Chapter Text
𝕳e wakes up in his bed which isn't at all unusual. But there's a fog that hangs thick in his forehead. And you aren't there next to him. And there's this sense of foreboding. He can't explain why, but he feels extremely nervous, it's stuck in his bloodstream, like salmon jumping out of a river, his nerves are jumping too, his heart rate starting to increase when he looks at the digital clock and sees that it's reading four zeroes instead of an actual time.
Finally, he gets up out of bed, his feet touching the cold floor, a shiver running up his spine.
It's just that… something feels extremely wrong.
He throws on some clothes, and goes out his door. But as he's walking, it's the silence that gets to him. It's never this quiet. Even in the middle of the night, the house itself creaks and makes tunes of things that go bump in the night.
But it's so quiet right now, you could hear a pin drop. The sound of his footsteps ring out, sounding almost too loud against the harsh silence.
His heart is picking up, his jaw tenses, there's this aching knot that seems to form deep in his throat.
As he goes by each door to his brother's rooms, he cracks them open and looks inside, finding them empty of people, but the signs of life are all there. That half a sandwich he told Mammon to take care of if he wasn't going to eat it… clothes messily scattered around in Asmodeus’ room, books laid out in Satan's room on his desk, as if he plans to read them in that specific order to how they're lined up.
A shakiness takes over his entire body, closer, he's getting closer to a specific room. And he's scared.
He really is. What if… even she isn't there? And he really is all alone. By himself completely…
The House of Lamentation, his home now for so many years, an uncountable amount of days. And right now, it feels like ghosts live here.
He reaches the last door of interest, opening it, peering inside, but it's empty of any life. He walks further in, his heart starting to pound against his ribcage so hard that it becomes difficult to breathe.
He walks over to the crib in the room and settles his hands atop the railing, his grip tightening, his eyes glowering at nothing in particular.
He shakes with rage, despair lingers, if ever he thought he was empty before, then it's the opposite now. Melancholy fills his entire being up, to the point that it becomes unbearable just being inside of his body.
“Why are you so upset?” Your voice is smooth and calm, with your hands sliding across his shoulders. It's so easy to relax into it.
A second ago he felt trapped in a room of complete darkness, but as soon as he feels your touch and hears your voice, it's an instant calm to wash over him.
“Do you know where everyone is?” Because usually at least someone is home. Or did they all go out somewhere? Is there a surprise?
He feels you gently turning him around, until you have him facing you. And he's caught off guard. The look on your face, your expression — the grief portrayed there rattles his heart. Why are you so upset?
It doesn't settle right with him.
“They're all waiting for you,” you whisper it to him while pressing forward, acquainting your face with his chest, nuzzling into him.
“Waiting? For me?” He feels really confused, like he's missing something here. But he winds his arms around you, holding you close, as if to try and comfort you enough to make that terrible look leave your face.
…like someone has died…
“Then I should probably go to them?” He asks the question, as if you'd know the answer. You always know just what to tell him though. He can't think right now.
Everything still feels so foggy.
“I thought we could have a moment to ourselves first,” there's a suggestion to your voice, deadly and perfect, that whisper of yours, you say it in a way that feels intimate.
Tiny waves of shivers run across his back, he could melt into your embrace and stay in your arms forever.
Suddenly, it doesn't bother him to admit it as much.
“Come on, I want to go somewhere with you,” your voice is soft, you break away from his embrace and take him by the hand.
His eyes go across the room. He's about to ask—.
“Don't worry, she's with your brothers,” you say it with such certainty, not an ounce of worry on your face, your thumb caresses the back of his hand. He can't help softening. He believes you. He knows how much you loved each of your children together. He knows you wouldn't assure him this way, unless you were one hundred and ten percent sure.
He gives a small nod of his head. That knot in his throat starting back up again, it becomes difficult to speak. So a nod is what he can manage.
You lead him to the door, not a single sway to your step, you walk with purpose.
And take him down the hall. Downstairs. To his study here in the house.
“It's kind of funny, how many memories we have in here,” as soon as you enter his study, you drop his hand and go over to the electric fireplace and turn it on, the fireplace makes several clicking sounds before fire flickers to life. And then you're looking over a shelf of vinyl records.
