Chapter Text
If pressed, Lucifer didn’t know what he’d expected to happen to Adam after getting that much-deserved stabbing. Probably nothing. As in, actual nothing, obsolescence, a complete eradication from each and every plane of existence so that nobody would have to hear a single fucking shitty guitar riff again.
In retrospect, that must have been one of Lucifer’s very rare sparks of unfounded optimism.
He’d certainly never expected Adam to get refurbished to Hell’s colour palette and let loose to roam the streets of Pentagram City like an ear-splitting, foul-mouthed, outdated televangelist, or he would have stopped Niffty mid-stab.
Maybe. It was still too satisfying a memory to give up.
And, lastly, he never expected him to show up on their new, spotless, trice-polished doorstep, using a giant baculum (must’ve drifted over from Wrath) as a crutch and waving it at them with extraordinarily squelching motions. Squelching, because he seemed to be covered horn-to-toe in the various bodily fluids decorating their fair city.
Yes, horns, because apart from the colour palette, the rest of his appearance had changed too. Not much, about as much as Lucifer’s had at the Fall, but enough to make him fit Pride’s aesthetic. The black horns were not much different than the ones on his old mask. The presumably black clothes (under all the bodily fluids) were torn and tattered enough to fit his most embarrassing fall from grace. The eyes still haven’t decided what colour they wanted to take, but they were bulging with anger in every shade.
They were all still putting the finishing touches on the main foyer (a lot of dusting and wiping), so it was Lucifer who opened the front door to his incessant pounding, and it was still Lucifer who got the first dose of that anger spat in his face. Literally, unfortunately.
“YOU!” Adam, well, spat, waving his makeshift staff. “You motherfucker, what did you do to me?!”
Lucifer was still staring at him when Charlie came to peer over his shoulder. “Who is…oh. Oh!”
“You too!” Adam pointed at her (thankfully, not with the baculum, or Lucifer would've torn his arm off out of pure reflex). “I don’t know what kind of sick prank this is, but it’s not funny!”
“Prank…?” Charlie shared a confounded look with Lucifer.
Adam ignored them, too busy pacing and waving angrily on the porch now. “I got blown up four times on the way here from some weird shit sludge on the other side of the city because someone thought it would be hilarious if they made teleportation not work! And look at me!” He pulled at his clothes. Part of the material stayed stuck to his hands. “What the fuck is this?! I swear to God, the moment someone hears of this, you’re all fucking done. So you’d better shut your traps and just fix it already!”
A feeling tugged at Lucifer’s mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Instead, he said, “Fix it?”
“Yes! Are you deaf or brain-dead? Because of the stunt you pulled, I'm like this now! You shits did this to me, so now you’re gonna fix it! Or else!”
Ah, that’s right. Amusement, that was what he was feeling. “Or else?”
Adam grew redder than the night sky, and that was hilarious too. But Lucifer didn’t get to give in to the incredulous laughter bubbling in his throat, because half a second later, Charlie leaned around him, and uttered a definite, “No.”
Lucifer was so proud he barely even heard Adam’s, “No? What the fuck do you mean, no?!” as Charlie slammed the front door in his face.
And it would stay closed, because he didn’t spend a week working on protective wards for nothing, which made it even funnier. Lucifer pressed his knuckles to his mouth the moment his shoulders started shaking. This was probably a shock response. He didn’t understand the situation enough to find it this funny.
“Uh, what the fuck was that?” Angel came to the rescue with the question most prevalent in Lucifer’s mind for the past two minutes.
“That,” Charlie clapped her hands and took a steadying breath, “was Adam. He seems to be a demon now, which, of course he does, because why not! Thousands of our people die every year because of him, but of course he wouldn’t stay dead! Yay! Anyway, he seemed to think we had something to do with it and wanted to get in the hotel, so I kicked him out!”
“Did we have anything to do with it?” Vaggie asked, just as dubious as Angel.
“Of course not!” Charlie exclaimed, then glanced back at Lucifer. “Right…?”
Lucifer finally regained his bearings. “No, of course not.”
“Is it because I killed him?” Niffty giggled into her feather duster.
Was it? “Er… maybe? I don’t know.”
