eyemind | no rest for the wicked; semi-closed

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no rest for the wicked; semi-closed

WHO: Lucifer, Murmur, eventually Ella. Maybe others after a bit.
WHAT: The Devil has been yoinked out of Hell onto a spaceship. He's not pleased about this turn of events.
WARNINGS: Some swearing, celestial violence and Resting Devil Face.

No good deed goes unpunished, apparently.

To say that Lucifer is surprised and annoyed to find himself interdimensionally kidnapped onto a spaceship is, frankly, a massive understatement. He is livid, and it's all he can do not to simply tear into the (seemingly vaguely organic, ew) walls around him.

He contains himself, barely.

But that's not going to stop him from stalking about, looking for someone or something to take out his anger on.

"John Constantine," he calls out, a name he deliberately mispronounces as Constanteyene because it annoys the shit out of him, "if this is you, I told you the last time, we're even. You're not supposed to pull your little three-wankers-in-a-trenchcoat act on me."

Nothing. Apparently, it's not Constantine behind this - behind the mark on his hand. So, Lucifer keeps talking anyway. It's what he's good at.

"D'you think I went back to Hell for shiggles?" he calls out to anyone and no one. "I've got important business to attend to! A throne with my name on it! Demons to keep in check! The millennial performance evaluations are coming up soon, and Squee in particular is in for a world of hurt. I can't disappoint my loyal subjects." His voice is dripping with sarcasm. Honestly, anyone who chooses to cross his path in this mood is just asking for trouble.

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Lucifer, by contrast, always prefers going toe-to-toe with his opponent. He has no better weapon than his own body, after all, and he knows how to use it.

The icy wing manages to slice a gash along his temple, but Lucifer persists, punching it until the ice breaks up, falling off in pieces. His knuckles are bruised and bleeding, but so what?

“No worse than following the rules!” He sneers, bitter. “Doing my duty! Giving up everything I’ve ever wanted!” His life in LA. His nightclub. His friends. Her.

He tries to pin those wings, head-butting the angel underneath him, not even caring who it is, if he ever did.

A fact that has put Murmur at a severe disadvantage in these close quarters. While fights were typically more to the death back home so long as he kept his distance Murmur could better hold his own. Here, between the restrictive space and not wanting to risk harming Navi or indeed killing this unfallen though angry Lucifer his hands were tied.

But not quite literally. The ice does grant him a few moment's reprieve while he collects himself, and as soon as Lucifer finishes breaking through while ranting Murmur throws a punch, aiming to interrupt that headbutt and knock the other angel off of him.

The words, however, still stung. Murmur understood the feeling, not that he was exactly willing to give as much a voice given their current circumstances. "Trying to say you didn't want your kingdom?" The answer was obvious enough, Murmur's still just going to pry while Lucifer works out his anger.

Ella Lopez is doing what every self-respecting nerd would do once they found themselves aboard a sentient space ship: she's trying to learn every bit of it on the off chance that it's real and she's not finally actually lost her mind. (She's leaning more towards not being crazy just out of the sheer fact that if she was losing it then Rae Rae would probably be there with her. So far there's been no sign of her ghost.) Going full on scientist about this whole thing, complete with a note pad with which too like record all of her observations.

Of course the thing about taking observation was how easy it was to be interrupted. The unmissable sounds of a fight rung through the halls, and while Ella wasn't a cop, she definitely was cop adjacent and that happened to come with the truth that she couldn't leave anything alone. While she wasn't really armed, one thing that Ella had was a shoe, and she drew it off of her foot as she was running. But then when she saw what was going on, Ella just muttered quickly and confusedly. "What the hell?"

Lucifer has, over the eons, been "caught in the act" as it were, numerous times. "The act", of course, could mean a lot of things, though it was often sex, let's be honest. He's almost never felt any sense of shock, or horror, or shame about it, though. Why should he? He is who and what he is, and human cultural mores don't usually apply to him.

But. But.

Here he is, in a knock-down-drag-out fight with another celestial, and then, cutting through the red haze of his anger and despair is one of the few voices that he truly, truly never expected to hear again. Oh, and then his opponent sucker punches him and knocks him back, and he swings his head around without a thought to see her.

"Miss Lopez?"

