To Move On
Fandom: Lucifer (TV show) Genres: grief, denial, friendship
Summary: After the death of his brother, Lucifer can’t pull himself back together, even if he tries to deny it. His attitude becomes problematic when you and Chloe try to catch a murderer, but he is your friend and you can’t leave it like that.
Word count: 2,250
[Masterlist]
The bodies were being photographed by three men. You were surprised that none of them had stepped into one of the big pools of blood yet, given how much of it was splattered everywhere around. Ella seemed to be thinking the same thing, with a very impressed look.
“I should have gone to those ballet classes,” she mumbled, chewing her sandwich. Both of you had to wait for the men to finish before starting your part of the job. Chloe was circling around them impatiently, already pumped up with adrenaline and probably more than a hundred theories to check out.
“My mother wanted me to be a chef,” you said, taking a big bite from her sandwich. She always ate the good, expensive ones. “I guess I wouldn’t be able to hold the food in my stomach if I became one and then saw something like this.”
“Yup. And they say that life as an investigator is easy and doesn’t require any special skills. Look at Joe – poor guy is as green as the grass around him.”
You nodded, glancing at one of your colleagues, who tried to regain his composure on the back of the crime scene and pretending that he had nothing to do with the fresh puddle of vomit to his left. It wasn’t really his fault – he usually worked behind the desk and only packed or checked the papers from the investigations. If your bureau had more free officers, he would have been left in his cozy, corner office, but because most of them were occupied with another murder on the other side of the city, someone had to help with this one. If it was up to you, you would let him go home and rest, but unfortunately you weren’t the one in charge.
Watching Joe, you noticed another man heading in your direction from behind him. A very well-known man, not only because of his (rather interesting) looks.
You frowned. Lucifer looked quite… disheveled, which was unheard of for him.
“Hello,” he welcomed both of you rather terse after approaching you. Although he was smiling, he seemed different and uneasy.
“Are you drunk?” Ella asked him directly, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Or high?” you added, leaning in to smell him.
“No and no – unfortunately, but I’m working on it,” Lucifer flashed a wide smile, which was obviously not entirely honest.
He passed by you, moving to the table with all kinds of food and drinks. The murder took place at a wedding, so there was still plenty of it left over. The guests were also asked to stay until all of their testimony were taken, so now some of them were observing Lucifer moping up the fancy cake, completely uncaring about a tragedy that had happened here just a half an hour ago.
“Is he even serious?” Ella’s eyes went wide, just like yours. “I mean, he was always a bit weird and stand-offish, but this is weird even for him…”
“Yeah… I’ll take care of him, you go to Chloe, it looks like the boys are finished,” you muttered, leaving her side and pulling a plate from Lucifer’s hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” you hissed.
He looked at you with pure surprise on his face.
“I thought eating was a rather normal action for a human…”
“Lucifer, for… whoever’s sake, you are at a crime scene and eating possible evidence!”
“You’re exaggerating as always, there’s no need to…”
“First, you don’t know, and neither do we, if it isn’t poisoned, because, guess what, it wouldn’t be such a surprise since we already have dead bodies. Second, it’s not up to you to decide what goes where and what can be thrown out or eaten! What’s wrong with you? It’s not your first ride, Luci,” you said, trying to look at him directly, but Lucifer didn’t want to catch your gaze and avoided it. From so close you could see that he was indeed a walking mess and looked like a completely different person. There was almost nothing left of the man you’d come to know.
“Whatever,” he murmured before trying to go somewhere else.
You wanted to stop him, but before you grabbed his arm, you heard Chloe calling for you. You let out a small groan, noticing Lucifer approaching a group of the witnesses, still shaking and sobbing. It was an easy way to cause a disaster, but you noticed a few officers standing nearby, so you hoped they would eventually stop Lucifer before it was too late for whatever he had in mind. You had no idea what had shaken him up so much, but it had to be something big. If you knew anything about this man, it was that he had built walls around him so tall that only something extreme could pass them. You definitely considered yourself one of his few friends and you decided to make him talk about it sometime later. You just couldn’t watch him in this state.
With a sorry feeling still clouding your thoughts, you turned around and approached Chloe and Ella crouching nearby the massacred body.
“Any ideas?” you asked, trying to sound normal, but Chloe had seen through you immediately, frowning.
“Is everything okay?” she asked the question you had no answer to. “And what about Lucifer?”
“He said… he was going to check something first,” you stuttered, but fortunately she didn’t push. Ella was unusually silent.
“The shooter must have had some training,” was the first thing she said, not even looking in your direction. “Or it was a very lucky shot. Either way, no ambulance could have saved this girl, even if the medics started to work on bringing her back right in the moment she got shot.”
“So he shot to kill, efficiently and without second-thoughts,” Chloe murmured to herself.
“You think it was some kind of a revenge?” you asked. “You know, it’s pretty symbolic here – the wedding, the bride killed right before she entered a new chapter in her life…”
Chloe opened her mouth to say something, but the three of you stopped when you heard a sudden fuss behind you.
Well, if you hoped for the officers to have a close watch on Lucifer and his actions, you probably should have told them that face to face. Or do it yourself.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Chloe almost teared Lucifer from one of the female witnesses he was heavily making out with on one of the tables.
