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Lucifer had never been one for emotion. Not for thousands of years. But that had all changed when he had met his Detective. She had given him light, hope and love. Friends he held dear and a family he had never had.
Lucifer stood next to Beatrice Espinoza, a girl he had come to tolerate as a child, and grown to adore later. He had watched her grow into a mischievous teenager, a strong independent young female, a college graduate, a wife, a mother. She called him her second father, and when her father, Daniel, had perished on a police case years ago, she had become even more attached to the King of Hell.
“Mom is in the Silver City, right?” she asked him. Lucifer nodded in reply, afraid to speak. Yes, his dear Chloe had gone to the one place he could never go. Could never dare to reach.
Mazikeen stood calmly on the other side of the woman, not letting her friend know the turmoil of human emotions threatening to overtake the demon. The Devil was already a complete mess, she didn’t need a demon on the fritz too. “Yeah, Trix. And you’ll see her again,” Maze said, in the most comforting tone she could manage, sounding stiff and all wrong, but tried nonetheless.
Trixie smiled at her best friend, grateful for the effort from the demon. “Thanks, Maze.”
Slowly, everyone started to disperse, friends offered their condolences to Trixie as they departed. All the while Lucifer stood silently, staring at the ground and small marker. Eventually, everyone had left and the rain started. It came down in buckets, forcing everyone everywhere to retreat to shelter.
Lucifer stayed.
He stared. Wishing. Hoping.
His whole world had shattered into such tiny pieces that he couldn’t see where to begin to put it together again.
Trixie never saw Lucifer again. She knew he was there, felt his presence sometimes, but she never saw him directly. She was gifted Lux as property a few weeks after the funeral and it became a family run business. She always felt close to them both here. She could hear herself yelling his name, while he yelped; her mother’s laughter at him. How Maze threatened everything and everyone. Linda’s words of wisdom. Amenadiel’s frequent visits. Ella’s dorkiness. Her father’s doucheness. How they hugged and kissed and danced and laughed.
Her first family. Born and raised in this very club.
Determined to keep the property forever, she put it in a trust that held it secure for her direct descendants. If there were none, then it would go back to Lucifer if possible, Maze if that wasn’t an option.
Maze was never too far away and often came in to see Trixie. Even offered her services to babysit the ‘small human’s’ small humans. Taught them the same skills that Trixie had been taught, including knife-throwing and how to “eviscerate” their enemies. Trixie’s husband was a little wary of the demon but didn’t mind so long as the children or Trixie weren’t hurt.
Ella and Linda were constant fixtures in Trixie’s life until they, too, passed. Amenadiel visited on occasion. It made her feel less alone in the world after her father, then her mother, then Lucifer left. She would see her mother and father again, that much she knew. Even Ella, Linda and Amenadiel. But not Lucifer or Maze.
One day, when she was up there in years, she visited the Penthouse. She and her husband had kept the place tidy even though no one lived there. She kept it waiting, ready for him to return. It would always be his. She walked around nostalgically, touching every knick-knack, trailing her hand over every first edition book he had collected, saw every photo they had framed and hung on the wall. It was a secret place. A part of the lore that would envelop her family. Trixie felt like a child again up here, stuck in a time where she was happy.
She knew the place like the back of her hand, no matter how many years went by. But this time, there was something new. A small ornate wooden box sat on the coffee table, decorated in some of the loveliest filigree patterns she had ever seen. Lifting the lid, she saw the red velvet lined case held something beautiful. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen. A single small white gleaming feather, extremely fluffy and about an inch long. She picked it up delicately, holding the softest piece of divinity. His feather.
She always hoped to see him again. But he never came back.
Her children grew up on stories of the Devil. They never questioned or doubted their mother. They would, in turn, tell their children the stories. And then their children heard them until it became family lore that made its way down the generations. Each grandparent made it their duty to tell their grandchildren the stories of the Devil, his Detective and their friends. Complete with pictures and the Feather from a Fallen Angel’s wing.
