#natanweek2019

He has never, in all his years and all his wanderings, felt enough attachment to a place to stay more than a handful of years, though usually he’s on the move again within months.

Not in the estates he’d obtained, mostly through nefarious means but sprinkled over every continent nonetheless. Not in any city he’d stayed in, because even if he managed to form an attachment it was superficial at best. Not even Heaven had been a place he felt he could remain, the need to escape the monotony and hypocrisy a persistent ache felt all the way down to his bones. 

Usually the only thing that kept him around for more than a few months was business. Occasionally he would find amusement in the human capacity for crime, in the larger cities especially, but more often than not his source of entertainment quickly turned sour, his disgust with their weak wills overpowering whatever humor he’d found in them. 

Davis, California had been no different. He’d wanted to leave the city the moment he had arrived, but he remained, bound by the contract and a redhead with no sense of self preservation.

He rests his chin in his hand, staring across the room at Natalie, where she stands at her vanity getting ready. She catches his eye in the mirror and grins at him.

It’s not even a question at this point. He knows the answer and pretending not to would just be a waste of time and energy. He knows why Davis no longer feels like a cage, he knows why the itch has faded, he knows why the restlessness has ebbed into a peace he can’t recall ever feeling before. 

Natalie. Of course it’s Natalie. 

It’s always Natalie. 

It’s her unwavering devotion and her unflinching loyalty until the very end. 

But most of all it’s neither of those because in the grand scheme of things he has thousands of followers who offer him the very same.

It’s the way she challenges him constantly, uncowed by his threats and his horns and the fact that Hell literally resides inside of him. It’s the way she sees who he is, underneath the glamour and the attitude and the reputation that precedes him. It’s the way she sacrifices everything for him, with no guarantee of the preservation of her own soul or of whether he’ll stay.

It’s the way she leans against him when she laughs. It’s the way she smiles just for him. It’s the way she brightens when she sees him. 

It’s everything and it’s nothing and this is ridiculous, but then, what about them isn’t? 

She makes him want to stay. No contract, no obligations, nothing to keep him in this city, or even in this state, or even in this country. 

But he stays. And he stays because he knows it’s never been the city that keeps him anchored in one place.

Natalie finishes twisting her hair up and turns to face him. She looks at him curiously, because he’s still staring at her in a way that’s both far away and intensely focused all at once. But then he stands and she smiles again, reaching out to take his hand, and he lets her because no person, place, or thing has ever made him so unsure of his purpose and so indifferent to it at the same time. Nothing has ever provided him with the comfort and the peace he feels with her.

She threads her fingers through his and for the first time, he thinks he knows what coming home feels like.

Lucifer considered himself to be the top authority on Hell. Sure, Ipos had studied it, had made that book that was supposed to save Natalie’s soul, he knew the most about it in an academic way. But Lucifer was the one that held Hell inside his body every day. Lucifer had been the one that had had Hell thrust upon him when he had rebelled. Lucifer was the one that had received Hell as his punishment.

He knew all there was to know about how Hell felt. He felt the rage of thousands of souls within him every day, constantly fought against the anguish and the anger that tore at his seams. He heard the voices whisper in his head, telling him all kinds of terrible things, hissing in his ear how good Natalie looked, how fun she would be to play with.

He’s the one that had to constantly keep himself in check, or else Hell would spill out over the brim of his being. He couldn’t let himself feel anything too strongly, couldn’t let Hell get that kind of grip on him, or else he would lose control and (literally) all Hell would break loose.

He had failed to fight against Hell in Oregon. He had failed to fight against Hell in that warehouse. He would have kept failing if Natalie hadn’t used her contract to save him. In a twisted way, he also failed because of the contract. He couldn’t help but think that if not for her saving him, he would have never taken her to the coast. She wouldn’t have gotten sick. She wouldn’t have died.

They wouldn’t be here.

