Chapter Text
Lucifer's workspace felt cold and quiet after the brightness and warmth of his visit to Charlie. Head propped in one hand, he aimlessly flicked sparks of gold with the other, failing to find inspiration as he worried about the idea of Charlie's meeting in heaven. Creation was not helping him take his mind off things as he'd hoped. A halfheartedly-formed rubber duck tipped over miserably at a particularly shaky flick of the devil's wrist.
He said he would support her, and he stood by that. Maybe things really could be different this time; she'd always been stronger willed than him. If anyone could get through to Heaven's court it was her, even if just by sheer stubborn willpower.
But acid still roiled in his stomach and his face still felt numb at the thought of heaven responding to Charlie the way they had to him.
His hand slipped to cover his eyes as he forced himself to take two steady breaths.
Pushing back from his workbench, Lucifer stood to pace as he stared at the contact in his phone he'd never initiated a call to.
He'd promised Charlie. He HAD to do this.
The phone clunked against the table, exchanged for a rubber duck in a party hat, which Lucifer squeezed repeatedly as he paced restlessly.
"It's just a phone call," he muttered to himself, "what kind of father are you if you can't even do this one thing?"
He let out an anxious wheeze, imagining all the ways this conversation could go wrong. Maybe Sera would be angry he called. Maybe she'd brush off the request for a meeting entirely, and he'd have to tell Charlie he'd failed her.
Pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing the duck one last time, he forced himself to breathe steady breaths. If he didn't call, he'd DEFINITELY disappoint Charlie. Better to aim for the maybe than the certain.
He just had to pick up the phone and press call. It was even on the screen already, he just had to press one button.
"Okay Lucifer," he whispered, "you can do this." He'd stopped pacing just within arm's reach of the phone, but he couldn't seem to release his grip on the duck.
The time on the screen showed he'd been hesitating to make the call for a lot longer than he'd thought. If he waited much longer, his daughter would start wondering if he'd gone back on his word.
But how to even start the conversation? "Heya, Sera," Lucifer tried. No, that was too informal. "Salutations?" He'd never said that in his life. He was overthinking this.
Okay. One... two... tap!
One ring, tw- "Greetings, Lucifer." Oh fuck, she picked up a lot faster than he'd expected.
He fumbled for a moment before getting a grip on his phone. "What's uuup, Ser-Bear!"
Lucifer immediately winced in regret, giving a brief thought to throwing his phone across the room and faking his death.
Sera, seemingly at a loss, didn't respond for an eternal moment. Hastily, the Devil raced to move on from his faux pas. "How's little Amelia? Still working on that welcome song with Peter?"
"...Emily is well." Maybe it wasn't too late to follow through on that faking-his-death idea. "Can I assist you with something, Morning Star? I hardly expect this is a social call."
"Yes, right, um... I need to set up a meeting."
"Our annual logistics meeting is in a month, can it not wait until then?"
Lucifer swallowed nervously, trying to force his tone into something more confident. "Well, see, it's not for me, it's for my daughter. You remember Charlie?"
"I seem to recall her causing a stir when you last brought her to a meeting, yes." Sera did not sound amused.
"She was a child then," Lucifer protested. "She's grown... um, quite a lot since then." He grimaced to himself at the reminder of the time he'd missed.
"Has she grown past interrupting important discussions to perform musical numbers about subjects she does not understand?" The seraph asked dryly.
Lucifer hesitated for a moment too long. He loved Charlie, but she'd certainly inherited his flair as well as his temper. Though he appreciated his six-year-old daughter's defense of him at the time, he had noticed that several angels from that particular meeting had chosen not to attend later ones.
Sera sighed, seeming more tired than Lucifer ever remembered her being. "I have business to attend to before next month's meeting, but we can schedule a court date for after-"
"Please," Lucifer blurted, gripping the wood of the table so hard it protested under his claws. He forced his hand open and picked up the stress-duck he hadn't noticed himself dropping. "This is an urgent matter that must be discussed before the extermination. I-I don't ask much of Heaven, I just-"
Sera interrupted his spiral, but Lucifer's thoughts were passing too quickly to grasp what she was saying. This was it, he would fail Charlie and she would end up just like him, dreams broken and downtrodden in his empty house pretending he was still capable of doing anything right.
"...under the circumstances... allow a meeting... condition... will be responsible for..." he tried to tune back in, hoping to piece together what Sera was saying from the fragments that made it through the fog in his head. She would allow a meeting?
"Yes, of course!" He quickly agreed. Any condition heaven could require would be worth giving Charlie this chance.
"It's rather... court will be... next Saturday... you and your daughter. We... both at Saint Peter's Gate... Saturday morning." The line dropped before Lucifer could muster up even a strangled noise of questioning.
Slowly, her words sank in through the thrum of blood in his ears. As did the realization of just what he'd agreed to do.
It seemed he would be doomed to face more of his past beyond his daughter's lofty dreams.