Lavender's Evening Shift

Part 1 - The Call

It was a rather drab day. Everyday was a drab day. Hell was just drab in general. Lavender had been relaxing in the cabin he and his roommates had been living in, which didn't do particularly well at insulating the breeze. The lilac devil had situated himself on the old busted leather couch. While the house was big and made for a nice place to hide from all the hustle and bustle of Hell's city, it was rather dilapidated furniture-wise. Every time the devil had heard a squeak or creak, he was anxious about the safety of such a furniture piece. Lavender had taken to reading a newspaper, while his young clone 'son' Orchid, was playing on the floor next to him. The young horned demon didn't do much, other than stare and giggle at whatever had entered the room. Lavender couldn't tell if he was hard to entertain, or incredibly easy to entertain. Either way, the purple infant had shared the contentedness of his DNA donor, as they both sat in the main room, blissfully indulging in the pleasant, mellow atmosphere.

Until Ivan came in.

The general vibe of the lounge had been disturbed by a tall, lab coat-clad demon moth. The moth had kicked the door open angrily, holding a rather off-putting ringing phone. Orchid didn't seem to notice, oddly enough. Ivan had a mane of silky purple fur on his neck, as with most moths of his kind. Except, right now, it was a little smoky. In that it was smoking. Lavender didn't know how or what managed to set the moth's fur alight, and he didn't understand how the moth hadn't realized up until now. "The phone has been ringing for you, would you please answer it before I smash it to bits? The ringtone is so annoying-" Ivan grunted with a disgruntled manner. Before he could finish, Lavender interjected. "Your neck fur's on fire, dude." Ivan quickly snapped back at him with a slightly less patient tone. "Don't change the subject, purple." He tossed the phone to Lavender before leaving and closing the door. Wonder what set him that angry. The turtlenecked demon quickly picked up the phone and answered it, putting it up to his ear. "Hello?" His confusion had risen. It didn't help that he was met with a 7-second silence on the other side, which just added to his unease. Suddenly, a familiar, gruff voice had answered the phone. "Lavender." It was his boss! The devil! Like, the literal devil.

Lucifer's voice called out to the uneasy demon. "Listen, can you come in tonight? Things have been rather.. less than productive in your sector since you left this morning. Tonight is rather important, since we're supposed to start work on that inter-dimensional oblivion vortex." Lavender was put off by the stern voice of his unholy boss, but by now, he was rather used to it. He sighed and kept Lucifer on the line. "The one we're supposed to dump trash into?" Lucifer replied with a consistent low tone. "No, human resources is requesting it this time. Something about inefficiencies in the redundancy office or something." The lesser demon spoke out. "Wait, I thought Jerry was in charge of that project?" Lucifer clapped back. "Jerry kinda.. fell into the prototype. He's not completely gone, a fifth of his spinal column warped into Yume's fish tank, so we're trying to salvage that." Lavender attempted to find excuses, yet Lucifer had a few reasons. "What about Steve? That was his assistant." "Oh Steve, I had to fire due to indecent exposure. It was a HR thing..." Lavender now had a rather questioning tone. "Wait.. Do you mean 'fire' like the normal person's version of fire, or did you fire him with actual fire?" Lucifer stayed silent for a strangely uncomfortable moment. "... Listen, can you just come in?" Lavender let out an aggravated groan. He complied and put the phone down before heading to his room to change. 

The devil's room was rather plain and bland. The wallpapers were lilac and eigengrau, just like his own color scheme. The bed was the same. The demon didn't have much time to worry about the trivial matters of interior decorating, when his boss was literally Satan. Lavender slipped his clothes off and put them on the bed for later. He grabbed some regular formal suit pants and slipped those on, as well as his regular office suit. The whole thing was black, except the undershirt which was a dark purple, similar to Orchid's skin. One would have to wonder if the child was one of Lavender's sources of inspiration. He opened his door again and grabbed his phone, wallet and car keys, before heading out.