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Lucifer was having a bad day.
That wasn’t anything particularly new – if he added up the number of bad days in comparison to good, over the course of ten thousand years, he was pretty bad was leading that race by a country mile. They’d just been… less frequent, of late. So the fact this low mood had crept into him, fastened itself around his psyche like a demonic spider, sucking the joy out of everything he looked at-
Well – it was disappointing, to say the least.
He looked at what he’d made, over the last few centuries. Shelves stacked with rubber ducks in every colour imaginable, ducks wearing hats and bow-ties, ducks that had wind up keys and music boxes and ducks that were painted to look like the people in his life who were of the most importance to him.
And all Lucifer could see was a waste of time.
That duck, there? The one wearing a tricorn hat and had a little skull and crossbones painted on its side?
All it was to him was Lilith berating him for missing Charlie’s first steps, the time of her childhood slipping away like grains of sand through an hourglass. He’d never had to worry about time, before, and now he realised just how much of it he’d hoarded.
All those hours spent making these stupid ducks, he could have been spending with his wife and daughter. What had been the point? Holing himself up in his workshop, devoting more time to this craft, to his imagination – when there were real people who were far more deserving of his attention?
He suddenly hated them. Each and every single duck, particularly the ones wearing little white hats and black bow-ties. They weren’t only a waste of time, they weren’t even good. Not worthy creations, not in the slightest. At least if he’d spent his time making something people could enjoy, like Ozzie did, he might feel less awful about it.
Why did he bother? He was never going to make anything that was worthy of how much of himself he’d poured into it, because there wasn’t enough worth in him to make it so. His workbench set to one side of his room taunted him, a half-painted duck sitting in the middle of it.
No more.
He wasn’t going to spend any more time making something so worthless.
Lucifer didn’t tear those ducks from his shelves in a fit of passion – that would only frighten anybody who heard him. He simply started to gather them up, piling them in the centre of his room. He wasn’t going to tell anybody what he was doing – they’d only try and placate him with things like ‘but they’re lovely, you shouldn’t destroy them!’
He didn’t need to be reassured or convinced. He’d made a decision, and it was with a cold sort of detachment that he summoned a tiny portal in his floor, peering into the swirling opening to check that he’d managed to aim it correctly. Yes – several hundred feet below was the open top of one of the volcanoes in the Wrath Ring.
Numb, feeling the first faint stirrings of apprehension, Lucifer picked up a blue duck, covered with transparent bubbles. He peered critically at it, frowning when he noticed the eyes were lopsided.
Garbage.
With a bitter twist of his lips, a sudden heat prickling through his chest and the corners of his eyes, he dropped it through the portal. His heart briefly froze, regret shooting through him so sharply that it felt like his lungs were going to seize, his throat closing up.
God – he couldn’t even do this right. Was still attached to the stupid things, even knowing they’d been nothing but a waste of time and resources. It wasn’t like anybody even liked them-
“I do hope you’re not planning on getting rid of the one wielding the little knife. I’m rather partial to that one.” a familiar voice drawled from the shadows cast by Lucifer’s absolutely mountainous pile of ducks, and he clenched his teeth, resolutely not looking over at the sinner who had so recently started sharing his bed.
“Go away,” Lucifer ground out, not in the mood to deal with Alastor’s shitty attitude, today. The demon hummed, tucking his hands behind his back as he strolled casually around the pile of toys.
One of them wobbled, tumbling down the side and heading towards a fiery destruction in the volcanic depths below – and Alastor, quick as a whip, darted out a hand to catch it.
He lifted it to his face, adjusting his monocle slightly to peer at it, his ever-present smile a touch narrower than usual. Lucifer scowled, picking up a duck bearing his likeness. Without pausing, he tossed it through the portal, ignoring the warning blat of static that came from Alastor’s direction.
“Might I inquire as to what’s brought on this fit of pique?” Alastor asked, collapsing into shadows and reforming behind Lucifer, wrapping one hand around his wrist as he reached for another duck. Lucifer’s eyes briefly flashed red – who did he think he was, grabbing him like that?
Just because they were having sex, didn’t give him the right to try and stop Lucifer from doing anything.
“None of your business,” he snapped back, uncaring about whether his tone would have Alastor leaving in a huff. He’d come back, eventually – whatever the Hell they had going on, neither one of them seemed capable of staying away for too long.
“Oh, I beg to differ. When powerful people have problems, it usually ends up affecting those around them. Trickle down emotions, one might say,” Alastor grinned, sharp teeth inches from Lucifer’s ear as he hinged down, practically folding himself in half just so he could peer, bat-like, into his face. His hair flopped down like a curtain as his head went almost completely upside down, and Lucifer yanked his wrist from the other man’s grip.
