Amenadiel gravitated toward the bar, looking a bit nervous.

"So how was Dad?" Lucifer asked, oblivious to the fact that Amenadiel had begun tapping his fingers against the bar, not speaking.

Lucifer made his way behind his personal bar, reaching for a bottle of single malt whisky. He laid out three glasses and poured the amber liquid with expertise. He pushed one across the bar to Amenadiel who gratefully took it. He picked the other two up, offering one to Eric.

Eric gave him a tight-lipped awkward smile and shook his head.

Lucifer froze, a look of embarrassment crossing his face. "Ah, right. Of course. I do apologize, Viking." He took the first glass and downed it immediately, probably trying to recover from the faux-pas he'd just made with his vampire boyfriend. His eyes flickered across his wall of alcohol and he looked visibly upset. "I'm afraid I've yet to have time to stock the place with Tru Blood."

"I'd rather you didn't," Eric replied. "That's not the drink I'd accept if you were offering." Lucifer smiled at that as he placed the empty glass on the bar and swirled the second one in his hand. "And if I'm desperate, there are plenty of options downstairs, I suspect." Eric gave both of the other men a toothy grin.

Amenadiel wasn't in the mood to chuckle at vampiric jokes. Instead, he was staring into the glass at the scotch that Lucifer had grandly given him. Lucifer leaned against his side of the bar, finally realizing his brother wasn't talking, and certainly not talking over him like he usually did. "Brother, was father there?" he asked.

Amenadiel looked up from his drink, eyes serious as he focused on his brother. "No, Luci. He wasn't."

Lucifer paused, glass halfway to his lips, but was quick to recover. He took a small sip before finally come back around the bar, walking further into his apartment toward the couches. "I told you he was missing," he said.

"You did," Amenadiel agreed, following Lucifer to sit down on a couch with his drink in hand. "I hadn't really believed he was missing."

Lucifer glanced at Amenadiel, affront in his eyes. He sat down on the opposite couch.

Amenadiel waved a hand at him, pausing to take a sip of the scotch. "I don't mean that I didn't believe you. I just thought our siblings were hiding Dad from you when you actually stopped by in the Silver City to inquire about him."

Amenadiel tracked Eric's progress through the apartment suite as the vampire explored. He had one ear on the conversation happening in the living room area, but he was curious to see what Lucifer's home was like. Would it mesh with Eric? Clearly not with all these windows everywhere. No light-tight hidey hole anywhere in sight, sadly.

"So Dad is missing," Lucifer said. "For real."

"So it seems."

"Then who the bloody hell is in charge?" Lucifer asked, concern in his voice. "Please don't tell me it's Gabriel."

There was an awkward silence.

"Gabriel!" Lucifer cried out, affronted. "Brother, it should be you!"

"But I'm down here," Amenadiel pointed out.

Lucifer sighed with frustration. "Clearly. So what does this mean?"

"I—I don't know," Amenadiel admitted. "Absolutely no one seems to know where he's gone, including Gabe."

"Well, that can't possibly be good."

There was a silence between the two angels as each one thought about the repercussions of having God go AWOL.

Eric, trying his best not to demand the answer to the question he was really here for, paced past the steps up to Lucifer's bedroom. The massive bed wasn't made, the sheets twisted as if the man had tossed and turned during the few hours he'd tried to sleep. He smirked, realizing the satin sheets were black, just like the sheets back at the vampire hotel. Very doubtful that it was for the same reasons, though. There were no more sex toys lying around though, which disappointed him a bit. As if Lucifer felt the need to hide such things.

Of course, Eric kept those things in the dungeon under his bar. So was he really any different?

Eric turned away from Lucifer's bedroom. Thinking about sex was the last thing he wanted to do. Amenadiel had promised him information, and while he certainly understood the fear of having your father missing—Godric had been kidnapped before he met the sun, after all—he wasn't going to pace here all night waiting for the conversation to eventually lead where he wanted it to go. Despite Lucifer being a very good distraction over the past few days, Eric found himself anxious to hear what Amenadiel learned.

Was it good news? Or was he damned for eternity? It seemed Eric still cared even if he was no longer tying his concern to his love for Sookie Stackhouse.

He crossed from where he'd been hovering in front of Lucifer's bedroom and sank down onto the couch next to Lucifer. Lucifer smiled at him, finally pulling out of his reverie, whatever thoughts that were nagging at him because of his missing father. "Right," Lucifer said, putting a warm hand against Eric's knee and leaving it there. "Not much we can do about Dad missing except look for him, I suppose. And that wasn't the only reason you went to the Silver City."

"Really, Luci? You can think about that at a time like this?" Amenadiel asked from the opposite couch. He looked disappointed in his fallen brother.

