Chapter Twenty-Six:

Lucifer jumped up with a snarl when he heard the mix of panic and anger in Charlie’s voice. His magic reached for his wings… only to hit a block? But why..? And by his own magic? Why would he- he was still at the Hotel!! The Hotel was attacked last night!! 

Lucifer looked around the still trashed lobby with Alastor’s little puppet guys carefully (slowly) cleaning, to his daughter and Vaggie both looking at them with a mix of anger and horror, to Alastor himself, who was now standing beside him with a disgruntled look on his face as he also looked over the mess. Turning back to Charlie, Lucifer didn’t hesitate to point a finger at the Overlord.

“He did it!” he yelled, feeling no ounce of guilt for throwing the deer under the maybe not so proverbial bus. “It’s all his fault! Not mine. Blame him.”

Alastor raised a brow at him. “Really now? Because I seem to recall you being the first one to draw blood by, let me think. Ah yes. Ripping the head off of a sinner!”

“He ripped my shirt first!” Lucifer argued, gesturing to his poor duck shirt. “That should totally count as self-defense! Plus they wouldn’t have even been at the Hotel if it wasn’t for the fact that your friend brought them here!”

“True enough.” Alastor said with a shrug. He then turned to Charlie. “I will, of course, make sure that the mess will be gone before we even finish breakfast.”

Vaggie facepalmed so hard that Lucifer was genuinely worried she might have hurt herself. Poor Charlie didn’t seem to know what part of what they said to focus on first. Finally she pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath.

“That still doesn’t explain what happened!?” She says threw clenched teeth. “What happened to the lobby?! Why were you both asleep on the sofa?!”

“As Lueur has already stated,” Alastor started with a sharp look thrown Lucifer’s way. “A friend of mine dropped by a little after midnight. Unfortunately Mimzy has a habit of bringing trouble wherever she goes. Have no fear, I have already informed her that she would not be allowed back unless she was looking for redemption.”

“As for falling asleep on the sofa… well it seems that the fight and all of the other excitement of the day tuckered out our dear secretary and myself more than we thought.”  He ended with a shrug.

“What other excitement?!” Vaggie growled. 

Before either of them could answer that, Angel came out front the kitchen holding a squirming, cackling Niffty as far from his body as possible and answered for them.

“Smiles hogged all of Papa Imp’s time yesterday and dragged him all over the Pentagram. The only bright side is Vox threw a bitch fit that he couldn’t get a close up and I got to go home early cause none of the camera equipment was workin’ after his tantrum.” Angel dropped Niffty to the floor. “Alright, you little freak, they're awake. Go nuts.”

The maid immediately began running around the lobby picking up some of the mess and dust every surface in sight. All while chanting “Clean!” madly. No wonder the spider sinner kept a hold on her. That would have definitely woken them up… Lucifer's just a bit mad Angel didn’t let Niffty wake them up. Or at least woken them up himself. Then they could have cleaned before the girls woke up. He would have still told them what happened of course. But at least that way it would have looked like they weren’t incompetent at watching the Hotel by themselves.

“You left the Hotel?!” Vaggie yelled at the deer sinner. Thankfully she was angry at the true offender here and not at him. “You two were supposed to stay here!”

Never mind.

“Hey, I was kidnapped against my will!” Lucifer tried to argue and defend himself. “I would’ve been perfectly fine staying here all day. I mean, sure, Rosie’s a nice lady who gave me some excellent blackmail against Bambi here, but the sightseeing was both unnecessary and unwanted on my part! Especially since I didn’t even get to put shoes on! Who knows what I stepped in yesterday!”

He didn’t want to think about some of the stuff he scrapped off his hooves before he and Angel went to hang out in the spider’s room. Ew.

Charlie’s eyes flickered for a moment before returning to normal. Not helping. Right. Got it. Shutting up now. Charlie took another calming breath before asking, “And who is Rosie?”

“A friend of mine, and a fellow Overlord, of course!” Alastor answered. “As a manager of this humble hotel, is it not my job to help in advertising it? Rosie is well loved by the sinners under her care, if she has good things to say about this establishment then they may show interest in joining~!”