***
It would be years before Lucifer could function again. Even more, before he could stand any sort of interaction. And by then, Trixie was gone too. Everyone he had known was gone. Only Maze was still around and she was easy enough to find.
Mazikeen waited at the grave. She knew he came back every year but had never thought to bother him. She knew how deeply this had affected him. But now with the death of her small human (because Trixie was always the ‘small human’ to her), she needed… something. New direction? New purpose? Most of her existence had depended on Lucifer. And now that her reasons for staying on Earth were gone, she wanted to go home. To Hell.
He approached slowly, holding a bouquet of Her favourite flowers. And to Maze’s surprise, he held a second bouquet of Trixie’s favourites. Neither said a word.
***
Lucifer flew as high as he could. The closest he could get to her. Even after two hundred Earth years, she was always on his mind. Below, lights of the city where he had met her shone. A lot had changed. Too much. Out of an old habit, he landed on the balcony of his old Penthouse. He thought for sure that someone would have bought it up by now. So he was absolutely startled to find it dark. The lock turned at his will. Stepping inside was like taking a step back in time. Nothing had changed. Nothing had moved. Everything was as it was before. After two hundred years? How?
He walked around, noticing that the feather he had left for Trixie was gone. Everything else lay under sheets. Including his beloved piano. He sat and played. ‘Heart and Soul’ was the only song that came to mind. His Detective and her spawn, stuck in time, hung in framed pictures, his friends, family and everyone he had cared about. He picked one off the wall, and a tear, unwillingly, ran down his face. He missed them.
The elevator, unsurprisingly, had been deactivated, so he used his will to command it to the Penthouse level. Downstairs, in the space where his old piano nightclub used to be, housed an updated, renovated version. People covered every inch of the place and this century's music drifted from the speakers.
However, people were looking at him in shock. Most of the clientele were constant customers in the best nightclub in LA and all knew that the elevator had not worked in years. Someone mentioned this to the bartender when they got a drink, and soon the owner of the establishment knew it too.
Lucifer turned, drink in hand, and was startled. Frightened even. There stood his Detective, in the most gorgeous red dress that clung to her every curve, just like she would when she had visited his club in the past. She was walking down the stairs, with every set of male eyes on her, while she had her eyes on him. She had that cute little frown on her face, the one that he had previously enjoyed kissing off her.
Cleora was not pleased that she had been called from her office during the early hours of the club opening. She usually mingled with guests after midnight, when all her work was complete. But then she saw who she had been called down for. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Dark hair and dark eyes (exactly her type if she was honest with herself) with a five o’clock shadow on a square jaw. A face sculpted by angels.
And vaguely familiar. Like she had seen his face in a dream.
She walked right up to the man, unafraid, even though her insides were calling out for him in a way that had never happened before. Even with her fiancé. In a voice that both delighted and haunted the fallen angel, this Detective said, “Hello. I have heard something interesting from some of my patrons this evening."
He tilted his head. In a mesmerising British accent, he murmured, “Pray tell, what have you heard, my dear?”
“You managed to come down in an elevator that has not been functional for fifty years?” Her voice pitched up at the end, making her statement a question.
“Hmm. Apparently so,” he whispered.
“Cleora. Cleora Espinoza. I’m the owner of this humble abode,” she introduced, extending her hand out to shake.
He took it gently, but firmly. The look in his eyes... Was that… adoration? Reverence? She had never seen anything like it even coming from the man who claimed to love her. “Lucifer. Morningstar.” His eyes swept over her face for the thousandth time in the last minute, but only this time did he notice her earrings. Small white feathers, but one was different than the other. One glowed ever so slightly in the darkened club.
She frowned slightly, not remembering where she had heard this name before. “Stage name?”
He tilted his head. “God-given, I’m afraid.”
She smiled.
And for the first time in two hundred years, Lucifer smiled back.