"Are you saying you didn't ask around?" Lucifer asked, frowning.

"I did," Amenadiel said. "But we've got more pressing concerns."

"Well, there's not much I can do, is there?" Lucifer asked. "I've even less insight into Dad than you do. Besides, I've owed the Viking an answer for some time now and if you have the answer, why not give it?"

"Because we have bigger problems to deal with!" Amenadiel exclaimed, frustration in his voice.

Lucifer leaned forward on the couch, the hand on Eric's knee tightening in anger. "And I'm not the man to help you with that particular problem, Brother. Or have you forgotten how Dad treats me? I'm the last person he'd be looking to run into while he's galivanting about the universe. Best tell us what you've learned and then go looking for Daddy Dearest without me. You'll get better results."

Amenadiel glared at his brother before lifting his glass and draining the remains of the whisky. "Fine," he said, sparing a glance at Eric. "I did learn a few things about vampires while I was upstairs."

Eric leaned forward, tension tightening his muscles. "And?" he asked.

Amenadiel looked him in the eye, steady and serious. "I'm not sure you're going to like the news," he said.

A thread of fear raced down his spine but Eric didn't budge. He needed to hear it. He needed to know what Amenadiel had found out. Lucifer's warm hand squeezed against his knee, but Eric's entire attention was on the angel across from him.

Amenadiel sighed and closed his eyes, as if gathering his thoughts. "I have learned that Dad did have a hand in making the virus that started the vampire race." He opened his eyes and gave Eric an imploring look. "You have to understand, sometimes our father gets an idea and doesn't think things all the way through. And sometimes he gets the ideas from others."

"From others?" Eric inquired. As in the angels were telling him what to do?

Amenadiel nodded. "Other higher beings," he said dismissively, as if the idea wasn't important.

"Do you mean other gods?" Eric asked, thinking of his old gods. Did they exist? Did Valhalla exist?

"Some might see it that way, sure," Amenadiel agreed, but he didn't seem to think it was worth delving deeper into. "Either way, Dad and someone else—no one was able to tell me who—came up with this grand idea to give humans the option of immortality at the expense of having no moral compass." Amenadiel cringed as he said the words. "I believe he considered it a thought experiment brought to life—what would happen if you removed the soul from the body, forced the person to feed on their own kind. Would they kill everyone in sight or would they only take what they needed?"

"So my soul is gone?" Eric asked, a chill washing over him. "God decided to fuck around with people to see philosophy in action and now I've got no soul?"

"Not . . . quite," Amenadiel quickly corrected. "The soul, from what Gabriel told me, has been removed from your body, but it is being kept somewhere. He couldn't tell me where or by whom though."

"Someone has my soul?" Eric asked, a new kind of terror sinking into him. Some strange being had stolen his soul, doing who knew what with it?

"Maybe?" Amenadiel said, clearly unsure. "I just know that it's not gone. It's somewhere, waiting for you to meet your final death."

"It's waiting for me . . ." Eric didn't like the sound of that.

"Yes. Once you die, you move on. And just like if you had died a mortal death as a human, your sins will be accounted for."

"All of my sins?" Eric asked. "Including those as a vampire?"

Amenadiel nodded. "That seems to be what Dad was going for."

It was as if the world stopped. Eric sat alone on the couch. He didn't feel Lucifer's hand moving up his thigh. Couldn't hear Lucifer saying his name. He was alone. Alone with his sins—and there were so many of them. How many centuries had he lived, glorying in being a vampire? Killing not just for food, but for fun. How many souls had died because he had had no access to his own? And he was to be judged as if he had been fully intact, like a regular human being?

Crazy as it sounded, Eric was suddenly terrified. Of what all of that meant.

He was fucked. Pure and simple. No bones about it.

When he died, he was going straight to hell.

"Why?" Eric asked, coming back to himself to stare Amenadiel down. "Why the fuck would he do that?"

Amenadiel shrugged. "Why does Dad do a lot of things? Even us angels don't understand half the time."

"That's not an answer!" Eric growled. His emotions swung from scared to angry and he tensed, wanting to attack the bearer of bad news.

"It's fine, Eric," Lucifer soothed from his side, that hand still on his leg.

"No, it's not fine!" Eric spat out, feeling both hot and cold at the same time. When he'd first met Lucifer, the man had asked him what he most desired—his response had been to know if he had a soul and if it was damned.

Well, here was the answer.

What he had actually wanted was to hear that he wasn't damned, that he hadn't fucked up his soul beyond all repair. Not this terrifying admission that he was to be held accountable. And the worst part? He probably couldn't have helped himself; there was no soul to tone his decisions. But that didn't even fucking matter. He would be judged the same as if he'd had a soul to temper his actions. He was given a life that could span thousands of years, but in the end there would be no Valhalla, no heaven. No fucking Silver City.