He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was his punishment. Maybe when his father had given him Hell all those years ago, literal Hell hadn’t been what he meant. Maybe it was this twisted long game, designing it so that Lucifer got close to a human, allowed himself to open up to the human, allowed himself to lo--. A long game where Lucifer gets close, and then she’s taken away, and it’s his fault.

Where he manages to get her back, but not all of her. Not the part of her that cares about him, because the part of her that cares about him decided to care more about his soul than about the physical him, even though his soul was him. He could kill her all over again for that, except that he didn’t have her back to kill her.

Lucifer considered himself to be the top authority on Hell. Which was how he knew that the fear in Natalie’s eyes was so much worse. He would gladly take back all of the rage and the voices whispering if it meant he never had to see that look on her face again. Not directed at him. Not because of him.

This was his own personal Hell, designed for him by his father.

And now that book was gone, and he couldn’t save Natalie’s soul. He would go into Hell himself to retrieve it, and he couldn’t, because Hell was inside of him, and that was the worst part of the entire situation. He was the one closest to Natalie’s soul, he was the one closest to what made her be her, and he couldn’t do anything about it. 

She had used her contract so that Hell couldn’t bother him. He wondered if he’d be able to hear her voice if she hadn’t done that. If he could hear her cheering him on, telling him how much faith she had in him. He wondered if she had anymore faith in him.

Maybe if he could get her to start a new contract, he’d be able to get access to Hell again. He might be able to free her soul. But then her soul would be damned all over again, not to mention how upset she would be to learn that Hell was trying to escape again.

There was no doubt about it. This was definitely worse than Hell.

~

If this didn’t work, he was out of ideas. He had gone down every avenue, he had talked to every contact he had. He’d gone to Michael to work together to get her back. If this didn’t bring her back, he was finally going to have to accept that she was never coming back.

He sat beside her, tense, waiting for her to wake up. He had his horns away, not wanting a repeat of the last time he’d waited so long for her to wake. At least this time his back wasn’t bleeding.

Over the past few months, she had slowly stopped being so afraid of him, but she never really came to care for him again. She said that she felt like he might have been important to her, but she always said it in the past tense. He hadn’t realized how often she told him she cared, how often she called him good and important, until she wasn’t doing it anymore.

It was easier than he thought it would be to admit that he missed her. Every time she asked why he was in her house, he missed the way she would do her work while he read on her bean bag chair. Every time she told him it was weird that he was always with her, he missed the way she would drag him to different events across the city, often with her friends. Her friends thought they’d had a fight, that they weren’t talking anymore, and in a weird way, he thought he might miss them too.

At some point, Natalie’s house and her school and her friends, or maybe it was just her... something had become home to him. He hadn’t noticed until on one of their escapades, she had complained about being homesick. She’d gone on about how she was done travelling trying get a part of herself that she didn’t notice was missing, and if she didn’t notice, was it even really missing? She’d gone on, but the word that really caught his attention was ‘homesick’. It resonated with him, perhaps deeper than it should have.

In front of him on the bed, Natalie groaned softly. Her eyes fluttered open, and for a heart wrenching moment, she only looked confused. Like she didn’t understand what she was doing there, like she didn’t understand what he was doing there, and he thought he had failed for the final time.

And then her eyes widened and she sat up, nearly losing her balance. “Lucifer! Oh my god, Lucifer!” and she had only been calling him Satan or the Devil after she’d died so this had to mean- “I’ve been so mean to you!”

He studied her eyes, and they were bright, and when she looked at him she was tearing up. Over him. Over how she had treated him.

He’d done it. He’d saved her.

“Yeah you’ve been a real jackass.” If his voice caught, she didn’t seem to notice.

“I have! You were trying so hard to help me and I--” her voice caught too. “I am so sorry, Lucifer.” Before she had died, she hadn’t called him ‘Lucifer’ very often, usually just calling him Satan. But the more she said his name, the more he was able to accept that she remembered him again. That he had managed to get her soul out of Hell.

