"Be a dear, Mazikeen, and pour me another."
Lux is closed for the day, shuttered windows letting slivers of daylight pass through. The man at the empty bar is neither tall nor short, neither dark nor particularly light in coloring, and approaching very rapidly an advanced state of intoxication.
The woman who takes his glass wears the same sleek, low-cut dress from the previous long night of tending bar. The pronged metal article she wears around her neck is a repurposed instrument of torture, but it serves equally well as fashion.
"You're exceptionally drunk, Lucifer," she says, but pours him another anyway.
The fallen angel's eyes follow her hands. "This never would have happened before. Couldn't've."
"Exactly. Benefits of mortality, my ass," Mazikeen sneers. "Even you can hardly say that this is an exciting experience."
Lucifer regards his glass somberly. "The first couple of times, perhaps it was. Inebriation really is… interesting. Now it does seem a bit stupid. But I wasn't talking about this mortality lark. Do you remember before, Mazikeen? Before before?"
Mazikeen leans on her elbows. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember."
"I'm supposed to be all about free will, for crying out loud. I'm the rebel, the Devil, the fuck-the-grand-scheme son. Back in the day, I created a whole universe! I pissed Yahweh off so much he quit and left his granddaughter to run the show! And now look at me. Look at us all, worse than where we'd started. Is my father's name even still Yahweh? Is Michael still off fathering freaks with wings? What, if you'll excuse me, the Hell has happened to us?"
His companion rolls her eyes. "Television happened, Boss."
Lucifer slams his glass down. "I thought, at the end of the Mike Carey run, I was free to go. I was literally flying alone on a blank page. That man, I liked. Him and Gaiman. Under them, okay, I wasn't truly free either, but at least I got things done. And Carey let me go at the end of it. What do I have now? Sex, sure, a sense of humor, and the life of Lord Peter Wimsey?"
"Uh-huh," Mazikeen says dryly, confiscating the glass. Her boss looks at it longingly.
"You still look something like your old self," he says miserably. "Half of your face, at least. I could be any person who owns a fairly tasteless club. I miss my white suits. I miss fire and brimstone."
The street shudders muffledly outside as the cars go by and the former Lord of Hell wishes he still looked like David Bowie.
"And apparently, I had you cut off my wings again when I left Hell this time," he starts up again, pointing a finger at Mazikeen. "Guess Morpheus wasn't available. What was I thinking?"
Mazikeen clicks her tongue. "Pretty damn sad, losing them a second time, huh?" she says, not looking too sorry.
"You're so impertinent these days, Mazikeen." Lucifer looks thoughtful. "You used to kiss me with such fire. I miss loving you."
Mazikeen can't suppress the jerk backward her boss's comment provokes. "You left me. You foisted your responsibilities on me and opened a door in Creation so you could fly away. You closed the door behind you."
Lucifer frowns. "That wasn't me. Not the current me. That's quite interesting. Am I no longer independent? Have I changed so?"
"So you didn't regret leaving when you were the old you?" Mazikeen asks belligerently.
"Oh, Mazikeen. I regretted it plenty, I assure you. But I wanted to go forward and I couldn't do that within the boundaries of Creation," Lucifer says, eyes locked to Mazikeen's as he reaches a hand toward hers, resting gently on the edge of the bar.
Their hands meet for a second or two. Even at the skin level, they're both warmer than any true mortals would be. Then Lucifer and Mazikeen remove their hands at the same time.
"That's weird," the ex-Lord of Hell murmurs sadly. "I suppose we're not like that anymore."
Coffee-colored eyes gaze, hopelessly without love, at the woman on the other side of the bar. Before, those same eyes, the Morningstar's eyes, had been full of fire. They'd been the color of the suns he'd shaped with his own hands in the dawn of the first Creation. His hair had been flame, his wings had been whole, and the force of his presence had been enough to destroy the more fragile realms. Hell itself had coalesced around him as a result of his fall. The inebriated man sitting on the bar stool doesn't quite measure up, but he's the same fallen angel, notwithstanding.
His fingers play invisible keys as he looks around the room, larger and emptier than it is during the night hours. He changes the subject. "Amenadiel got the best deal, I think."
Mazikeen narrows her eyes.
"Resurrection, and do you remember what he used to look like? Face like an arse, and not even like my arse. Think the unholy offspring of Jack Black's arse and the Grumpy Cat."
Mazikeen's mouth twitches. "I remember."
"Do you think he remembers me eating his heart?"
"Maybe, Boss."
"You used to call me 'My Lord'."
"That was a long time ago."
Lucifer grabs a bottle left on the bar top. "Yes, it was, wasn't it. Still, he really did get the best renewal. I mean, I was practically perfect already, yet all I got to keep was my name and my accent."
Mazikeen comes to Lucifer's side of the bar and sits beside him. "You have your memories. You haven't lost those."
They sit in companionable silence, not lovers anymore—that time is long past—but maybe partners in a shared remembrance.
"Before, I would never have been this pathetic," Lucifer spits suddenly, glaring at the wall.
The demoness searches his face carefully. "You're not pathetic, you're different. As much as it pains me to say it, change isn't always terrible. And there's no point in dwelling on your past. There's only one way to go, and you need to take it."
Lucifer turns his head slowly. "Should I ask which way that is?"
"Forward."
Los Angeles is the city of angels, of new beginnings, of bright lights and gang fights, of violent spectacles and spectacular violence. There are millions of rapidly cycling souls living beautiful lives and being killed. And there is a club, once a modest piano bar, once a towering cathedral guarding the gateway to another universe, still called Lux. Inside the club there is a bar, and there, where a toast is being raised to the future, there is an angel who isn't quite done falling, but who will fly again, whether Yahweh or his writers will it or not.
A/N:
Oh man, this Mazikeen could work Ten Forward of the starship Enterprise-D.
I first met Lucifer in the pages of Neil Gaiman's graphic novel series The Sandman, and subsequently read his eponymous solo series written by Mike Carey. I've watched some of the television show's episodes, and there are some quite significant differences between that and the works from which it was derived. I take no particular issue with this new version, though there are some changes that I wouldn't personally have made, which I've basically used this fic to skim over.
There are many other incarnations of Lucifer, even within the DC/Vertigo universes, but the two I have used (the Sandman-derived and the Fox television versions) are most closely related (and the former is the version that I am the most familiar with). There is also a Lucifer graphic novel series reboot, currently being written by Holly Black, that is intended to be a continuation of the original Mike Carey series, but that hasn't been worked into this fic because in our universe its publication coincides with the television run and that is just too complicated for me.