if in search of support.

Jeffrey looked rather like a deer in headlights and did not know how to respond without taking sides, but had she just called the bartender Lucifer?

"No." Lucifer deadpanned, "Don't pull others into this. Leave before I sick Natalie on you."

The woman paused and scowled before glancing about in search of the strawberry blonde in question. "I just want to talk," she muttered with a pout.

Lucifer heaved a sigh and lifted his eyes to the ceiling before crossing his arms, "About?"

"Your brother," she said simply and rested her chin on intertwined fingers with a smirk.

"For the love of-," he grouched, "Which brother?"

"Michael."

Lucifer froze, leveling her with a contempt look, "If you are trying to pull something I'll snap your neck without hesitation."

Jeffrey dropped his eyes to the glass before him with tense shoulders. Ah, he realized too late, that the man before him was Satan himself. It was rather strange, never had he thought the Devil would serve him a drink, but in the new age anything could happen. To be fair though, it had been rumored that both he his closest brother had perished in the apocalypse.

"I would never-," she began but fell silent when met with his glower, before she continued, "anyways, I heard rumor that he was in Alaska."

"What?" Lucifer questioned irritably and braced is hands against the bar as frustration bloomed to life in his chest and limbs.

"Yes, they say he's completely retreated within himself and refuses to speak with anyone now. They say he's broken," the woman whispered over the bar, causing Jeffrey to lean over, ever so slightly to catch what she was saying.

"Who are 'they'?" Lucifer asked darkly. His eyes never left hers.

"My informants remain anonymous, always," she said and leaned back in the bar stool with crossed arms. She would say no more, it had seemed.

"Great," Lucifer shot back sarcastically, "Thank you for the tip, now go!"

"Hey, hey, hey," Natalie's voice broke the tension as she joined Lucifer behind the bar, resting a calming hand on his arm, and glanced over at the woman curiously. "No need to take that tone here," she chastised him gently but turned to face the woman with a quirked brow, "And you . . ." she began while the woman uncrossed her arms with a shamefaced expression. "You know better, I told you not to come in here during business hours. If you want your wine that badly, you can visit me at home," she lectured.

"My apologies," the woman mumbled before pushing herself off the bar stool and grabbing her bag. "I'll see you guys around," she added cheekily before departing.

"I can't stand that woman," Lucifer growled and watched as she left.

"Meh," Natalie shrugged, "She's just starved for attention." She elbowed him with raised brows, attempting to get a laugh out of him.

Lucifer stared down at her before he thumbed towards the door, "You get out too."

"Oh, come on, that was so good!"

"No, it was bad, and you know it," Lucifer muttered as he pushed her out of the way to reach for a rack of glasses under the bar.

Jeffrey chose to leave then, a bit in shock at the revelation that Natalie was dating Satan.


Lucifer dreamt that night. It wasn't his first time dreaming but it was the first time he had dreamt since he had fallen. With Hell inside of him, he no longer had the ability to sleep, for if he did close his eyes to rest, the damned within him would threaten to take control. He had learned to not give in to his body's exhaustion. But now that everything was over, and he had finally returned to Natalie, he had allowed himself to truly rest.

He dreamt of blood and searing pain. He dreamt of the feel of Michael's hands, gripping his wings, and his foot on his back. Bone shattered and joints were pulled apart as flesh split and blood flowed. And it all pooled beneath him, sticky and red, and threatened to swallow him up as it rose up to his hips. He was going to drowned in it, just as the souls within him had, he was never more certain of anything in his life. It poured forth from his own wounds and filled the void that was his mind with so much red. His heart pounded within his chest and it hurt, it beat against his rib cage, desperate to break free from the evil inside.

"You've always been a monster."

He spun about, blood sloshing at the movement, in search of the source of the voice in the darkness. Eyes opened all around him, glowering down at him like hungry beasts, ready for their first meal in a millennia. They glowed with malice and he felt them move in, like wolves drawn by the smell of blood, and he couldn't breathe.

"How could you?"

He looked down and it was the face of his brother, Michael, staring up at him from the pool of blood. It wore an expression of disgust and betrayal as a sickly and skeletal arm reached out and grabbed his throat in a vicelike grip. The thing wearing Michael's face struggled to pull itself out of the blood using Lucifer, it climbed up despite his struggling, and revealed an emaciated body with rotting flesh and broken bones. Once it had perched itself upon his shoulders the beautiful blue wings, now stained and weighed down with the blood of Lucifer, seemed to give up their hold on the things back. They let out a sickening squelch as, one by one, they fell back into the pool at Lucifer's chest.

Lucifer stared at them, wide eyed, and shook his head. He lifted his arms out of the blood, backpedaling to get away from the wings as they rotted away and sunk beneath the surface before his eyes. "Why are you doing this?" he babbled and tried to push the thing off of his shoulders.

"You took everything from me," it whispered and reached for Lucifer's back with a grubby and clawing hand. It plunged its fingers into the open wounds where his wings had once been, poking and prodding in search of something.

"I have nothing left to give," Lucifer cried as the fingers dug at the muscle and flesh, searching for what he could only assume were more wings.