Belatedly, he realizes with a flash of utter horror that he's just showed the forensic scientist who is like a sister to him and who believes deeply in his Father the one thing he never wanted her to see. His devil face melts away, leaving him back to normal if a little bruised and bloodied and still with great big wings, feathers a bit ruffled from the fight.

Frankly, he looks like a feathery deer in the headlights. What the hell indeed.

Murmur, for his part, is not accustomed to being caught in the act as it were and having a human walk in on them is... Well frankly highly embarrassing. Goading Lucifer into a fight where they could absolutely be caught was perhaps not one of his better moments.

The best part was she was going to swat them with her shoe. To any other outsider the whole thing probably looked incredibly comical. Especially with Lucifer knocked back and Murmur moving to push him further away with his comically large airplane albatross wings just... "Off." He grunted irritably, it would seem their little skirmish was over.

Then, glancing between them, he realized that there was a whole lot more going on. Seemed these two knew each other? Trying to brush out his own disheveled feathers as he moved to stand.

"This is awkward. Friend of yours?" Whatever motivation Murmur had in starting the fight seems to have dissolved with Ella's appearance. No sense in continuing the ruse now that poor Lucifer looked like he was trapped.

There is a long moment where Ella is uncharacteristically silent and she's just staring at Lucifer with her mouth open. In her mind, there isn't a single doubt that this is Lucifer, like her bro Lucifer and it wasn't the way that the devil face shifts into his familiar countenance that convinces Ella of it. No, instead it's the way that he says her name that convinces her of it. There's a lot to unpack here, honestly cause what the hell is his face right now because like uh. Yeah, that's heavy. And it's really going to be heavy when something other than adrenaline hits her.

But right now the adrenaline is running rough shod over her, and because Ella Lopez is Ella Lopez, she's going to defend Lucifer now, and deal with all of this after. So, it's why she launches herself after the other angel who she doesn't know, (even if it's as simple that she doesn't know the name of him) and starts beating him with her shoe. Each hit is punctuated by words. "Who." Hit. "The." Hit. "Hell." Hit. "Do you think you are?" Hit. Hit Hit. "Leave him alone!"

Murmur should have taken that long moment she took to react to escape. He didn't.

He let out an alarmed squawk, backing as far as he could into the wall while the small angry human whacked him furiously with her shoe. Now it was his turn to look trapped and like a feathery deer caught in headlights. Hunched down with wings and an arm up to somewhat defend himself. Someone please call off the Ella!

Lucifer has seen a pretty wide range of reactions from humans to seeing his devil face over the eons. There was being frightened into a gibbering, incoherent mess. Occasionally people would immediately jump to their deaths. Linda had been simply catatonic for a while. Charlotte had turned hysterical.

And of course there was "running away to Europe for several weeks and returning in league with an evil priest trying to poison him back to Hell".

The point is, he's aware that it's a lot. So his first instinct upon realizing that Miss Lopez has now just seen said devil face is to, well. Ghost her. Disappear, slink off somewhere, give her some space to have whatever mental breakdown she's about to have in peace, hopefully avoid actual murder attempts on his person because that would hurt his feelings...

But then Ella does something completely unexpected. Oh, and also potentially dangerous, because neither she nor Lucifer actually knows anything about this celestial, and most he knows would just as soon swat them like flies as have a conversation with them. What he does know is that this being is much, much stronger than his human friend, so of course he has to intervene, even if she's now going to be traumatized and terrified of him.

"Miss Lopez! You mustn't!" Wings furled, he tries to step between her and his opponent, but she's already closed the distance, and he doesn't even register Murmur's reaction in his haste to protect her. He grips her upper arm, gentle but firm, trying to stop the flurry of blows. "We don't know what he's capable of! He could hurt you!"

It's probably a good thing that Lucifer has given her a different target to be angry with when he's right about the fact that she has no idea who the angel is that she'd just been hitting with her shoe was. He might however change his mind when being stopped from hitting Murmur means that all of the tiny forensic scientist's anger is focused his way rather than someone else's. Raining blows on him with her shoe, it's clear that she's angry with him but not for the reasons that one might otherwise expect when a religious person is confronted with the fact that her adoptive bro-slash-best friend actually is the Devil even if he's been saying it all along.