Eric's growl deepened and he stood from the couch, feeling trapped. Trapped by the walls around him but more so by the words Amenadiel had delivered. His knee grew instantly cold where Lucifer's hand had been.

"Viking, this is nothing to worry over," Lucifer said as he watched Eric pace away. "Amenadiel can't even tell you where your soul is—he doesn't have the entire answer."

Eric turned, fangs out and snarling. "What more does he need to say? I've spent a thousand years as a monster and when I finally die, I'm going directly to hell."

"You're not a monster," Lucifer said, standing up from the couch, but staying where he was. There was concern in his brown eyes, and a frown marred his perfect face. "And besides, hell isn't so bad. I'll be there . . . when the time comes."

Amenadiel started in surprise at that, eyeing his brother with interest at that admission.

"You'll be torturing me!" Eric nearly hissed. How the fuck was that better? It was worse!

"Come now," Lucifer said. "You're a Viking. You must love a good torture."

What the fuck didn't Lucifer understand about this? Lucifer wasn't the King of Hell because he belonged there for his wrongdoings. He was there to be in charge. Eric's growled turned into a shout as he argued with the man he thought he was in love with. "I'm the one who did the torturing! I don't get tortured!"

"I won't treat you like those who deserve to be there, Viking," Lucifer said softly, his tone pleading. "It's not your fault Dad decided to fuck with you and your kind. I know that and I'll use that information going forward."

Eric turned, not sure if he was going to flee or break something. But the bar was there, perfect rows of alcohol that he could never taste. In a fit of anger, he sped across the room and flung a single hand out. An entire glass shelf exploded, the bottles crashing to the ground to make a reeking mess of mixing alcohols.

"Eric!"

Eric whirled about again to find Lucifer had followed him, standing on the other side of the bar.

"I am broken!" he seethed at the man he loved. "Your Dear Old Dad fucking broke me and when I die, I get to suffer for it. It doesn't matter who enforces the suffering, or where. Or how. That's what he's done. I've spent a thousand years glorying in my lack of morality—there is no atoning for that, no matter how many years I spend trying to fix it. I'm fucked. And no matter how much you care, it's always going to be that way!"

"Then we should fix it!" Lucifer replied. "I've been saying for years now that Dad's system is broken, and as far as I'm concerned you're the perfect proof of it." Lucifer turned slightly so he could look at both his brother and lover at the same time. "Do you hear me, Brother? Broken! He makes experiments of vampires and then lets them be tortured for something they couldn't bloody help. And you're worried he's missing? It can't be any worse without him around."

But no amount of arguing from Lucifer was going to change Eric's mind. Fixing the system didn't help him. Didn't give him his soul back. It was already gone! And they didn't even know where it was. "Fuck your father!" he swore, and he got a burning look from Amenadiel halfway across the room. "He did this to me!"

The tears spilled from his eyes, hazing his vision red and surprising the shit out of him. He wasn't angry—he was falling apart. "Look at me! I'm such an abomination that I can't even cry without bleeding everywhere!"

Eric kicked at the single bottle that hadn't broken when the shelf had crashed to the floor. It went careening across the floor to roll to a stop in front of the elevator, rocking back and forth with the sloshing of the scotch inside. "Sookie is right," he said, no longer yelling. Instead, that lonely depression had begun to seep back into him. Except now it was ten times worse than before Lucifer had shown up to change his life. There was a black hole where his hope had been. Hope that Lucifer had encouraged, gone with the realization that Lucifer's father had fucked him over long before he'd even been born, let alone turned. "I don't deserve to be loved."

Before Lucifer could try to argue with him, Eric vanished. He headed for the doors out to the balcony, the glass rattling in the frames as he pushed them open. Then he was airborne, flying into the night. No goodbyes to the man he'd fallen in love with in such a short time. No stop at the hotel to retrieve his dirty clothes. Eric Northman flew into the night, heading back to the depressing swamp he'd had to call home for decades. To the swamp that was slowly eating away at his sense of self-worth. And why not? He wasn't worthy of love . . . even if Sookie hadn't said those words, they'd been following him ever since she'd abandoned him.

They chipped away at his resolve because, as far as he was concerned, they were true.

Lucifer was on his balcony in a flash, but he couldn't see Eric as the vampire disappeared into the night. And what was the point of chasing someone who was running away? Lucifer sighed, wishing he could take away Eric's pain. "But she wasn't right. She wasn't right at all."

But Eric wasn't there to hear him say those words.

Amenadiel was though.

Perhaps Eric doesn't enjoy a good torture anymore, but you know who does? Me. Me because I'm tearing these two lovebirds apart.

I am horrible. And am enjoying it. *toothy grin*