Before he even opened his eyes, Lucifer felt sick.

It was a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time, and the memories that came in tow with it stabbed at him just as painfully as his wounds did.

Lucifer tried to push them aside, to slip back into the darkness of slumber and stay there for the next few centuries, but the harder he tried the harder pain pushed back, jarring him further into reality.

With a small groan he pried his eyes open a little, grateful to find that it was mostly dark around. A soft silvery light wafted in through a window above his head, and the rest of the small room was left to the shadows.

Where was he?

Lucifer made to sit up, and he hadn't even gotten his head off the floor when pain hit him from all sides. He closed his eyes again with an involuntary whimper, practically trembling as every muscle in his body decided to burn at once.

Everything hurt and it was making him numb, unable to pinpoint any one injury and unable to think straight and he just wanted to sleep but some part of his brain was screaming that he could be in danger, that he needed to at least assure of his surroundings.

Naturally, it was in that moment that he remembered the last thing he'd seen before the darkness had consumed him - Satan himself leaning over him, demon general Alciel hovering to the side.

With a strangled gasp Lucifer jerked upright, but that was as far as he got.

His body rebelled with spikes of white hot pain and he dropped sideways, choking for air as he fought desperately to stay conscious with all the power he had left.

Suddenly he wasn't alone anymore; there was a hand cradling his head, another on his shoulder and a voice in his ear, and Lucifer felt himself being scooted across the floor but there was nothing he could do to protest.

Voices. One worried. One annoyed. Both familiar.

Lucifer struggled for breath as he strained to make out the words of what sounded like an argument…

"If you're so worried about him, can't we just go dump him at the nearest hospital and be done with it?"

"Oh, sure," Maou (very maturely) used his best 'Ashiya voice' in reply. "Let's go drop the beat-up fallen angel at a human hospital, I'm sure there won't be any problems."

"My lord, I'm just saying-"

"Look, Ashiya," Mou said. "I'm tired. You're tired. But we aren't going to fix this by dumping him on some clueless humans. He's more or less our problem."

"He tried to kill us, sire!" Ashiya cried. "Maybe now you feel sorry for him, but as he heals he could kill us in our sleep!"

"He was trying to kill us because it would get him back into heaven." Maou reminded. "Now that deal is gone. And, I saved him some leftovers! You can't want to kill people who share food!"

Ashiya sighed. "I fear not everyone would agree on that front, my lord."

"Free food, Ashiya!" Maou said. "Free. Food."

Ashiya looked to the wounded former-angel that Maou had tugged into his lap. Lucifer had gone limp once more, his desperate wheezing settled back to drawing in scratchy breaths through swollen, parted lips. "You should go back to sleep sire. You do have work in the morning."

Maou shrugged and held back Lucifer's long bangs to look at his face. "We don't have any pain meds left from when you were sick a few weeks ago, do we?"

Ashiya sighed. "You asked that before we went to bed, my lord. And none have appeared in the last…" He glanced out the window, trying to determine the time from the moon's placement. "Five hours?"

Maou frowned. "Before I leave in the morning, I want you to go down to the store and get some. We should have enough money on the side."

Ashiya rolled his eyes, but he was tired and he knew there would be no changing his sire's mind. "Fine. Can we go back to sleep now?"

Maou nodded and gently lifted Lucifer's head out of his lap and lay him back on the floor. He arranged his own blanket around the limp body with uncharacteristically soft movements and then curled himself on the floor beside the fallen angel, a little too closely for Ashiya's confort.

Internally the demon general consoled himself that Lucifer couldn't possibly attack Maou in his current state, and after a moment Ashiya lay down again and closed his eyes. Not even sixty seconds later both he and Maou were asleep again.