"You ghosted me!" The words come quickly. "Didn't go to Florida to handle stuff with the family business! No just ghosted me while going to hell family difference which yeah, there's a big difference between the two of them! Didn't say goodbye when you knew you weren't coming back!" And of course that's just the start of it cause now that's out of the way, it just reminds Ella of other stuff. "And you didn't warn me about Pete? Se supone que eres mi mejor amigo, idiota!" You're supposed to be my best friend, asshole.

Murmur had also seen a good number of different reactions from humans witnessing a Celestial's true form for the first time. But never, in all his existence, had it resulted in him being beaten by a shoe. He had no idea how to react to this. While he was still ducking from the shoe onslaught he did have enough faculties to look highly offended at Lucifer's suggestion.

"What? How dare you! I would never!" Really! Honestly! Alright no it was kind of fair if he really thought about it. When looking to a guide or guardian most didn't seek out the Angel of Sight. Much less a former Duke of Hell. He's still going to look thoroughly indignant at the suggestion.

Although any further protests died down when Ella promptly turned on Lucifer and laid into him with a barrage of accusation and shoe swats. Uh oh, this was more personal than initially understood. Maybe he should go? He might just... try to slink away while they're both distracted.

Lucifer is vaguely aware of some indignant squawking from the angel he was, only a few moments ago, trying to beat the shit out of - but that really doesn't register. So long as he isn't trying to harm Miss Lopez, he may as well no longer exist. Lucifer's attention is entirely on the tiny human woman who is -

ah. There it is. The violence. Well, it's no more than he expected, and even though it doesn't physically hurt him, it still, you know. Hurts his feelings. Just because he expects it doesn't mean he likes it. His eyes (brown now, and more surprised, confused and hurt than anything) are wide, and his arms come up to protect his face from the blows.

"I - what?"

Wait, she's not mad at him for being the actual devil?????

"There - there aren't any cell phone towers in Hell, Miss Lopez! And I don't know any Pete!"

What is even happening.

Okay, that may have been a fair point about the whole no cell phone towers in hell thing. But that sure doesn't mean that he's off the hook. "Yeah well!" She starts and then she only hits him one more time. "You still shoulda said goodbye! Especially if you were going back to hell and not Florida!" Look, she's going to focus on this whole Florida thing because it's what she's been told before. "And!" Wait there was more, even if she had forgiven him back home. "You still didn't message me back even after you came back, Lucifer! Like I had to find out days later when you showed up at the station like nothing even happened?" This is what happens when no one tells her about the fact that Lucifer has that whole evil twin thang.

Yes, it's going to take Ella a moment to get to that whole not knowing any Pete thing, though mostly because if she starts to think about him, then she doesn't know what she's going to do. It's still fresh, and with the hand that's not holding the shoe, Ella's fingers brush around the bruises that are obviously finger marks around her throat. If there's someone who would get the whole weird AUs and timelines things it's definitely going to be her, even if it sucks. She does drop her shoe though, and she says softly: "you don't know Pete?"

All of this is going to be entirely an adjustment to deal with things, but the fact that even with finding out that he's the real Lucifer, she trusts him enough to know that he'd never lie to her about this. Which means that he's before Pete and Chloe getting kidnapped and all of the things that happened that she knows about.

Okay, well. The hitting has stopped. And Lucifer can at least try to parse some of what Ella is saying to him. It's a lot, but still. Confusion.

Also, frankly, sadness. He looks like nothing more than a kicked puppy. A very tall one, but still. Even if Ella could ever have suspected him of lying to her, there's no faking the emotion writ all over his face as he finally speaks again.

"I didn't come back. My return to Hell was - permanent. It's my duty. I couldn't come back, no matter how much I might - want to."

Time is different in Hell. It's been - a long time. He's been gone a very long time, though his best guesstimate for Earth time is a few weeks, maybe six. He's tried not to keep close track, because it hurts too fucking much to think about.

"So, whatever or whoever you thought - wait. Shit. Shit. He wouldn't."

Yeah, Lucifer has thought of something now. His face darkens even further.

"Yeah, you were gone for months, but you came back. You were like weird at first..." Chloe wasn't the only one who had noticed the differences in him when he'd first come back, because they were obvious but: "then you were back to normal. Like really back to normal. Jokes at crime scenes, finally getting together at last!" Which actually reminds her that stuff happened. "She's okay though. Like you found her. You and Maze and Amenadiel. Chloe I mean." There's a pause because well, oops Ella dropping right into a story rather than going to the beginning.