There's something different about you. He can't quite place it. You look the same. The way you always do, but that lingering sadness in your eyes, it speaks volumes. The way you're talking to him right now — he doesn't understand it.
“Do you remember this song? I think we've listened to it over hundreds of times,” you're saying as you finally pick a record, you pull the vinyl out of its sleeve and place it on the record player, placing the needle, letting a song fill the room. It's Valse Sentimentale by Tchaikovsky[♪], the melody telling such a tale of the deepest passion, the most treacherous misery, like a love that never got to bloom and reach any sort of potential. He can't take his eyes off of you.
Why do you look so hurt? Even when you turn such a gentle smile at him.
“Do you remember that first day we met?” Your eyes meet his from across the room, he's drawn in like a moth to flame. Yet he can't allow himself to step further into the room. That sense of foreboding creeps up on him again.
He wants to pause the moment. He's afraid — for some reason — what stepping forward will do to time. He just wants to watch you. His eyes linger on your form.
You're so beautiful. Because it's you. Because you're his wife. Because you can make him feel this way. This way that no one else can.
“You made sure I'd know at the end of the year, I'd be going home, never to return,” there's humor to your voice this time, he picks up on it. His heart flutters again.
His eyes close, he savors this moment. He remembers that. He wanted to dislike you. He wanted you to disappear. He mostly blamed your coming here for his secret he had to keep locked up in the attic. And he had a feeling right there in the beginning that you'd be much more trouble than you'd be worth.
A small smile flitters across his face, fixing on his lips.
“And look where that got me...” His words are pointed and very serious. But he opens his eyes and finds you standing just in front of him. So close he can feel the heat that radiates off of your skin.
Your arms come up, taking hold of him in the position to start a waltz. And he obliges. Placing his hands where they should go, starting to lead. The song feels like it's getting louder. As if it's floating through his body, the way he moves you expresses this deep feeling of loss he can't shake.
As if dancing with you right now, if it was the final moment… as if words could really do no good anymore at this point and it's his body that can convey to you this deep and profound love you make him feel and the pain in his heart that won't stop flooding his every sense.
You shift, slipping your arms around his neck, leaning your weight against him. He slips his arms around your waist and draws you in closer, until you're chest to chest with each other, an embrace he would stay in forever.
“And over there… on that wall, that's where you assaulted me,” your voice is teasing. He growls under his breath.
“It wasn't assault,” he grumbles at you, even if he knows you're just trying to get under his skin a little.
“I know,” you whisper the words in such a way that his dread melts away. His doubts melt away. He can feel the passion in your breath, the way your feet move together without having to ever stop and look, how your skin can speak to his.
“I was actually really into it, I couldn't believe you kissed me… I was freaking out inside,” you tell him. And it only makes him melt into you more. Because he — he'd been freaking out on the inside too when it had happened.
He'd been sure you'd push him away despite whatever he may have said aloud. But you'd kissed him back. You'd wrapped your arms around him as if it would be you holding him in place and not the other way around.
And even the memory of it is enough to spark passion heavy glowering in his eyes.
“We could always try that all over again, I'll shove you against that wall… and assault you to your heart's content,” his lips find their place pressed up against your neck, his nostrils flare again and again, he inhales your scent deeply, as if you could permeate his every sense. His every nerve-ending.
And he listens to the small laugh you give him at his suggestion.
“We really were so bad for each other back then,” you whisper in a somber tone.
“Never, everything happened for a reason,” he answers back without hesitation. He won't listen to that kind of talk. It doesn't matter that you used to be down each other's throats, that you both seemed to relish a twisted sort of affection.
He, himself, has always been a fan of the macabre and the way the two of you had entwined into each other's lives was likely anything but healthy, but there was something romantic about it to him.
To possess you, your heart, your soul, your mind, if he could make you spend every second thinking about him and the way he makes you feel, he'd been desperate to make you feel that way. Because it's exactly what you had done to him.
“You know what I think?” Even now as you talk, your voice is playful.
“What is it that you think?” He asks as he pulls away slightly to gaze down at you.
“I think you liked arguing, I think half our arguments were over pointless things that didn't even matter, you just wanted to pick a fight,” you accuse him, but it's light-hearted.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he says and his eyes become half-lidded. Even now, just talking to you — he didn't think a feeling like this could exist, until he'd met you.
