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This was fun.
His tongue stuck between his teeth, Dan tried to drill a hole into the wall around the vault in an attempt to loosen things a bit. The vault itself was definitely drill-proof, as Dan had expected (the cop in him that was not currently drowned out by his cackling inner teenager told him that he should call himself lucky that manhandling the safe did not trigger an alarm), so perhaps if he manipulated its surrounding, they could tease it open. It felt so good being silly every once in a while, and as much as he tolerated, even liked, Morningstar these days, there was a petulant, jealous part of him that reveled in being here trying to access some of Lucifer’s many secrets, if only as a payback for... oh, so many things, but especially the pudding.
"What in my name are you doing?"
The voice was quiet, yet it appeared to vibrate in Dan's chest. Despite the drill roaring in his hand, he heard that voice, and for one strange second, Dan's instincts decided that jumping off the balcony was the safest thing to do.
“Lucifer!” exclaimed Linda, rising from her seat, probably after having briefly dozed off from all the booze.
“Doctor, Detectives,” replied Lucifer, and even through the alcohol fog, Dan could hear the tension. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you,” said Chloe immediately, while dangerously swaying on her feet.
“Helping me?” repeated Lucifer, confused, his facial expression softening a tiny fraction, but there was still a darkness to his look that really set off the alarm bells in Dan’s head. They did not harmonize well with the booze coursing through his system and he heard the pulse pounding in his ears.
“Yes!” said Linda immediately, obviously trying to go for that angle without actually believing it. “You were in Vegas and ‘radishes’ was obviously a code word for ‘help,’ and whatever’s in your vault would have told us what you were doing there, so that we could help you.”
That made no sense whatsover. What was this about radishes?
“I think, doctor, that you should sober up,” said Lucifer, his face blank and cool. “I don’t think you’ve given a sufficient explanation for being in my home destroying my property.”
There was an undertone to that statement. His eyes were on the wall, his bar and the library.
“Oh, come on, Lucifer,” said Chloe, drunkeness clearly having temporarily clouded her senses. In contrast, Dan felt himself sober up quite qickly in the face of Lucifer’s less than pleased expression. His skin prickled. “It’s my birthday.”
“I know, Detective,” said the would-be devil, his voice soft for the first time. “Happy birthday. I hope you had a good time. If you desire, we can celebrate it on another day.”
“But my birthday is today” protested Chloe, pouting drunkenly, still oblivious to Lucifer’s state of mind… not that he was any closer to deciphering it, but Chloe obviously did not even realize that something was wrong.
“I don’t think you are currently capable of making any sound decision. Like Dr. Linda, you should sober up first. Then I will give you my present.”
“Is it in there?” asked Chloe pointing at the vault.
“No.”
“What’s in it then?” she asked. Lucifer closed his eyes.
“You can stay here if you wish, but other than that, I don’t think we should be having this conversation.”
“Oh, of course,” replied Chloe sarcastically with a fake British accent. “Heaven forbid if things don’t go exactly as I, Lucifer Morningstar, desire.” Accusingly, she pointed at him, It’s my birthday! And you weren’t there. What did you do in Vegas anyway? Who did you find so ravishing?”
“Ravish… Have you overheard my conversation with Dr. Linda?”
Confused, he looked between Chloe and Linda.
“Now, you see, Lucifer, you can’t just go off without telling anyone, and expect your friends not to be worried,” said Linda, using her calm-therapist voice, while scolding him in the process.
“I told you to reschedule my appointment. I told my staff where I was, which you would know if you bothered to talk to them, and I texted Maze, just so she knows.”
“But you didn’t tell me,” said Chloe. “We’re partners! We’re friends.”
“There was no case for us to work on and you didn’t call me. I am not employed by the LAPD, therefore I am not required to tell them about my whereabouts, and I hoped I’d be back before today was over as I wished to congratulate you from face to face, not via phone, which is why I didn’t call you,” said he, very serious.
“What did you do in Vegas?” repeated Chloe, crossing her arms.