"Okay yeah, to recap: went to Hell, came back, was weird for a few days then totally normal. Got together with Chloe and finally managed not to crush my hashtag Deckerstar for once." So she thinks anyway, she's not aware of other stuff. "You totally like. Hooked up by the way. Showed up all cute and lovey at a crime scene together and stuff. But there was weird stuff going with a case and someone kidnapped Chloe but it wasn't connected to it." Yeah, for a moment, Ella just stops and goes entirely still. One hand touches her neck and the scent of lilies starts to rise in her mind before she shakes her head.

"Anyway. She's fine. You guys found her and got her back to the station and stuff. So it definitely was you, dummy. There's no way that anyone would have been able to fool Chloe and Maze and Amenadiel and Linda. It's gotta be a whole timeline thing."

Okay. That is... a lot. What the fuck. He needs... a drink. He needs to sit down. No, he needs to pace back and forth! What the fuck!

Seriously, he's pacing back and forth now, hand pressed to his forehead as he tries to take all this in. Hilariously, he's having a harder time dealing with Ella's infodump than she seems to be with his fucking devil face. Maybe that makes them even.

"Are you telling me..." he says, beginning slowly, and picking up some steam as he gets a little more outraged with every word - "...that I'm finally going to have sex with the Detective, but I'm stuck here and don't even get to remember it?!"

Ella knows that sometimes she can definitely go overboard, but right now doing that is helping her not to think about his devil face so they probably are in fact even when it comes to this. Or something approaching it. Right now, Ella's not able to formulate the questions and what not that she'll have later after she's managed to get her brain working correctly and it's not a combination of 'wow a spaceship?! and cool so never ever ever mentioning Pete like it is in this moment.

Standing there and watching Lucifer pace, she's just going to let him do it before she offers more hugs because sometimes you just need to let it all out and Ella knows it. But of course he picks up on one small piece of it and not the importance of the whole. Lucifer always has tunnel vision and she knows it. "Yeah. You totes did. Showed up at a crime scene together and everything. But dude. Bigger picture. It means that whatever reasons you had to go to hell before? They're fixed. Like you definitely weren't leaving again."

Well, unless he was doing it without telling her, which makes her hit him again. "Don't ever leave again without telling me goodbye, jerk!"

Tunnel vision is a good way of putting it. The most one-track of one-track minds, honed to allow him to avoid the more uncomfortable topics, focus on the things that matter less but are easier for him to get huffy about.

Ella is about as all over the place as ever, however, one moment hugging him - which makes him freeze up in shock, and the next hitting him again, which makes him wince.

“I - I won’t! Not if I can help it!” He looks miffed. “I didn’t do it for funsies! I did it to protect you - all of you.”

He hesitates a moment. “Which is why I can’t figure out how I managed - or will manage - to come back. Unless it’s not really me, which would mean my twin brother might be scheming against me.”

It doesn't cross Ella's mind at all that he hadn't done it to protect the small group of people who were his family in LA. She knows without a doubt that of course Lucifer would go back to hell if they were in danger. And it sorta kinda makes the case that happened before he'd gone missing make more sense if that was had prompted his cause that case had been weird on a whole new level even for her and LA.

But once again, she's going to shoot down this idea that it was someone else because there's no way that it was. "Lucifer, you don't put enough faith in the people around you. It doesn't matter how good your twin is, there's no way that he's fooling Chloe and Maze and Linda and Amenadiel." She leaves herself out of that because she'd not figured out he was really like the real Lucifer and Dan because Dan's Dan and if she doesn't know there's no way that he does.

(She's wrong, but that's fine. No one messed with her like they did him.)

"Maybe something changed that you don't know about. But there's no way that Chloe wouldn't have known considering everything else. So at least there's that to look forward to? Like when we get back from here I mean."

She has a point, actually. Even if his scheming, two-timing twin has decided to pull something on Earth, the Detective, at least, is far too clever to fall for it for long. Michael never could keep up his Lucifer imitation long enough to cause serious damage. And Amenadiel has been through that song-and-dance before. He knows Michael's tricks, and would certainly warn the Detective as soon as the smarmy bastard started playing them.

As he thinks about all this, something begins to happen inside Lucifer's chest - a tight ball of despair that's been with him since returning to Hell inexplicably begins to loosen its grip on his insides. Something he hasn't felt in ages is beginning to warm him up. Hope.