Bullshit. Lucifer would bet all the gold he had that the jackass came up with this excuse knowing that either he or Angel would snitch to the girls about leaving the Hotel. Probably thinking that ‘Lueur’ wouldn’t tell them about his and Rosie’s talk.

(Which he wasn’t. Not yet anyway. No need to give them more things to stress about before their meeting with Heaven.)

“And the reason you took Lueur, and not me or Vaggie, with you was because…?”

“I figured that introducing the two of them first would make our dear secretary feel less apprehensive when I introduce you to her. After all, you both know how overprotective he can be.”

Rude. He was just the right amount of protective, thank you very much!

“Plus, I thought it would be entertaining.” Alastor finished with a shrug.

“Ya no debería sorprenderme.” Vaggie grumbled angrily. 

Charlie sighed in defeat. “Just… just promise to tell me next time. Please.”

“Very well.” He agreed easily before snapping his fingers, grabbing the attention of all the puppet things. “Quickly finish cleaning up.”

*

After breakfast (which Angel Dust had made while corralling Niffty) Charlie had managed to drag him off while the others were too busy with Vaggie interrogating them to notice. They ended up in her office, Lucifer held up a finger to stop her from speaking before he quickly cut the spell he put on last night binding his form to keep from shifting in his sleep, sighing in relief as the sigil faded from his collarbone, and then snapped his fingers to put up a shield to keep anyone from listening in or trying to enter, knowing that Razzle and Dazzle wouldn’t be able to stop Al from trying to sneak in if he wanted to. This would though.

“Ugh, I hate that spell!” Lucifer said as he stretched. Sleeping on the sofa had not been good for his back. “It always feels like I’m wearing a chainmail body suit.”

When Charlie didn’t respond he looked up to find her watching him with a blank expression. He blinked in shock before asking, “Duckie? Is something wrong?”

The question seemed to snap Charlie back to reality. She sighed heavily and collapsed in one of the chairs in front of her desk, rubbing a hand on her face. Lucifer gave her a minute to breathe before moving in to rub her back. 

“Honey, I’m sorry.” he started softly. “I know I shouldn’t have left the Hazbin when you and Vaggie trusted me to watch it.”

Charlie shook her head. 

“No, no Dad. I know how Alastor can be when he really wants to do something. And while I really, really, would have rather Alastor told me he was planning this beforehand, it’s nice that he’s taking a proactive role in trying to get guests at the Hotel. Even if it's to, you know, have more people to laugh at if this all fails.” She rolled her eyes but Lucifer could see the small grin on her face. “I’m not even upset about the lobby. I mean, that wall gets knocked down every other week. And it’s not as big of a mess then when you and Alastor used to fight. Honestly I think Angel made a bigger mess the first few times that we found his drug stashes!”

She sighs and leaned her head against his. When she didn’t say anything further Lucifer nudged her forehead with his own.

“Okay. So what are you upset about?” he asked. “And don’t try and say you’re not. You’ve been spacing out all throughout breakfast.”

Charlie didn’t answer at first. That was fine. Lucifer would let her think. After a bit she let out another slightly more aggravated sigh. He felt her own horns come out and knock against his. Her arms wrapped around his neck and her tail around his waist to pull him in close. The arm of the chair was digging into his gut but Lucifer couldn’t care less. Charlie hadn’t hugged him like this since she became a moody ‘hugs are lame Dad’ teenager. Even after she outgrew that phase they were never the full body hugs like this! Lucifer was quick to return the favor. His tail quickly slipping threw the bars of the chair to wrap around her just as tight.

They stayed like that for a while, not saying anything. Lucifer just pet his daughter’s hair and rubbed her back. She wasn’t crying, so that was a good sign. But as much as he liked this, he hadn’t forgotten the conversation they had been having. Just when he had been about to push for an answer Charlie finally spoke.

“Why did you really fall asleep on the sofa?” her question slightly muffled into his shoulder. “I know it’s not because of all the walking you did around the Pentagram. I’ve been shopping with you, I know how much walking you can do. And tearing off a sinner’s head doesn’t take that much strength, barely any at all, so it wasn’t that either. I have a hard enough time believing that Alastor just fell asleep like that, but you too?”

