Lucifer's mood hadn't improved much since Amenadiel left. Abigor had disappeared the moment he found out he was no longer needed. This left Jeremy completely alone despite being in the same room as the devil, considering Lucifer wasn't much company at the moment. He had a tendency to be deep in thought, muttering incomprehensible words and then suddenly slamming his fists down on the nearest object. So far, Jeremy had made sure said object wasn't him.
"Human! Come over here." Jeremy snapped his full attention over to the devil, looking at him with uncertainty from the corner of the room. "I can hear you from here," Jeremiah called, causing him to glare threateningly back. "Either you come over here on your own terms or I'll come to you by force." Jeremy gulped and took the few steps it took to cross the room, clasping his hands together and bouncing on the heels of his feet, "Here I am... Tra-daaa."
The non-existent crickets in the room began chirping.
"Tell me what you think of Amenadiel and my Father," he demanded. The boy's eyes widened slightly, "Well, I haven't met your dad, and Amenadiel seems nice, he's very... uh, confident."
Lucifer snorted unattractively, "They're both idiots who think they can do anything they deem fit." He leaned forwards in his chair, "Right?" Jeremy knew when to take a hint, "Yeah, right." The devil nodded, satisfied with his answer and let himself fall into the depth of his thoughts.
"Let's go for a walk around town," Jeremiah suggested when he couldn't stand the silence anymore. Lucifer stared at him blankly, "You're still on house arrest."
"But it's just sad to walk around alone so you have no choice but to take me with you," Jeremy beamed at his own suggestion. The devil, however, was only slightly amused by his attempts at cheering him up and decided to make him suffer for a while longer, "You're right... I'll bring Abigor."
The human's mouth hung open, "You did not just brush me off." Lucifer crossed his arms across his chest, squaring his shoulders to appear to intimidating, but Jeremy seemed to be in his own world of shock and self pity to notice. "Well, then go alone, be sad, I'm not even going to try—"
"Shut up, stupid human."
The human's mouth slapped shut as he frowned into the ground, he had been nothing but nice towards the devil, hadn't he? He totally had, Jeremy then decided, and tried to think of all his good deeds. He did what Lucifer said, never complaining even though he'd been put in a hell room, stood up to the devil against his brother and now trying to cheer him up. Besides, his dog liked Jeremy, and everybody knew that if your pet doesn't like your friend, then you couldn't be friends. "No, you shut up! I'm a nice person, all right? So let me be nice and shut the fluff up. We're going to town and I don't care that you've put me on house arrest because I'm not a prisoner here, and you are not bringing Abigor, he literally ran out here the moment you left to do something else!" He snapped.
Lucifer fell silent at his human's ranting, completely shocked that the boy had snapped at him like that. He watched as Jeremy got his breath back and slowly started realising what he had said. He partly expected him to gain his wits and apologise for what he said, but Jeremy stayed panting with his eyes wide and wild, waiting for a response. "Okay."
"Okay?" To say the human had expected him to be compliant would be a complete and utter lie. "Yes, okay."
"Okay," Jeremy sighed happily. "Hey, maybe okay will be our always."
Lucifer looked at him weirdly, "Did you take something? Did Doriani do this, or maybe Abigor?" The boy frowned, "What? No— Never mind." They started walking towards the palace's entrance in silence before Jeremy killed it by saying, "You really need to be more cultivated." The devil narrowed his eyes and took larger steps, causing Jeremy to have to jog to keep up, "No, I mean, you don't know anything. Wait, no, that came out wrong! You should watch some TV, is what I'm saying." His flustered appearance at trying to salvage the situation was amusing the devil greatly, loving that he had that effect on him. "No." Cool, cool. Cool...
Just as they reached the door to the outside, Jeremy suddenly stopped. Lucifer turned around with questions flooding his mind but didn't say anything except for raising his eyebrow. "We should bring Cerberus."
"Are you sure?" Lucifer knew that Jeremy didn't know how the hellhound usually acted around town; that somebody would most likely die or get torn a limb off. Of course, the devil wasn't about to tell the human that, so when Jeremy nodded, he merely said, "Alright then."