“They’re a waste of time. They’re terrible,” Lucifer muttered, irritation spiking at the clucking sound Alastor made with his tongue against his teeth. As if he was entitled to condescend to Lucifer.
“Hmm. Perhaps you’re correct,” Alastor mused, that admission provoking a sputter of outrage – if he was here, interfering, the least he could do was pretend like he wanted to stop Lucifer from destroying his work of the last hundred years!
He refused to examine the hypocrisy of that thought.
“Though I would also question – what creative endeavours cannot be classified as a waste of time? It’s not as though painters are saving lives with their work, or singers making scientific breakthroughs. I do believe they enjoy what they’re doing, however. Tell me – did you enjoy making these ducks, sire? Was the look on young Charlie’s face when you presented one to her ever payment in kind for the effort you extended?” Alastor questioned, straightening up to tower over Lucifer once more.
Seriously – he had enough of a height advantage. He didn’t need to flaunt it when Lucifer was sitting cross-legged on the floor.
And what the Hell was with those questions? How could Alastor have known the reason Lucifer started making these things in the first place was because Charlie's little face had lit up when he'd made a new one?
Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the portal to the Wrath Ring.
He fell back with a startled yelp when Alastor’s face was suddenly obscuring his vision, the demon having once more teleported, appearing on his knees in front of Lucifer and pushing forward into his space. Red eyes flashed as Lucifer landed with a thump on the carpet, so distracted that the miniature portal vanished.
Within seconds, an avalanche of ducks was pouring over the both of them, almost burying Lucifer alive and reaching up to Alastor’s chest where he hovered on all fours above him, head tilted curiously, a tiny crease between his eyebrows even though his smile didn’t waver a millimetre on his face.
“In any case – I always consider it a good idea to sleep on these sorts of decisions before committing entirely,” Alastor added, his static filter lending his voice a low purr that shouldn’t be so damn enticing, especially not while Lucifer was definitely still irritated at him and up to his neck in stupid rubber ducks.
“Do you,” Lucifer shot back, petulantly. Alastor cocked his head the opposite way, the tips of his ears bouncing with his movements.
“I do. If you think it would help, you’re welcome to sleep with me,” he invited, as if he thought that was truly all it would take to seduce Lucifer away from his path of duck destruction.
Lucifer couldn’t stop his snort, however – at Alastor actually flirting with him, or as near to it as he came – while they were both practically swimming in toy ducks. Lucifer shifted, his hand landing on one of those ducks and sending a squashed squeak into the air.
Alastor’s smile twitched, and he moved a leg, another choked quack joining the retreating notes of the first.
Defeated, Lucifer let his head sink into the pile, quacks and squeaks and garbled noises almost deafening him. Alastor helpfully pushed the ducks off his face, appearing above him like some kind of demonic saviour, preparing to pull him from the well.
If he wouldn’t accept the nickname Bambi, Lucifer hardly thought Lassie would fare any better.
“Fine,” Lucifer conceded, suddenly exhausted. His determination to destroy his work had faded, and though he still didn’t feel like any of it was really worth the time he’d spent on it, he had to admit Alastor had a point when he’d mentioned all creative work being considered a waste of time to somebody.
Maybe he could pick out some of his ducks to hand out to Charlie and her friends. Hope they liked them. He brightened, slightly – maybe he could even make ones in their likenesses. Surely they’d appreciate that, right?
“A penny for your thoughts?” Alastor asked, watching his face as if studying some kind of fascinating new bug. Lucifer blinked, reaching up through the toys and seizing Alastor by the lapels, a deer squeak joining the chorus as he pulled him down.
“I was just thinking about what a meddling bastard you are,” Lucifer growled, successfully distracted from his mission as Alastor pushed several ducks out of the way so he might press his hips to Lucifer’s, his offer from earlier clearly still on the table.
“Of course,” the demon purred, canned laughter echoing around him. “After all – if anyone is going to be responsible for making you miserable, it’s going to be me.”
Lucifer shook his head.
“You suck,” he shot back, not his most creative insult as far as they went. Alastor’s grin widened, his eyes darting down and his brows lifting. Lucifer’s heart turned over in his chest.
“If you insist,” Alastor responded carelessly, the ridiculous sound of ducks being squashed under his movements doing nothing to stop the way heat flooded through Lucifer’s body as the sinner shifted, disappearing under a pile of rubber. Lucifer’s eyes squeezed shut as he choked, vaguely thinking something that might be close to a compliment for the other man-
He was very good at taking Lucifer’s mind off things.
~fin~