“And then there was the fact that you were actively trying to get under my skin,” he adds, listening to you softly laugh over it.
“Well, I was… I was scared of my own feelings. I thought you were such an asshole, and I knew —,” you cut yourself off with a long silence as you gaze into his eyes again. The way you look at him, it's intoxicating. No one has ever looked at him in this way that you do.
Like you're so caught off guard, like you're stunned he could be so beautiful. Does he make you breathless in that way? There's a fire inside of him, from the deepest depths, that's stoked and fills his entire body with a smoldering heat.
“What did you know?” He taunts you with the words. He knows exactly what you meant. But he wants to hear you say it.
“I knew I was falling in love with you and I didn't want any part in it…” you whisper and he nods, his breath growing shallow. It's exactly the same way he'd felt.
You, a pathetic, stupid, nobody of a human. That's what he used to try and tell himself, how you shouldn't be anything to him. All the while, each time he'd told himself that, he meant it less and less each time. Until there was no more fooling himself.
“Nor did I,” he says these words now but they aren't empty or cold. It's a fond memory, because even if you both pretended to hate it and wanted to dislike each other, it only proved how strong the magnitude of your gravity was on each other.
He'd convinced himself he was pushing you far, far away, while he'd also been secretly relishing every moment you were within his grasp.
“What moment did you realize?” You ask the question with this sudden intensity to your eyes, gleaming with unshed tears, there's a heaviness to the air, a desperate sorrow that holds his lips shut tight for a moment. His mouth feels as if it's gone dry.
“When did you know you were totally whipped for me?” You smirk as you say it, teasing him now. Even in a moment like this, you still keep teasing him.
Even that, he loves it.
His face goes serious as he looks into your eyes.
“It had been a couple months after we started seeing each other, before anything was even official but… we were definitely already together — even if I would have denied it,” he nods, his eyes closing, he can still remember it so prominently.
“I was stressed out,” he mumbles. He's sitting there again. This moment becoming then. Reliving it from his memory.
He's sitting at his desk with his eyebrows furrowed. He clenches his pen. The finality of this entire situation, of answering your question only strengthens the frustration that courses through his body.
“We had a bad fight where I called you clingy and… said you were just like every other selfish lover I had…” he drops his pen and places his chin in his hand, his elbow on his desk.
He'd gotten annoyed at you for texting him while he'd been working during a time that a lot of paperwork had piled up because he had to keep stopping and tending to his brother's shenanigans.
The tension had been rising high and you'd been the one to just happen to tip him over the edge.
But he felt guilty immediately after. But he'd been too stubborn to concede and apologize even though he knew he should have.
And the most hilarious part of it? He'd been so angry you'd interrupted his focus while working, but after the argument had occurred, it had been impossible to focus at all. His eyes had kept snapping to his phone. Antsy, waiting — waiting for you to say anything. Even if it was just to insult him back, he knew he deserved it.
“I don't even remember what you texted that had made me so upset,” this revelation isn't shocking. It was more like bad timing on your part, that's what he remembers. He remembers beating himself up for blowing up on you when he knew your intentions were never even all that bad.
He sits there at his desk, feeling almost desperate, as if watching his phone would somehow make you text him. He gazes around, noticing how alone he really is, in his study, all by himself. The music has stopped. The fireplace is out. The light is dim, only a lamp near him turned on.
“You didn't talk to me for an entire week…” he mumbles, musing to himself, his eyes trailing across the room. He notices that even though it's the dead of night, from the cracks between the drawn curtains of a window, beams of light pour through.
A certain sense of dread fills him up. He slowly draws himself up from his seat, inching across the room. The detail catches him off guard. There's a thumping in his skull, there's a whooshing sound like a ceiling fan circling overhead.
He gets close enough that the light distorts across his body. His heart picks up more, his mouth is unbearably dry to the point it hurts. His hand reaches out, he takes hold of the edge of the curtain. He's about to pull it back slightly, but he's interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door.
He even startles and he never startles.
His eyes go to the door but then back to the curtain. The light isn't there, filtering through anymore.
He's almost hyperventilating and finally notices. He draws a deeper breath in, holding it for a moment. The knock sounds again and he finally turns away from the window to go and answer it.