“I’m sure you played a very important part in this most entertaining of developments,” Alastor said, glancing out the window, and when the fuck had Alastor got here? Lucifer had been pretty sure he was out tasting cakes for the grand reopening. “Oh, look, he’s tearing out the shrubbery. How utterly dull.”
“Oh, come on, we just finished planting that!”
Lucifer snapped his fingers and made the shrubs replant themselves without sparing a single thought to it. Forget the amusement, now his mind was roiling with scenarios and questions and unlikely explanations. The only thing that pulled him out of it was Vaggie’s soft angelic aura as she came closer to take Charlie’s hands.
“Has anything like this happened before?” she asked.
“I mean, no?” Lucifer grimaced. “Well, I guess, apart from… me—”
“And mom,” Charlie finished. “You think he fell?”
“He looks pretty fallen to me,” Angel said, having joined Alastor and Husk at the window. “Jeez, what sewer did he crawl out from?”
“I suppose it’s not unlikely,” Lucifer conceded.
“But why now?” Vaggie shook her head. “Why not—”
Charlie clapped her hands again. “Fallen or not, I told him there’s no place for him here at the hotel. I know we’re all about second chances, but he’s had a thousand times that, and I… no, I can’t. He killed Sir Pentious, he almost killed all of you guys, he’s been behind every Extermination… No. I won’t have him here.”
Vaggie placed a hand on her back. “Charlie…”
“How are we supposed to keep him out, though?” Husk asked, leaving the windowsill for a low armchair. “It’s all fine now, but we can’t very well keep all the residents locked in day and night once we reopen.”
“Maybe we can figure out a warding just for him…?” Vaggie tried, still massaging Charlie’s back.
Lucifer frowned. “I… guess. It’ll be a bit of trial an error, but sure.”
“Where would the fuckwad even go?” Cherri asked. “I can’t think of many who’d want to put up with that.”
Charlie shook her head and sat down on the stool they’d been using to steam the curtains. “You’re not helping, Cherri.”
“Helping with what?”
“It doesn’t matter where he’ll go, as long as it’s far away from us,” Vaggie said.
“Yeah, but… what if he teams up with someone?” Angel asked, hesitant as if he wasn’t making a very good point. “I know, demon murderer and all, but can you seriously say you can’t think of at least a few overlords who would overlook that in exchange for an alliance?”
The answer was: plenty. Lucifer started gnawing on his nails.
“Would they, though?” Husk asked. “I mean, he just said he’d had to walk all the way here, are we sure he even has any sort of power left?”
Lucifer had kept all of his after the fall, so why not. It only took a bit of practice and adjustment. This was getting less and less amusing by the moment.
An uncomfortable buzz of static pulled him out of it once more. “I feel like I’m going to be sick just saying this, but grudges aside, perhaps it would be wise to keep an eye on him. And it would be easier to do that here,” Alastor said, a hand pressed to his mouth, as if he was actually going to throw up.
“Al, no…” Charlie whined, head in her hands. “You were supposed to be with me on this.”
“Trust me, dear, it’s just as much of a disappointment to me as it is to you.”
“Can’t we just… dunno, lock him in a cage?” Vaggie tried.
Lucifer grimaced. “And risk giving him any reason to cause sympathy? No, I don’t think so.”
“We could always… try killing him again,” Cherri suggested.
“I’m sure we will, whether he stays here or not.”
“Many people will!” Alastor said with perhaps too much merriment. “I feel he’s quite the celebrity in Hell’s murderous agendas.”
He must’ve realised that was the wrong thing to say around Charlie a second too late, for his smile thinned as her eyes grew empathetic.
“Ugh, fine…” she groaned and pulled herself to her feet. “But if he bothers any of you — any of you — he’s out. Understood?”
“Understood,” they all said. Well, apart from Lucifer, who was already very bothered every day of his life and usually excluded from such chats.
Satisfied, Charlie stomped the short way to the door, pulled it open, and yelled, “One week!”
Then she shut it again halfway through Adam’s victorious, “Fuck yes!”
“But let’s try to keep the murder attempts to a minimum in front of the guests, guys. They’re still a bit…” She glanced at Lucifer for a split second. “...uneasy after all they’ve seen on TV.”
Yep, message received loud and clear: Dad, maybe don’t go into full demon form and break his face for the time being.
Lucifer shot a few finger guns that he immediately regretted. “You got it, kiddo.”
Easy peasy. What could go wrong?