the night has crossed that vague border into early morning; there are only a few stragglers left around the bar. lucifer sits at the piano, playing something soft and melancholy. dark lashes curl on their cheeks, eyes closed as their fingers find the keys by memory alone, a small crease between brows as their body sways to the rhythm.
sometimes lux changes when the moon yawns and starts to lower outside, when the vampires have to end their playtime and return home and sleep until the next sunset. only a few critters actually remain and they aren’t really conversing; energies low, party thoroughly burned through them. drinks have been absorbed. songs have been sung. bodies have danced to their deepest content. for hours, lux is filled with laughter and cheering and the heat of bodies but now things are different — now things lull into something that most of the crowd don’t ever get to see or feel. gone. they are home in their beds, by now. dreaming. blue gets to do the same thing but he’s awake when it happens, when fingers move over ivory and obsidian and play something that soothes him like nothing else. lucifer has this ability — it’s more impressive than the one that draws out people’s desires; the one where he calms the fires in him and pulls him into a very specific kind of tranquility. relaxed, he’s watching lights on the ceiling while the devil plays chopin — able to see him move out of the corner of his eye where he’s laying on the booth behind the piano. one leg is stretched out but he has his other foot planted on the floor to help keep things from spinning. it’s a tender thing, having the devil play a lullaby to some of their most faithful servants. the bar is quiet. every note echoes and blue can feel his body grow heavy in a way that is familiar — eyes closing. if he allowed it, he could drift off like this. but he won’t. no. blue only sleeps when lucifer is beside him now, only truly rests his head when there is no work to be done. this is a release, on the devil’s part — this is expression and blue listens with his whole heart. every note. and he wonders, as he so often does. he wonders about lucifer, about homesickness — and about what it’s like to lose the love of another. he wonders about the weight that the devil carries daily, wonders about things like phantom pains and gorgeous wings stored away where nobody can find them. he wonders about the stars that are fading outside and he wonders if the ash is still falling the way it used to down below. he wonders, idle, how long they will stay here — how long lucifer will allow him to remain at their side. he wonders if lucifer truly understands that he would be willing to do it, forever. that he knows nothing else and wants nothing else. he wonders, as his devil plays, if he knows how much he loves them — if he will have a chance to show them all the little ways before the sun blots itself out. he wonders, as perfect hands play the piano and the hellhound’s emotions, if they will ever truly settle down. if they will ever do the strange things that humans do, if they will ever try the white-picket fence. he wonders about things like last names, about how he does not have one and is only interested in taking one on like a spouse. it makes him smile — he almost chuckles at the thought, at how fucking silly it sounds. blue morningstar. it’s ridiculous and yet the nocturne makes him actually think about it, makes him realize that he’s already wearing the fucking ring; it’s just bigger, just around his neck instead. humans don’t get that. they don’t understand that he’s already dropped to his knee in servitude — that the vows are carved into his skin and in the way they match fabric or notes when they perform together. what they have hasn’t been experienced on earth by anyone else and blue knows as much as notes slow down, as he exhales and allows himself to think the name one more time. a secret wish, his heart too big. something to go down in one of his notebooks where he writes all his songs about them — words he’s never sung, notes he’s never played. the song is almost finished when the hound boosts himself up and steps over the small distance required to reach them. to get to piano. the smile on his face is small — fond. he’s slow as he moves, as he lowers himself to wrap arms around shoulders from behind. a lover’s embrace. for a moment, he stays like that — face simply buried in hair, eyes closed. full. so full of so much that sometimes he doesn’t know where to put it. there was a time when he thought he knew what he wanted, a time when he and charlemagne picked out the place at the docks and they all insisted he get the biggest room — that he stay there, but it’s been a moment since he’s stepped foot in that space. it’s been a moment since he’s played the role he made for himself when he popped topside. time goes into lucifer, now. they sleep through the mornings, sometimes — rise late in the afternoon and raise hell all night. the boys miss him. he knows. he knows that he doesn’t have the same amount of time with them, that they will eventually die of old age or at the hand of some foolishness — but he doesn’t know how to be anything else, anymore. since the letters found his chest, something changed in him. something he doesn’t want to lose. something he needs, in order to be at his best. he will lose them all, eventually. someday even the docks won’t be the same but lucifer’s freckles will all be in the same place and his mouth with find them and cherish them with the same adoration — with the same love as the first time he was able to actually touch them. against lucifer, he sighs. so content. so absolutely complete.
“let’s get you to bed, love. i can hear you’re tired. i can feel it --- your heart’s slowed. i know because mine matches, now. all the time.” he stays close, though. it’s hard to pull away from them and he kisses lightly at the back of his neck. adoring. the first of what will be several kisses goodnight. within the hour he knows he’ll be in the devil’s arms --- pressed close like this, but somehow softer. safe. whole. where he’s always needed to be. home is changing, little by little and he doesn’t quite know it --- hasn’t quite figured it out. not yet. but some things, he understands well enough. sometimes lux changes. and sometimes, that’s for the better. it’s the same for him, too.