A Crack in Everything

Chapter 1: Monster

The entrance of Lux was thankfully empty and dark and silent -- too early for the throng of clients and dancers and employees that usually filled the whole establishment -- but Lucifer hardly noticed as he navigated the familiar paths of his beloved club towards the elevator.

Right now, even Lux felt alien, unwelcoming. The quiet, the empty spaces, the dimmed lights -- everything felt ominous, reflecting the desolation that raged inside him.

She had seen him.

She knew.

The last hour's events kept replaying in his mind, again and again, in an awful loop of misery -- and who better than the Lord of Hell could understand such an irony?

Pierce -- no, Cain -- dead at his feet and sentenced to Hell, both things per Lucifer's doing. The Detective looks at his face with unadulterated horror. With fear.

He had all but bolted from the room, incapable of sustaining the torture of her horrified gaze a second longer. And so, he had run -- from the carnage, from the building. From her.

He didn't know how he'd got to Lux. Walking probably. Surely not flying -- not an option anymore, after Cain and his brainless minions had emptied several clips' worth of bullets in them.

He didn't remember the after. He couldn't find it in himself to care.

He had known for a long time now that this was bound to happen sooner or later- the Detective finding out the truth, seeing him for who- or what -- he truly was. Bloody hell, he had tried showing her his face, because he knew that, no matter how many times he told her the truth, she wouldn't believe his words.

He had wanted it to happen. He had wanted her to know him -- to know him. To accept him as a whole. How naïve of him; how preposterous.

But not like this. Never like this.

Not when she was already hurt and scared and traumatized and had almost been killed. Not over the dead body of the man she had almost married -- a man that no one else but Lucifer had just murdered and sent to Hell.

Not like this. Never like this.

The horror in her eyes, the raw terror...

Lucifer stumbled through the doors of the lift, finally inside his empty penthouse, trying to erase the image from his mind -- but it was a lost battle. He just knew he wasn't going to forget it -- ever. It would haunt his nightmares for eons to come, his nights and his waking hours, again and again, and again...

He staggered again, catching himself with a hand on the wall at the very last second. The pain in his back, where his shredded wings lay ensconced from the mortal plane, was unbearable -- fiery hot, burning with every movement, making it hard to think, to focus...

But he deserved it, didn't he? He was a monster -- he had killed a human, the ultimate unforgivable sin for an angel, Fallen or not -- and not only that. Worse than that, he had done it just before her eyes. A true monster...

It was even worse than with Uriel. Uriel was his brother, true, but an angel. Stronger than him, for starters, for he had the advantage of the wings in a still wingless Lucifer; and at that time, Lucifer's actions had been unplanned, truly spurred by self-defense. But Cain? Who was he kidding? The fight between humans and celestial could never be fair. And that had been no self-defense -- not just that, at least: Lucifer had wanted to kill him. He had wanted punishment, no revenge on the bastard for trying to kill Chloe...

His heart pounded madly in his chest, each thunderous thump reverberating through his ears. Mocking him.

Monster.

Monster.

Monster.

He took an unsteady step towards his bar. He needed a drink, or two, or ten, or perhaps something stronger from his stash -- not for fun, this time, but in the hope, it might help him numb the pain and mute the screaming voice inside his head. He grabbed a tumbler and a random bottle from a lower shelf and poured, his hands shaking so much that a considerable amount of the amber liquid spilled on the countertop.

Or maybe this was just another one of Father's grand lessons. A punishment for having defied Him one time too many; or perhaps He had planned it all along. Oh, yes, Lucifer could picture Him, peeking down from the Silver City, observing him and the rest of humanity as a scientist toying with a microscope, all amused and self-pleased with His bloody scheming.

What else did He want from him? Why did He have to keep playing cruel games with him, dangling before his eyes things he would never really have? And why had the Devil been so foolish as to fall for this?

His knees suddenly gave out and he crumpled to the floor, the bottle slipping from his numb fingers and crashing beside him, shattering into a myriad of pieces.

He lay there, in the mayhem of bourbon and shards of glass, panting, unable or unwilling to find the energy to get up.

What was the point anyway?