She surged forward, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing tight. He allowed himself to hug her back, holding her just as tightly. He buried his face in her hair and breathed in, his body slowly relaxing. He allowed himself to softly, gently kiss the top of her head, trying to communicate just how happy he was that she was back. “You can make it up to me.”

Natalie practically threw her bag on the bed before turning to him, anger burning in her eyes. He could feel the irritation coming off of her in waves, and he couldn’t help the smile that stretched over face.

“Would you care to explain why we have to be in a motel right now?”

“Are you insinuating that you blame me?” He pressed a hand to his chest, feigning hurt.

“Lucifer, look me in the eyes and tell me, with a straight face, that you didn’t start a fire.”

He schooled his face into passivity, looking into her eyes. “Natalie, I--” his lips twitched. “I did not--” He had to bite his cheek to stop the corner of his mouth pulling up. “I didn’t start a fi-” The look on her face had him laughing. “Nope, I tried.”

“What the fuck, Luce.” And oh, her cursing just made it funnier.

Long story short, what had happened was this: he was bored.

He honestly hadn’t meant to set the complex on fire. But once the fire had started, he wasn’t bored anymore, so he couldn’t really find it in himself to regret it. No one had been hurt, no major damage had been done (when had he started caring about that?), and so it was just endlessly hilarious.

Natalie had been at work, and he’d gotten out of a meeting with some demons hours before he’d thought he would. When he’d gotten home, Natalie had still been out, so he had to find something to entertain himself.

He’d decided to go out on a walk, and that’s when he’d spotted an electrical box, a key hanging out of the door, leaving it slightly ajar. Whoever was working here must have gotten distracted and walked away, or had already finished and just simply forgotten. Either way, Lucifer had found an opportunity to appease his boredom.

His goal had been to cause a power outage. Instead, he’d found a box of wires that were severely neglected, and he’d managed to do something to one of them that had started a fire. It wasn’t his fault that fires catch more easily in the summer. He didn’t think he could even be entirely to blame for the fire, either. He’d barely touched anything and the fire had started. The fire likely would have started if he hadn’t come along, possibly even on its own, without anyone touching the wires at all.

Still, watching people hear the alarms go off and flee their apartments, watching them huddle outside as they looked for the source of the fire, the ensuing chaos... it was easily the highlight of his day.

Considering how much he snickered anytime someone was wailing about “what would they do”, it didn’t take long for Natalie to figure out the basics of what had happened.

The fire itself had been stopped in short order, but the complex had been declared unsafe until the wiring could get looked at, so here they were in a nearby motel.

“Well? Are you going to explain?”

“I demonstrated to the tennants the danger that the complex posed to them.”

“Oh, that is such bullshit.”

That set off another fit of laughter, and she glared at him, looking like she was trying to stab him with her eyes. It wasn’t a look she wore often, and he knew he should stop laughing but really, who could blame him?

“I thought you were done doing evil things.” The anger had bled from her voice, and she sounded almost... disappointed? No, that wouldn’t do at all. That was significantly less funny.

“I am.”

“Then why are we in a motel, Lucifer? Why did you start a fire?”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident? Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“When was the last time I lied to you, kid?” She narrowed her eyes, studying him. He wasn’t laughing anymore, wasn’t so much as grinning. “I wanted to turn off some lights. The fire was an accident. It was supposed to be a stupid fucking prank.”

She sighed and nodded, the anger draining out of her like air being let out of a balloon. “Fine. Let’s just... go to bed.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry for saying you were doing evil things.”

“I’m the devil, kid. I’m supposed to do evil things.”

She frowned, shaking her head. “That doesn’t mean you do. You’re more than just Satan. You care, and people who care don’t do evil things, and I shouldn’t have said that.”

He shrugged. How she had so much faith in him never ceased to amaze him. She had always treated him like he was something more than his past, like he was someone worthy of the adoration she showed him. She was already on her way down a spiral of guilt for even suggesting he was anything less, and he had to put a stop to it. “The devil made you do it.”

She froze, trying to glare at him for the joke, even as her lips twitched. “Really?”