You stand there. His heart is picking up again but this time for a different reason.
You stand there with a picnic basket in hand and a backpack slumped over your shoulders. Your dress had been mostly modest with long sleeves and a high collar, but the skirt of it was just a little too short. And his eyes had feasted on every inch. Your thighs squeezed by a long pair of stockings, how the sleeves looked smooth along your arms, how you were absolutely adorable in that moment.
“Do you remember what you'd snapped at me about?” You walk into his study without waiting for him to tell you to enter. He stands there, lost in the way you look, how you move, how you burst past him with a huffy look and an attitude in your every step, sitting down and unzipping the backpack to pull out a blanket that you begin to settle on the floor.
“I stood you up,” he mumbles as it comes back, as his eyes lower, as his heart sinks.
“Yeah, you did,” you say as you smooth the blanket out on the floor of his study and start pulling out candles, setting them up. His heart flutters even now, as he watches you. Maybe as much as it did when this had actually been happening.
“And I got mad at you for being outside past curfew… even though I was supposed to meet you there,” his words are more solemn as he makes his way over to you and sits down on the blanket while you light all the candles you've placed.
“I was being unfair and I had known it too,” he mumbles as he gazes at his knees, his heart feeling like it's being torn apart, this feeling of agony.
“You really pissed me off with that one,” you add as you start to open the picnic basket and you pull out an array of foods. Sandwiches and chips, a pie, a potato salad, and other foods too. Too much really for the two of you to eat.
“After a week, you'd stormed in here and you were talking so sternly, so angrily, but the words you were saying…” even though his heart aches, he leans back on his hands and a tiny smile tugs at his lips.
“You were just yelling at me — that I was going to make the date up now — you told me I didn't get a choice in the matter since you'd noticed I'd barely been eating…” he sighs softly as his eyes go around.
The candles you'd brought had always gotten to him. You were angry at him — but then you still went through this much effort to set the atmosphere up like this.
“I couldn't believe you had the basket and blanket and everything,” he mumbles.
“Well that was another thing I was so angry about, I bought this basket and blanket just for the picnic you did skip out on, I'd made even nicer food than this for the one you missed,” you complain even now as your opening a bag with a sandwich in it and shoving it in a haughty manner right into his hands.
“Yes, but this is the moment… that I knew,” he smiles softly as he gazes at you this time, the somber in his eyes collecting.
He stares at the sandwich for a moment and takes a bite. He looks thoughtful as he chews, as you gaze at him, all the frustration of your expression leaving you. You look more stunned now.
“No one had ever done something this romantic for me, and I thought I'd really pushed you away finally,” he swallows his bite and looks at the sandwich again and sets it down as he watches you with a longing gaze.
“You burst in here and started setting this whole thing up, yelling at me like this was the punishment I was getting, when I thought you were just… going to move on from me and find someone who would be easier,” he admits it. This was it. When his heart had tugged in every direction.
He wanted to bite your head off for being so audacious — and also bite every inch of your body to claim you so completely as his.
“The food was actually really good too, I didn't eat since breakfast the day before, I thought you'd made too much, but we'd even finished off that whole pie,” he sighs as he grabs the pie by the rim of the pan it's in, grabbing a fork, taking a bite out of it from the very center, his eyes softly rolling back at the sweet flavor and the fruit that stains his lips a deep red.
“This was really the moment?” You whisper it like you're still caught up on that part.
“I knew I didn't want to hurt you again… and I decided that if such a romantic gesture was the punishment you'd get back at me with, I would make a million mistakes, but as long as you're still there, it no longer mattered,” he lays back on the blanket, staring at the ceiling.
You lay back with him, curling up to his side, he adjusts to move an arm under you.
“You fell for me pretty quick then,” you tease him softly and he smiles for it.
“You seemed quite smitten with me yourself,” he says back. After all, you did something like forcing him to have a picnic in his study. Really, when he looks back, you were always thoughtful in so many ways.
“You were my friend before anything else, and we did things together… I really…” you gaze away as you seem to be thinking it over.
“I was worried for a long time, sure that this was just a way to pass the time for you,” you whisper and he shakes his head without a second thought.