"Nothing?" it asked in confusion.

"I've given up all I had," he answered stoically. He was doing all he could to fight the desperation and frustration that was swelling up within his chest. To fight the pain as his flesh was ripped asunder again and brutalized.

"No," it whispered, "You haven't. You're still alive . . . and so is she."

"No!" Lucifer cried as he reached up to pull the thing from his shoulders, but he found nothing there. His eyes glowing brightly in the dark bedroom, revealed that he was no longer trapped in the nightmare, and dropped shaking hands into his lap. He had sat up in bed in his haste to escape. He gasped for breath, his chest heaving, and could not shake the feeling that he was still deep within a pool of blood, the weight crushing him and threatening to pull him under.

"What happened?" Natalie sat up and mumbled while rubbing at her eyes.

Lucifer turned his eyes to her, stunned by the night terror, for it couldn't have been anything else. He reached back with one arm to feel at the scars where his wings had once been and found them bleeding anew. The wounds had not been open in six years, yet fresh blood dripped from his fingers as he pulled them away to examine them.

"I. . .," he attempted to speak but no words came. He did not know how to explain what had just happened, or how, for that matter. "I don't know," he muttered and dropped his head into his hands. Had he not had enough punishment? Was carrying Hell itself within him not enough? No, he guessed not, as Heaven had fallen thanks to him. Anything he got, he realized, he well deserved.

The dream did not scare him, as he had witnessed far more gruesome things in his long life and had even been the cause of most of them, but the thing had worn his brother's face and wings. And it had mentioned Natalie. And nothing could touch Natalie. He would not allow it.

"You're bleeding," Natalie observed through a tired haze that was quickly retreating.

"It's fine," he assured her and threw the covers back to push himself out of bed. "I'll clean up," he continued absently, his mind still racing with the meaning behind the dream.

"We need to change the sheets," she added and crawled out of bed herself to pull the stained sheets off the mattress.

Lucifer grunted and padded to the bathroom, wiping sweat from his brow, and peered at his reflection in the mirror. Horns had grown from his forehead and his ears drooped with exhaustion. Knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the porcelain sink. He needed to find Michael. Famine had said he was in Alaska, hidden away from everyone, but the dream had left a nasty taste in the back of his throat. He dared not even think of what it meant.

He jumped when he felt a cold cloth touch his back, and glanced back over his shoulder to see Natalie, she smiled up at him as she wiped away the excess blood from his back.

"Go back to sleep," Lucifer muttered tiredly but allowed her to continue her work, "Don't you have work tomorrow?"

Natalie shrugged as she moved around him to rinse the washcloth out in the sink and ring it dry again, "It's not that hard of a job."

"It's hard enough," he countered with a snort and turned to take the washcloth from her hands.

Natalie pouted but crouched to pull a first aid kit from under the sink, "I will once we get you patched up."

Lucifer let out a suffering sigh but turned back around to let her wipe the wounds with an alcohol swab and slap some bandages over them. She was not too gentle, but that was his fault for irritating her, he supposed. He winced as she literally slapped one final bandage over his back before she pushed the kit back under the sink and dragged him to bed.

They faced each other under the blankets, both lost in their own thoughts, but their eyes never leaving the other. It had been so long since the End of Days, it sometimes felt unreal that they had found each other again, and they needed a moment to take it in.

"What was your dream about?" Natalie finally asked, feeling the need to whisper in the hush of night, now that they had shut the lights off and crawled back into bed.

Lucifer took a moment to answer, searching her eyes, unsure if he wanted to tell her. But the confident and caring way she watched him, seeming to search his very soul, assured him that all would be well if he did. "It was about Michael . . . I think," he mumbled and rubbed at his face frustratingly. Her brow quirked knowingly and he sighed, of course she would want further details. "I don't remember it clearly but I was in hell, all the souls were there and waiting to pounce on me, and my wings-," his jaw tensed as a flash of pain ripped through his back at even the mention of them. "Michael had just ripped them out, and there was blood, so much of it, I thought I was going to drown. And he wanted more. But I had nothing left to give. His wings fell. And then I woke up,"

"I'm so sorry you went through that," she whispered and reached out to grasp his hand in her own. "Were you scared?" she asked.

"Ha," Lucifer let out a short laugh and grinned at her, "I'm the Devil, girl, not much truly scares me." He fell silent for a moment and looked at their intertwined hands before tightening his grips on her fingers and saying, "Still, I was distraught, because I wanted to help him and finally set things right. I felt trapped and like the only way I could truly atone was to die . . ."

Natalie tightened her fingers in return and bit her lip, wishing she could do more to help him work through the emotions he was feeling.

"But I can't do that," he stated simply with a dramatic sigh of longing. He flopped onto his back but turned his face towards her with a smirk, "I have you now to look after."

Natalie snickered triumphantly and patted his hand, "We'll think of something. You said he was in Alaska?" She watched as he nodded once and she hummed in thought, "Then I guess we need to take a road trip."

"Oh no," Lucifer said with a snort, "We'll fly, I'm not sitting in a car for two days."

Natalie pouted but smiled soon after, "Fair enough."