“What? I’m the devil, and you were responding to my actions. The devil literally made you do it.”

Lucifer hated the coast. He truly did. He didn’t understand why the girl would ever want to come back here, but she had insisted.

“I just got my degree, this is like... a last hurrah. Before becoming a full adult. And I want to go to the beach.”

He’d tried arguing with her, tried convincing her to go anywhere else, but she had insisted. She wanted a week long vacation at the beach, and nothing was changing her mind. And so he had spent his day going from tourist shop to tourist trap, trailing after her while she slowly accumulated more bags.

She’d barely made a stop to dump the bags in an airbnb she’d rented (at least she had some sense, a hotel at the coast would be worse than the coast) and change before heading to the ocean just before sunset.

He almost reminded himself of those pictures she liked so much online, the series of a wife pulling her husband around different places, dragging him by the hand. He wanted to get frustrated, but he had accepted years ago that he was soft when it came to this human. To his human. Perhaps six months after she had started to call him her boyfriend, he’d resigned himself to his fate. He was always going to do what she wanted, practically at her beck and call, just because he knew it would put a smile on her face, and that’s what she deserved after everything she’d been through because of him. He would argue and drag his feet, of course; antagonizing her was still fun. But he knew that he’d eventually give in to whatever it was she wanted.

At the beach, Natalie moved to stand so the water was lapping at her ankles. “Isn’t it beautiful, Luce?”

“I suppose.”

“You suppose? You’re such a grump. It’s breathtaking.”

He couldn’t help but to agree with her, for purely selfish reasons. He stood a bit away from the water, watching the sun start to sink towards the horizon. The sky was painted with hues of oranges, splashes of purples and just a hint of pink. The water moved in gentle waves, reflecting the colors onto Natalie. He watched as her face softened, a smile tugging at her lips, her eyes wide in wonder. The wind gently blew her hair to the side, the bright orange matching the sunset. He could watch her for an eternity and never tire of it.

Feeling entirely too soft, he opened his mouth, fully intending to complain about the sand, or say something about how if they couldn’t leave soon he was going to drown her, but instead what came out was, “Marry me,” and oh. That was unexpected. The rest of his thoughts froze as he scrambled for a way to explain away the words, and he tried his best to cover up the surprise he was sure was showing on his face.

Natalie swung around, shock open on her face. She said nothing, just staring at him, and he raised an eyebrow. Then she grinned, and started laughing, shaking her head. “You almost got me! I almost believed you! It was such a straightforward delivery. That was good. Can you imagine? Satan getting married?”

He felt a twitch of irritation. He’d proposed, and she was laughing at him. A part of him couldn’t blame her, a part of him tried to remember all the pranks he so enjoyed pulling on her. A much larger part took it as a challenge. He’d make her believe him. Which came as almost more of a surprise than the actual proposal, the fact that he was willing to follow through on the impulsive words. He shrugged, doing his best to keep a calm demeanor, absently wondering what color his earrings were. “I’m pretty sure there’s books or something about it. People have a thing for marrying the devil.”

“Yeah, well, they don’t know him, and I do. He’s not the marrying type.”

Oh, it was on.

~

That night, while she slept, he sent out a text and got up to get ready. He dressed, and made his way out of the house, shutting and locking the door quietly behind him. A part of his mind screamed at him to not leave her, to not let her die alone, and he had to keep reminding himself that this time she’s not sick, that she won’t die in her sleep.

He really hates the coast.

Downtown was much quieter than it had been hours ago, all the shops dark. The lights were dim, spaced far enough apart that it was easy enough to find a dark alleyway. He knew he was early, and he didn’t want to admit to himself that it was because of the nerves tangled somewhere in his stomach. He was Satan, he shouldn’t be so anxious about this. He was in charge of the demon that was coming, he was in control of the situation, so why was he feeling like this?

He resigned himself to waiting, and another fifteen minutes later, the demon in question rounded the corner and approached him. She stopped to bow to him. “Master.”

“Alya. Where are they?”

