Chapter 27: Setting The Stage

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You glance at your phone as it buzzes with a text from Lucifer. You can already see his D.D.D profile picture, which causes you to pause your game, earning a questioning look from Levi and Grim. "Lucifer sent a text."

"What are you, his keeper? Keep the game going!! We're winning!" Grim grins, sticking his tongue out at Levi, who's scratching his head.

"I'd rather not piss off Lucifer.." Levi's voice trails off as he thinks about the first-born's wrath.

"Grim is right. If it's urgent, he can call me. Right now, I'm enjoying you guys." You unpause the game, grinning. "AND GRIM AND I ARE GONNA SMOKE YOU, LEVI"

"HEY WAIT I WASN'T READY" Levi fumbles to get back to the game, instantly getting sucked back into playing with you.

---

Sometime later, you finally head out of Levi's room, having had a thorough loss after the Avatar of Envy finally got back into the groove of playing. Grim and you are high in spirits as you two walk through the House of Lamentation. It was hilarious to watch Levi scramble back to the top. He really struggles to keep his cool when loss is on the horizon. Even funnier, Grim would goad him every time you got ahead, claiming your victory was inevitable, which really psyched him out.

You two chuckle at the memory as you walk through the hall heading back to your room. Lucifer hears you and steps into the hallway, clearing his throat to catch your attention. You, however, are not in the mood for half-assed communication techniques, so you take a detour into the kitchen to grab some snacks. This causes Lucifer to sigh and follow you into the kitchen to try a more direct approach.

"___."

You look to him, your arms already full of snacks despite you having just gotten into the kitchen. "Lucifer." And then you return to reaching into the fridge to find your favorite cold drinks. If he wants to communicate, he'll need to use his words.

"Have you seen my text?"

"Nope. I've been playing games with Levi and Grim and haven't had the chance to check my D.D.D. Did you want something?"

"Yes, at your earliest convenience, can we speak alone in my room?"

"Nah." You turn to look to Lucifer. "Your room's all the way upstairs. That would require me to go up a flight of stairs and that'd be really out-of-the-way for me. Is it something you can tell me right here?"

Lucifer pauses at your boundary. It almost makes him feel sheepish that he anticipated you jumping to do whatever he asked. He understands, though. And more importantly, he respects it. "Ah, fair enough. I've just gotten the paperwork for your self-defense request back. You've been approved to learn self-defense techniques. .. I wanted to apologize for how I filed it."

"How you.. filed it?" You squint at Lucifer, pausing in your snack hoarding.

"I filed it as non-essential and non-urgent. If I had taken your request more seriously, it might have gone through quickly enough, and helped you better protect yourself." You can see that Lucifer is feeling incredibly embarrassed. A rare sight. His gaze turns to meet yours despite his embarrassment. "I wanted to apologize for my negligence as your caretaker."

"I forgot I even filed for that. Yeah, you definitely messed up." You close the fridge, handing a snack bag up to Grim, who is hugging your head, so you can hold one of the cold drinks in your hand. "I might've been able to protect myself a little better against Belphie when he hunted me for sport in these very halls."

Grim is silent as he listens. Lucifer now turns his gaze away, and instead of embarrassment, you see an even rarer look of guilt in his face.

You continue, seeing that the silence has filled the room. "Thank you for the apology, but yeah.. That doesn't make up for me having been surviving the dangers of this realm without any means to protect myself when I didn't have a choice to leave." You've been coming to terms with what you've been through, and you've stopped forgiving people for things that you're not okay with.

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