“Maybe at first I tried to tell myself that, but — it was never like that,” he breathes the words, lips finding your shoulder.
“When did you know?” He asks it this time and he watches you sit up a little, with a sudden smirk, your face lights up. In that way how it always does, for things he says. And it's not even for something clever to have said, though the faces you make when he is clever are just as unfathomable and intoxicating as this face you're making right now.
You start to stand up and offer a hand to help him up. And he doesn't hesitate in taking it. Soon enough, he's towering over you again, with you taking him by the hand and leading him out of his study. You take him down the hall, into the main common area that's set up like a living room.
All his brothers are here. And you let his hand go and sit on one end of the couch. And there's only a space left on the other end of the couch, with Mammon and Asmo and Beel sandwiched between where he'd be sitting and you.
Lucifer sighs as he steps forward, everyone frozen in motion now, even you, as if waiting for him to take his place for it to start.
When he sits down, the scene resumes as if it had been unpaused with a remote. Mammon and Asmo obnoxiously laugh loudly at the movie, with Beel whispering to you a little too loudly, asking what the joke in the movie was to make Asmo and Mammon laugh so much. All his brothers are out here, even Levi, which is rare…
His heart feels light as he gazes around. He remembers this day. They'd all gone out for pizza and came back and watched some mindless and raunchy comedy movie. He remembers wrinkling his nose in distaste but a few of the jokes had caught him off guard.
And one by one, after a third movie had been put in, his brothers began to go off to do their own things.
It had come down to just you and him and only Mammon sitting between the two of you. Until Mammon kept dozing off and Lucifer had sent him off to bed.
The movie kept playing. You were still seated at the other end of the couch, and neither of you had made to move yet, as if waiting for the other to give in.
“I was really nervous at first, because we were in a common room, and I didn't know how to act. If that would upset you… If I treated you with familiarity,” you explain. But as he turns to gaze at you, he can only smirk smugly.
“But you did eventually scoot over here, closer to me,” his voice matches the seductive look he casts over at you. And you give a mischievous smile as you scoot all the way down the couch until your shoulders are touching.
“My heart was beating so fast every inch I scooted,” you whisper near his ear. He slips an arm around you, pulling you closer against him.
“Mine was too,” he admits.
“And you looked at me and asked the most… surprising, unexpected question, do you remember that?” Your lips go wobbly, like you're fighting a giant grin from your face. His eyes meet yours, he feels that sinking sensation in his chest again.
He feels so happy in this moment with you right now, so why does it feel like his heart is breaking?
“I remember…” he scoffs and gazes to the side for a moment before looking back into your eyes, he feels so soft right now. Like you could be a blanket that warms his soul. He had asked a very particular and out of nowhere question.
“What's your stance on Oxford commas?” he asks it again as he stares into your eyes like you're his world. You are…
“And you know what? I knew it didn't matter which stance I took, you were planning to argue the other point either way,” you say.
“Was I really that obvious?” He chuckles softly as he can't help drawing you in a little closer.
“And I realized then… that I couldn't wait to get into it,” you whisper back.
“I just wanted to push you a little — so I could push back harder,” he says as he does push you back too, so you're laying on the couch, he hovers over you, bringing one hand up to cup your cheek, his eyes lingering on your lips.
“I wanted that too,” you say and his eyes close. This joy he feels — this sorrow, like he's so very lost but when you're right here and he can drown in your scent and anchor himself to your touch, you were good at arguing. As in you made logical and rational sense a lot of the time. But it wasn't just that…
“You made sense to me,” he says with affection as his lips finally meet their mark, he closes the distance, stealing a kiss from you as you breathe heavily underneath him.
But the moment doesn't last. Because when he opens his eyes, you're not there anymore. He finds himself on the couch, all alone, slowly straightening up. Slowly getting up and closing his eyes. There's that ringing in his head again. His eyes sting.
He walks out of the living room and down the hall, practically limping, and he gazes up at the window at the end of the hall, that light filtering in through the drapes. This ominous feeling that practically strangles him — he starts for it, getting closer and closer.
But he hears a noise up the stairs and turns his attention to it. And he gazes back at the window and then at the stairs…
The light beaming in past the curtains can wait. Because there's this feeling that whatever that noise was, it'll lead him to you.
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