She pulled a box out of her bag and held it out to him. He lifted the lid, and inside there nestled about 20 different rings. He closely inspected them, his eyes quickly zeroing in on one. It had a fairly simple band, with a small, round ruby nestled in its center. On either side of the ruby were smaller diamonds. “This one.” Alya nodded, plucking it from the box and setting it into a ring box, quickly handing it over.

“Hey, um, boss? Congratulations.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and she quickly scurried away.

~

Natalie waking up was always a toss of a coin. Some days she’d wake up like it was her favorite part of the day. She would come bounding out of bed, already halfway through a plan to go to the park or the movies or whatever struck her fancy that day. Other days, she needed five different alarms to even think about getting out of bed, and at least two cups of coffee before she was able to string words together into a sentence.

This morning was definitely the second one.

He was already finished making breakfast by the time she dragged herself out into the kitchen for her coffee. He plated the food as she poured the coffee, and she nearly collapsed into one of the kitchen island chairs to sip at it, wrinkling her nose at the taste. He went to the fridge and grabbed her creamer, pouring some into her coffee and mixing it. With her next sip, she hummed happily and finally looked up at him. “Mornin’.”

“Perky this morning, aren’t you?”

She grunted at him, taking another sip of her coffee. He hated how adorable it was, even as he felt the ring box burning a hole in his pocket.

He’d spent the rest of the night trying to figure out the best way to propose for the second time. He was tempted to do it at the beach at sunset again, but he also didn’t want to wait that long. He’d thought about going to a restaurant, but hated the idea of strangers watching them. He’d thought about taking them on a hike, making her climb up another cliffside for his own amusement, but he hadn’t done his research to find a good place to do it.

She was barely halfway through her plate of breakfast when he got impatient and took the box out, slamming it maybe a bit too hard on the countertop beside her. She jumped and frowned around the bite she was chewing, looking at him and then down at the box, then back up at him, confused. She slowly reached out and picked up the box, opening it.

He saw the realization dawn in her eyes and she nearly dropped the box, her head jerking up to stare at him, swallowing down her food. “Lucifer?”

“What?”

“Is... Is this... Are you-”

“Did you think I was kidding last night?”

She frowned slightly before remembering, and her eyes widened, horror filling her. “You were serious! Oh, my god, I laughed at you! Luce, I am so sorry, I never thought--”

“Kid.”

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“Natalie.”

“That was so insensitive of me and-”

“Love.” That one finally brought her up short. “You haven’t answered.”

She opened and closed her mouth a couple times before grinning. “You never technically asked.”

“You’re really gonna make me say it?”

“I’m really gonna make you say it.” She closed the box and handed it to him, smiling widely, and the nerves vanished. She wouldn’t already be this happy if she was going to say no. “The whole thing, out with it.”

He huffed, rolling his eyes, despite the grin pulling at the sides of his mouth. He moved around the island and stood so he was directly in front of her, standing slightly between her knees. “Natalie McAllister. You are the biggest pain in my ass I’ve ever come across. You have a particular talent for pissing me off, and you always have, and I suspect you always will.”

“That’s not-”

“Shut up, I’m not done. I am Satan. I command demons. I’m supposed to stand against every good thing in this world, which is why, I suspect, you piss me off so damn much. Because you are good. You are everything good that this world has to offer. And for some reason, you decided to spend your time with me. The last, what, five or six years? You decided that you wanted me there. And I want you to keep deciding that you want me there, because I want all the time that you have. I have a feeling that even when I don’t have your time anymore, you’ll always have mine. So. Do you have a thing for marrying the devil?”

Tears shone in her eyes, even as she smiled. “That’s not the right question.”

He huffed again, amused despite himself. He opened the ring box once more, offering the ring. “Will you marry me?”

“You’re not gonna get on a knee?”

“You’re killing me, kid. It’s a yes or no question.”

She laughed, nodding her head. “Fine. Yes.”

He smiled, plucking the ring from the box and sliding it onto her finger.