Ah. Okay, he could see why she was upset now. There weren't many things that could knock him out that quickly and the one thing that definitely could…

“It wasn’t the contract. Not technically anyway.” he whispered back. “I was pissed, sure, but not enough for that.”

No matter how much he liked his shirt, it wasn’t enough to push him over the edge. Nor was the rude sinner that tore it. Not even Alastor taking his sweet time to do his job and deal with the mess his friend Micky had brought to his daughter’s Hotel for shits and giggles was enough to set his contract off. 

 What really happened was… a little stupid on his part really. Unavoidably. But stupid. 

“I may have, maybe… sorta kinda… activated the form binding spell… right after I attacked the sinner. While my malice was still high.” He finally confessed.

Something that would normally be fine… if he wasn't in a power binding Deal on top of that. So he was not at all surprised when Charlie quickly drew back with an incredulous look on her face. At his embarrassed smile the look turned scolding. Her tail squeezing tightly.

“Dad! You know you're not supposed to do that! It’s why Aunt Bel banned that spell for long term use in the first place! You’re lucky you didn’t pass out!"

“I know. I know.” he sighs. “But ‘Lueur’ is supposed to be an imp and imps would be tried after a long day like that. I didn’t think the backlash would kick in so soon! Trust me, I know Bel-Bel is going to kick my ass when I tell her.”

And that was putting it lightly. He’d be lucky if she didn’t put a health monitor on him. A living one that would follow him around and tattle on him, not a spell that he could break or trick. That would be a hard one to explain away.

“You’d better tell soon.” Charlie warned.

“I will.” Lucifer promised. “Today.”

“Good.” She hesitated for a moment before asking, “Is there… Anything else you want to tell me? About last night?”

“Uh…” He thought about it. Was there anything else important for Charlie to know? “Oh! Sir Pentious lied about going to see a friend so you might want to check his room for new weapons.”

She blinked at him. “...Is that it?”

“Hmm. Yep! That’s all I can think of.” He said then paused. A mischievous smile formed on his face. “Unless you want to hear about how long it took Al to learn how to walk with hooves? Rosie told me all about it and a few other funny bits of blackma- I mean, stories about the busboy.”

Lucifer was expecting to be scolded again for the joke, but instead it looked like Charlie was considering it.

“Just… one story.” She said finally, somewhat cautiously. “Just in case I might need it.”

Lucifer cackled. He loved it when his baby girl got devious! 

*

Lucifer had been right about Belphegor kicking his ass over his little stunt. 

A three hour scolding, a full physical exam and an early (as in right that minute) therapy session where he had to tell her his whole day in exact detail just so she could point out just how stupid he was… Okay that’s not what she was doing, but dammit all if it didn’t feel that way! Especially after he told her about his talk with Rosie. Lucifer really thought he handled that well! To him, everything sounded perfectly fine!

… Well. It was not, in fact, perfectly fine. Lucifer was pretty sure this was going to make Alastor act worse about him dating himself instead of getting him off his back about it.  

Safe to say, he wouldn’t be telling Charlie or Vaggie about that mess of a meeting until he figured out how to fix it. For real this time!

Though as awful as that realization was, it wasn’t the thing that had taken up the most of his free time (and not so free time) with worry. It was something else that Bel had said that made him sick to his stomach with anxiety and kept popping up in his head no matter how much he tried to shut it down. 

*

“Lammy Lu.” Belphegor started softly. “There’s something else we need to talk about.”

Lucifer had frozen at the name. Bel only called him that when they needed to talk about something she knew would upset him. And recently the only thing that truly set him off was trying to talk about one person.

“Bel-”

“No Lucifer.” Belphegor interrupted. “We need to talk about her. About Lilith. About the reaction you had to just seeing a statue of her! We’ve put this off long enough, I’ve let you put this off long enough. And not just for your own benefit either.”

Bel sighed roughly. Lucifer watched as she put down her clipboard and pen. Her upper set of hands rubbed at her face as her lower arms crossed themselves. Like she was hugging herself. Like she was trying to hold herself together to keep from falling apart.

“If it were up to me,” She started, soft voice fuming with unchecked anger. “You and Charlie would never have to be around her again. If it were up to me, she would be punished for all her crimes against you and Charlie. She would be locked away the second she came back to Hell, to suffer for all eternity. To never see freedom again. Not even in death.”

