A Dark Place (Lucifer x Reader)

Part 4

Deep down inside, you always knew that things would turn out this way.

After all, what other way could things have gone?

Your mother could only stuff you in a closet for so many years while she entertained her clients and hid you from the brothel manager.

And while you could always be quiet, trying your hardest to tune out the sounds of her beguiling words and the disgusting moans of the men and women she handled, it was simply a matter of time before you simply didn't fit inside.

To your mother's merit, she tried her best. She really did.

You kept quiet as she slowly emptied out her closet's contents, making room for your growing frame in the tiny wardrobe she had been provided with. You didn't bother complaining when she asked you to twist your body into awkward positions to force your five-foot-tall body into the three-foot-tall closet. And not a sound escaped your lips on the countless instances where she would leave you there overnight, whenever the manager would sneak into her room afterward and demand she provide him her services in exchange for the free shelter he was providing her with.

Yeah. For your sake, she really tried her best.

Yet no matter how long your mother forced you to fold your wings and hold your breath, nothing could change the day when her manager barged into her room without so much as a knock—angry at her, but evidently having forgotten the source of his rage the moment he set his eyes over you.

You would never forget the look of raw fury radiating off his shoulders the second he pieced together the fact that your mother had been harboring a child in her quarters.

At that moment, you knew what had to happen.

Your mother knew it too, though she didn't dare take her eyes off her manager as she clutched your shoulders.

When he provided her a final ultimatum, forcing her to choose between her life as a prostitute and whatever motherhood she would attempt to serve you while homeless, you both already knew which decision she would have to make.

After all, you were not naive.

You always knew that things would turn out this way.

Pressing your back further into the cold alley wall, no sobs escaped your mouth as you stared at the ground. You watched, with a sick sense of irony in your stomach, as a small family of mice scurried back and forth, paying you no attention. Indeed, they probably saw you as one of them. The lowest of the low. Scum from the slums. A parasite on society, with nothing to redeem yourself.

A queer sense of apathy had settled over your shoulders in that moment.

No rage existed inside you. No resentment at your mother for making what, by all rights, was the logical decision for her own livelihood. You weren't even particularly sad over the fact that you had been thrust onto the streets to die.

The sky was not especially dark, the rain was not pouring. The sounds of people passing by were not especially happy, to counter your dreary disposition, nor were they dismal to match.

Indeed, there was nothing move-like about your current predicament.

It was simply a cold, hard reality.

You resigned yourself to death with careful dignity, the very same thing which had allowed you to remain silent on those many nights you remained stuffed inside that tiny closet without complaint.