Watching over you ✔ (Lucifer fanfiction/Deckerstar)

Three years since Lucifer went back to Hell

Lucifer closed the door behind him and brushed ash from the lapels of his shirt with the back of his hand. It was a nonchalant little gesture that he wasn't even aware of, just something he did after torturing the damned souls in their personal hell loops. He straightened his back as his face slowly drifted back from burning red to pale white. No ray of sunshine had ever touched Hell's endless corridors, and the slight tan he had brought down with him from the mortal's world was long-lost.

Lucifer had worked enough for the time being, he decided. The demons he now ruled with an iron hand would have to carry on without him for a while. He turned and walked through the maze of seemingly endless corridors towards the square where his throne towered over the desperate landscape. At the foot of it was the place he used to rest, a cavern carved into the dark grey rock. He would have preferred to not have the iron front gate, as there were enough doors in Hell already, but he didn't want the ever present screams of the tortured to follow him inside.

However, when he reached the square, he sensed something that didn't belong there: Hope. Why was there hope drifting through the air? He looked up to search the blackness above with glowing eyes, but even he wasn't able to visually make it out. Apparently it didn't stand a chance against the despair of the underworld. Still, it became stronger. Finally, Lucifer's attention focused on the middle of the square where a shimmer caught his gaze and manifested itself into a person, an actual angel.

"Amenadiel?"

His brother's name sounded strange coming out of his mouth, and that wasn't due to the general muffled sound down here. He hadn't said it in almost three years.

"Lucifer."

Amenadiel tried to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. Hell wasn't a place that allowed joy, or even signs of it.

"To what do I owe the rare honour of a heavenly visitor?" Lucifer finally asked, his voice laced with scepticism. His heart made a strange jump when he saw Amenadiel's attempt at a smile fade into sadness.

"Linda died," he sighed, the two words apparently costing him a lot of effort.

Unexpected pain shot through Lucifer, clutching at his heart. The woman who had helped him sort through the mess that was his emotions, had helped him become a better man, even if it had turned out to have been to no avail in the end. He was stuck back in Hell anyway. At least, now he knew what for — or whom.

He didn't allow himself to let his thoughts go down that road any further, so he did his best to drown out the pain and the whirlwind of emotions that came along with it.

"How?"

"She had an accident."

"Anyone involved in it that I should personally attend to?"

"No. She went too fast and veered off the road. She was in a hurry to pick up Charlie."

Silence fell between the two brothers as Lucifer coped with the fact that there was nobody for him to punish for his therapist's — and friend's — death. Nobody to unleash his restrained emotions on.

"So why are you here then?" he asked, a little accusing, although he didn't mean to sound like that.

"I'm moving up to Heaven with Charlie, so he doesn't have to grow up without his mother. In fact, he's up there already. I was, too. But I wanted to let you know."

"Thank you," Lucifer replied honestly. "It's been a while since I last had a visitor."

"I know."

"Sure you do."

He was tempted to ask the question that spooked him ever since he had left Earth, but he knew it would tear open a wound that had barely begun to heal. And deep down he suspected it never would, not in all the countless millennia that lay ahead of him.