(Lucifer couldn’t help but shudder at the blood lust in her voice.)

(He shoved down the part of himself that agreed with her.)

She took another deep breath before relaxing in her chair. Upper arms on the armrests and lower ones folded neatly in her lap.

“But it’s not up to me.” Belphegor continued, anger nowhere to be found. “It’s your decision. And You decided that if and when she came back to Hell, that she’s to be questioned. That if she did have any justifiable reasoning's for what she has done, she would be given a small bit of property and stuck in the Pentagram to live with the rest of the sinners. No more access to the other Rings and that Charlie could decide if she wanted anything to do with her after that.”

“And for that to happen, you can’t kill her the second you see her.” Bel continued after a small pause. Her eyes fully open as she watched his reaction. “So we need to talk about her, Lucifer. You and Charlie. To work out the anger. To work out the hurt. The betrayal. So that if or when she does come back, she has no chance of breaking either of you again.”

* 

He managed to talk Belphegor into waiting until two weeks after Charlie’s meeting with Heaven to bring it up to her. Two weeks for her to either celebrate her plan being agreed too, or (more likely) to mourn Heaven’s dismissal. 

Thankfully Lucifer had no other blunders while talking to the sinners about his non-existing love life for the rest of the month. Avoided talking about it as much as possible even. Soon enough it was the day before the girl’s trip to Heaven. And he was doing his best to coo over the matching outfits Leviathan made for them and not think about all the ways this trip could turn into a nightmare. 

Charlie's outfit was a loose red blouse, the collar of the blouse was black with a white wave going through it and red ruffles at the end, the ends of the sleeves were also black with white ribbons on them. Her pants were black with a white ribbon belt and a white looping net pattern on the bottom of the legs. 

While Vaggie wore a red quarter sleeve shirt that was lightly ruffled at the bottom and at the ends of the sleeves. On top of that she had a black and white corset belt with a long white ribbon. Her black knee length skirt had the same looping net pattern as Charlie’s pants and white ruffles at the hem.

Both outfits showed off their matching necklaces perfectly! He took a few hundred pictures of them before they finally forced him to stop.

“I don’t get why your showin’ off your outfits to Lulu now.” Angel remarks from where he’s sitting on a sofa. “Ain’t he gonna be here tomorrow anyway?”

“NO!” He, Charlie and Vaggie all shouted at the same time.

At the shocked look they got from the sinners Lucifer gave a sheepish look. 

“Sorry.” He started. “It’s just that, most hellborn don’t exactly… react well to Holy energy. And a portal to Heaven itself? That’s a lot of Holy energy. Charlie and Vaggie both have fallen blood, so they’ll be fine. But an imp? Not pretty.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie. Long time exposure to Holy energy acted like radiation to hellborns. Some were weaker to it than others so an imp could definitely die from being close to a portal to Heaven. Especially a large one. But the real reason was because they weren’t sure if being close to the portal would activate his chains or not. They would never be able to explain away why an imp had such a big Deal with Heaven. It was best not to test it. 

The faces the Hotel sinners made said that they believed it. Horror and disgust at the idea of poor 'Lueur' dying just like that. It was sweet.

“So!” Charlie said with a clap of her hands. “With that in mind, I hope all of you are on your best behavior for Alastor while you're in the Hotel!”

“And Alastor!” Vaggie said, glaring at the deer. “Stay at the Hotel this time!”

“At least until we get back! Please.” Charlie added.

“But of course my dears! What kind of a host do you take me for!”

Lucifer stood back and let Vaggie argue with the Overlord. And for the first time in a long time, he prayed to the Father he no longer believed in (the one who abandoned him) that the only thing that would hurt his girls up there was the pain that came with having their idea dismissed.

yay thank you im really glad you enjoyed the fic!!

DANDELION BLOSSOM GNOCCHI: GOLDEN DUMPLINGS IN GARLIC CREAM SAUCE from Gather Victoria

I humbly propose substituting katniss/wapato/duck potato tubers for the russet potatoes in this recipe to create an entirely Everlark dish! (Which would probably pair stunningly with cheese buns!)