***
Clearly, Cerberus' hobby was to chase down hell's inhabitants and make them scream for their lives. Jeremy was shell-shocked as he watched on while Lucifer didn't even blink. Cerberus was currently body slamming into someone's front door, trying to pry it open. Someone's grunting could be heard as the house owner put his own weight into keeping the door shut. "Maybe this was a bad idea," Jeremy started. "No, no, I'm already feeling much better," replied the devil, causing the boy to look at him oddly.
He decided to take matters into his own hands, "Cerberus!" He called. By now, the hellhound had broken the door down and a scream pierced the air before Cerberus happily trotted over to Jeremy with an arm in his mouth. The boy felt sick at the sight, "Oh, God." Lucifer and Cerberus' attention immediately zeroed in on the human before he squeaked, "Sorry."
The hellhound placed the arm at the human's feet and stared at him expectantly. When Jeremy didn't move a muscle, Cerberus nudged his hand with one of his snouts, resulting in blood to smear on his hand. He frowned in disgust and took a step back, causing Lucifer to sigh deeply, almost losing all hope for the boy before he reminded himself that Jeremy wasn't from around here.
The boy watched as Lucifer bent down to grab the arm and almost threw up at the sight when the large male tossed it as far as he could. "Go fetch!" Cerberus was gone before he could even blink but before he could sigh in relief of the arm being gone, the hellhound had returned. Its three heads were fighting over the arm but when they stopped in front of the boy again, they all dropped it. He looked at the mauled arm and hesitantly looked at Lucifer, "Um... Could you...?" The devil smirked, "He won't stop before you've thrown the arm at least once." This, of course, was a lie, the devil could just tell the hellhound to stop, but he was too curious to see what the human would do.
"Oh." Jeremiah stared at the arm and poked it with a shaking hand. Upon seeing it moving, Cerberus shot to life and started wiggling in his spot, ready to shoot off and retrieve it. "Come on now," Lucifer encouraged. "It's not that bad. It's just an arm." It's just an arm... A shudder ran through his entire body. "I had a too sheltered life for this shit," he mumbled but the devil still heard him.
Hesitantly, the boy grabbed the arm between his thumb and index finger but the weight caused it to fall to the ground immediately. Cerberus looked at the human immensely disappointed and huffed. "Alright, alright, I'll do it." Jeremy couldn't believe he was getting peer pressured by a three-headed dog. His second attempt consisted of him grabbing the arm properly, feeling the squishy meat and rapidly cooling skin. The devil's eyes lit up as he watched his human draw his arm back to throw it, and he felt like a kid in a candy store. The arm flew into the air and landed— what Lucifer estimated to be— 3 meters away. Apparently Cerberus expected more because he was already long gone, trying to find the arm that wasn't there.
"What a sight to behold!" Someone exclaimed, interrupting Lucifer from keeping his laughter back and Jeremy from wanting the ground to swallow him up whole. "Doriani! What are you doing here?" Jeremy chirped and faced him, appreciating anything that would distract him from what just happened. "Wait, what happened to your face?" He looked at the young man, completely appalled. Doriani's black eye had only gotten darker in colour and when he smiled charmingly at the human, his split lip opened up again.
Jeremy rushed over to the demon and gently put a hand on his face, inspecting the wounds, "Are you okay? Are you getting bullied? Do I need to beat someone up?" Doriani's eyes glinted mischievously but the human didn't notice. They heard Lucifer snort in the background as he eyed Jeremiah's lean and somewhat frail body, knowing he wouldn't even hurt a fly. "I'm just here to pick up some groceries but... You'd really beat up lover boy for me?" In Jeremy's eyes, Doriani looked incredibly sad and hopeful, but to Lucifer he was a spot that needed to be wiped away.
"Who?"
"Lord Lucifer Morningstar, of course."