"I'm - I'm going to see the Detective again?" he finally says, a question because he isn't sure he should allow himself such a luxury, to believe it. There is nothing, nothing he wants more than to see her again, even for just a moment, and so of course he's terrified of getting his hopes up.

"Yeah, dummy. There's no way I'd lie to you about that or tell you if I wasn't entirely sure about it. Cause I know how much you love her." Even if he hasn't told her. Well, Ella doesn't know if he's told Chloe or not because the last time they were talking about relationships and statuses, it had been Ella's turn at freaking out about Pete giving her a key to her place and almost telling her that he loved her. Look how well all that had turned out, Ella... but. "And I know that she loves you too." Which is so much more obvious honestly.

"You see her again, and like. Get together, and then when she gets kidnapped, you find her and bring her back." Even if Ella herself didn't get to talk to them right after because she couldn't. "You and Maze and Dan." Which is reassuring cause if Ella had been kidnapped (or murdered which was definitely more likely to happen to her than being kidnapped.) they were the ones who she would want to be working on her case.

Which actually leads to something that Ella is going to touch on later when he's not so shocked: how does he not know what happened to Chloe and that Pete was the Whisper Killer?

He watches her for a moment, as she continues talking - telling him things he has no idea about, talking about events that - he suspects - haven't happened yet, but will.

He's torn on his own inclination to disbelief, it's true. But - this is Miss Lopez. She hasn't a dishonest bone in her body, and, as she said, she would never lie to him, not about something like this. The easy way she says you love her and she loves you is enough to take his breath away, the truth of it staring him in the face, in the guileless expression before him.

Besides all that, she certainly wouldn't make up a story about the Detective being kidnapped. He'll have to ruminate on that later. Again, his mind is one-track, and right now that track is I might see her again.

With that hope still blossoming in his chest, he pulls Ella in for a tight, quick hug.

"Thank you," he says. It's all he can think to say.

The hug surprises her, Ella can't deny that. It surprises her but of course she immediately leans into it and holds him tightly. Ella knows Lucifer pretty well, in her estimation, and she can see how relieved he is. The last time that she'd seen him back home, she'd seen Lucifer look his worst when it came to trying to find Chloe. He'd hugged her then when she'd freaked out on him, and it had been just as surprising as this one. Honestly, Ella could really get used to the whole Lucifer hugging her thing.

"Totally my pleasure, Lucifer. I'm just glad I can like give you good news with all of this! Especially cause you need it! But yeah, I like swear to--" Ella pauses for a moment before she says quickly but in a not as mocking tone as she has in the past. "Your Dad that like you're definitely going to see her!"

A beat and then she asks quickly: "how long have you been here? I just got here myself like a few hours ago."

Right, anyway. When he pulls away from the hug, he absently fiddles with his cuff links, you know, pretending like that super emotional moment didn't just happen.

Luckily, Miss Lopez is quick to change the subject. She does know how this works.

"We must've arrived around the same time," he says, clearing his throat. "The multiverse works in mysterious ways, I suppose. You've encountered no danger, I hope?" He pauses a beat. "Well, apart from -" and waves a hand vaguely at himself. As if he's any danger to Miss Lopez.

"Nah, no danger. I mean is it suuuuuper duper weird to be on a sentient space ship? Oh yeah for sure! But also like. It's so cool! Like it's definitely going into my book even if no one believes it happened." Ella and her book with a forensic scientist who talks to (a) ghosts is something that's a constant but this would totally make a cool thing. "Like the sequel probably. Ghosts in space even if there's not really you know ghosts her that I've seen. She's seen. You know cause I don't really see ghosts. Just the character." That's very smooth, Ella. Super duper smooth.

"At least the sentient ship doesn't seem interested in eating us," Lucifer points out mildly. He's not even sure how - or if - that would work, in his case. Best not to think about it.

He raises an eyebrow when Ella begins talking about ghosts, and then - oh, right. Right. Rae-Rae.

"She's not a ghost, she's my sister. Azrael, the Angel of Death," he adds, just as mild, as if this is a totally normal conversation they're having in a totally normal place. "She somehow subtly manipulated you into moving to LA because - she wanted us to be friends, I think." His mouth twists into a grimace, because he hates feeling like he's been manipulated but also Rae-Rae was right, and he cherishes Ella's friendship.

no rest for the wicked; semi-closed

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