He looked at her rather unfocused, definitely not seeing anything bad in his latest actions.
“Just helping the poor lady come back to her senses!” he exclaimed with passion. “You are a detective, detective! You should know what she’s been through. She needs to calm down and think about something less drastic and relax…”
“So you think it’s just fine to screw her in the middle of an open-field investigation?” Chloe corrected him with disbelief. You’ve never seen her so angry but you felt the same way.
“Well, it’s not like she wasn’t up to some fun…” Lucifer purred over his shoulder into the woman’s direction with a sly smile.
Chloe grabbed his arm, turning him back and tried to reason with him, but you could clearly see it wasn’t working. You were standing a few feet behind her, watching them with a heavy weight on your shoulders. The Detective had also noticed the drastic change in Lucifer’s attitude and tried to convince him to let her help if he couldn’t handle whatever has happened, but he ignored her.
A few minutes later you watched Lucifer’s back as he left the crime scene, not even once looking back at you. You worried if he was able to get back to the Lux on his own, but you had work to do. You decided to pay him a quick visit on your way back home and check on him.
“So, um… Do we have any witnesses who had seen the murderer?” you asked Chloe, getting back to the body.
She rubbed her face tiredly.
“I’m not sure, I have to ask the officer…”
“I’ll do it! You don’t move and just help Ella,” you offered quickly, giving her a warm smile.
“Thanks,” she agreed gladly.
A few hours later, you entered the Lux quite surprised at how many people had already been there as the parties usually started late in the evening. The music was blasting from the speakers, almost deafening. The crowd flowed through the colorful space. A few waiters were maneuvering with experience, never spilling a drop of champagne. It wasn’t anything new for this place. Parties at Lucifer’s were always of the best sort.
It took you some time before you pushed your way to the bar in the hopes of finding Maze and asking her about Lucifer, but when you got there, it became clear you didn’t need any help with that.
Dancing like a true devil with three barely clothed girls, downing glass after glass, it was a miracle Lucifer hadn’t already fallen down. You sighed. You should have probably guessed how Lucifer would choose to deal with whatever was bothering him. Alcohol, girls, and endless partying – just another night at Lux.
“Lucifer!” you shouted after approaching him, trying to outshout the noise.
He reacted immediately, turning around so fast he almost hit you.
“What a surprise!” he mumbled barely understandable, visibly unsteady on his feet. Two girls in heavy makeup were hanging on his shoulders lustfully, but it didn’t stop him from coming closer to you with a strange look in his darkened eyes.
“We need to talk.”
“Sure, honey, whatever you want,” he whispered, leaning in close to you. His charm would work better if he didn’t stink like a distillery.
“Not here,” you quickly moved away, but grabbed his arm and forced him to follow you, completely ignoring his unusual wandering hands.
You almost pushed him into the elevator, tearing his hands off you angrily.
“Just stop it!” you growled and he raised his hands in a defensive gesture.
“Whatever…,” he murmured.
Before he could do anything else, the elevator stopped and you moved him outside, earning a surprised look from him.
“What-…”
You slapped him hard, not bothering to restrain yourself. At that point you were too angry to hold on.
“What is wrong with you?!” you yelled at him before he could regain himself and do anything. The pure shock on his face was a rare view. “First that bullshit on the crime scene, now this? Lucifer, I’m scared of you!”
He blinked a few times, still speechless. It was clear he never expected such an action from you.
“Well, you certainly don’t look scared…,” was the only thing he managed to mumble, moving away from you to lean on the counter on his left.
“But I am! This… This whole thing… It’s not you. It’s not the Lucifer that I know. I am your friend and that means if you ever have any problems, I will try to help you out with whatever is bothering you. But it also means that I will not allow this bullshit and you screwing up so badly in your life to the point there is no way back – and don’t even start saying that I’m exaggerating again, because let’s be honest, you don’t know where to stop once you start something. Lucifer, just tell me what happened. Just tell me what I can do to bring you back.”
You were looking straight into his eyes. The silence in his apartment was laying heavy around you, the dim light separating you from the rest of the world. At that moment you could clearly see that something deep inside Lucifer was tearing him apart and every one of his past actions was meant to hide it both from the outside world and from himself.
“What if I don’t want to bring back what I used to be?” Lucifer whispered barely audibly, finally tearing his gaze from you.
“Then at least explain it to me.”
“Why do you care so much?” he seemed not to understand your stubbornness.
“I told you. You are my friend. I don’t need any more reasons,” you lightly touched his hand, smiling encouragingly.
Hesitating a little, you closed your arms around his shoulders, embracing him in a rather awkward hug. At first he stiffened and you were almost sure he would move away from you, but he surprised you, hiding his face in your shoulder.
“But what if I’ve done something truly horrible and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself?” Lucifer whispered into your hair.
“Forgiveness may come with time or it can never come, it rarely depends on us,” you said, gently stroking his disheveled hair. “The only thing we can do is to move on with that and live our lives the best way we can. Hurting yourself, you hurt people that care about you too. And that may cause you even more pain.”
“Life is more difficult than I thought,” Lucifer huffed, not moving a bit.
“But you’re not dealing with it alone,” you said. “No one is. And that’s what gives us strength to move on.”
[Masterlist]