Jeremy turned around so quickly he heard his neck click. "You hit him?" The boy rushed over to the devil and slapped his arm as hard as he could but when the devil didn't even blink, he slumped slightly. "Why would you do that?" Lucifer eyed the screeching human, he still didn't feel bad for hitting Doriani and probably never would, "He needed to be taught a lesson, human."
"Then how come you didn't hit me too? We did the same thing." The question was logical but Lucifer didn't want to face the facts behind it. "I was told not to hurt you," he said instead. Frustrated, Jeremy walked back to Doriani, which only caused the devil to close his fists tightly and shake. Was he really taking Doriani's side? Jeremy touched his eye gently; he could feel the demon's hot breath from their close proximity. While the human was engrossed in the injury, Doriani didn't seem to care one bit as he took a deep breath, really letting Jeremy's scent fill him. Lucifer noticed the glint in his eyes immediately and quickly reached out to grab the human's arm, pulling him back and into his chest.
"Hey! Why did you do that?"
"I will not see you flirt with him right in front of me!" He truly hadn't meant to let that slip but now it was out there for the world to see. Jeremy froze slightly and wiggled out of his arms, confusion etched onto his features. "I wasn't flirting?" It was supposed to be a statement but it came out more as a question. "Doriani, was I flirting?" The demon looked at the devil first before settling on the human, "I was getting mixed signals," he lied.
Jeremy groaned, "Really?" He covered his face in embarrassment before Lucifer decided to step in, "I meant Doriani, not you." His stern voice caused a pleasant shiver to run down his spine before he really took in what he said. Doriani started whining like a child, "He smells so good though, he's like a walking snack!" Lucifer wholeheartedly agreed while the human not-so-subtly tried to sniff his armpits.
Before they could say anything more, the ground suddenly started shaking. An earthquake was going on full force and Lucifer's instincts kicked in immediately. In the blink of an eye, the devil sprouted large, black wings and engulfed the human close to his body, protecting him from the objects falling and flying around. The earthquake didn't take more than a few seconds but it felt like an eternity, and when it finally stilled, Jeremy dared to breathe again, taking in air greedily. He looked up and saw Lucifer staring at him intensely, "Are you okay?" Jeremy could only nod as he felt like he was in a trance, looking into his eyes. They were clad up against each other in their cocoon of safety and Lucifer could feel Jeremy's racing heart through his shirt.
Their breaths mingled and the devil's masculine scent caused his heart to slow down to a normal rate. Being this close, Jeremy noticed his perfectly clear skin and deep, dark eyes that radiated confidence. "Good," he whispered back, afraid to break their moment, and noticed that his mob of brown curls were a mess but still gave him an intense need to touch it and see if it was as soft as it looked.
"Thanks for the help, guys..." Dorinani called, causing the both of them to snap out of their bubble. Lucifer reluctantly let go and let his wings disappear into his body again. They both let their eyes fall to the young demon man who was still sprawled on the ground where he fell.
"I thought I put you on house arrest."
Doriani's eyes scattered to the surrounding area, "Gotta go, bye." At that the demon rushed off, almost running away but not before stumbling over the forgotten arm. "Who puts an arm there," he grumbled. When he was out of sight, Jeremy felt nervousness fill a pit in his stomach, what now? How was Jeremy supposed to face the devil now after the moment they shared before? Lucifer seemed a lot more composed and eyed the human warily, lifting his arm to tap his shoulder.
The sound of something falling, caused both of them to jump, one more startled than the other. Cerberus stood in front of them again, in the midst of the town that had turned into a mess, and nudged a large leg towards them. Jeremy's eyes widened and looked to his right where the original arm lay, abandoned, and Lucifer's deep laughter filled the silence.
-----
A/N: MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!
I've been requested to update more often than once a week so I thought I'd just address that quickly: In February (in a month) I'm joining the army SO this means that this book will be completed before that. There's currently 7 chapters left so there WILL be more frequent updates, I just don't know when they exactly are. That being said, updates every Saturday will continue.
So have a fantastic day and I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was a little longer than the usual :) x