“Candy was in danger. We’re still married, which is I was contacted.” Chloe gasped, and Dan thought that this was a pretty dickish move from Lucifer’s side, mentioning his strange little midlife crisis weekend affair with the exotic dancer from Vegas. “I didn’t tell you because you react strangely whenever she is mentioned.”
“Big shocker there,” exclaimed Chloe. “You got married, right when we…” She threw up her hand and shook her head. “You know what? Never mind.”
“And this, Lucifer,” said Linda, “is why keeping secrets from your loved ones never ends well. Honesty-“
“When on Earth have I ever lied to any of you?” Lucifer snapped, and all of a sudden, he looked truly angry. Numbly, he set the drill down. “You dare tell me about keeping secrets while you are in my home, destroying my possessions. And, Daniel, if you don’t step away from that wall in a second, I will move you.”
“Hey, man-“ began Dan, lifting his hands in a pacifying manner.
“Don’t shout at him,” said Chloe sharply. “You always wind up in my house, even when you’re not invited… especially when you’re not invited,” she added, “and now you’re peeved because I returned the favor?”
“I don’t mind your presence here, Detective. I quite welcome you in my home, but what would you do if I came to yours and destroyed something that belonged to you?”
“Nothing was destroyed,” said she, looking around. “So we played around with your vault and drank your booze.”
“You’re drinking Glenfiddich from 1937,” said Lucifer. “It was a gift from a friend who…” he swallowed dryly. “This,” he gently took a notebook from a nearby table that Linda had read at some point during their shenanigans, “was a gift from another friend and the wall that Daniel has so rudely taken a drill to is mostly a rather impressive imitation, but on that side of it, is actually an original.”
“What is it?” asked Chloe.
“Ancient Sumarian, cuneiform,” was the reply. “It’s over 5000 years old. This too, was a gift.” Dan froze, looked from the dusty, almost crumbling wall to his feet, and he felt cold all over.
“But…” said Chloe slowly, “but you have parties in here all the time.”
“Yes, I do, where I very carefully make sure that nothing irreplacable gets damaged,” said Lucifer, his facial expression smoothed out and cold. “You always talk to me about privacy and respecting the space of others, but the moment I turn my back, you are treating my own property with much less care than I would dare touch any item in your office,” he told Linda, “or in your home,” he looked at Chloe, “or the precinct. I could sue you for everything that happened here today.” He chuckled. “You know, for all that you, Dr. Linda, and you, Detective, like to scoff at my lovers, let me just tell you that, in my eight years on Earth with an open-elevator policy where my staff and my lovers are free to enter in my presence or absence, this is the first time anyone willfully mistreated or stole my possessions.”
“We wouldn’t have stolen it,” said Chloe, now contrite, but sobering up too slowly to properly deal with Lucifer’s anger.
“No, you’ve just decided to violate them. I must ask you all to leave now. Detective, I am offering to take you out for a birthday lunch or dinner. My treat, wherever you wish to go. Once you’ve cleared your head. Right now, I would like to be alone.”
“But, Lucifer,” protested Chloe, but Linda - whose eyes were wide as if she too had noticed that Lucifer was furious with them and only had a very brittle grip on his temper, but was controlling himself, most likely for Chloe – put an arm around her and guided her out.
“Lucifer,” said Linda quietly. “I shouldn’t have let this happen.”
The response was a sharp, humorless laugh, “You all have free will. It’s Dad’s gift to you. But free will is bound to consequences. Eve and Adam were the first to learn that lesson, but it looks like humans haven’t internalized it. For all that you and the Detective tell me to be more human, to be better, to be whatever you want me to become, you are strangely hesitant to follow your own advice.”
He let that sink in standing as still as a statue waiting for them to leave, emitting a familiar yet strange authority that Dan had only ever caught glimpses off. They quickly scampered out.
In the elevator – while realizing that he left the drill in Lucifer’s apartment, but dreading to go back there without Chloe or Linda as backup – they all fell silent.
“This is stupid,” said his ex-wife. “He never respects anything we tell him and now he’s being all high and mighty because we returned the favor?”
“Chloe,” said Dan softly, wishing for her to be entirely sober. There was no talking to Chloe when she was drunk. “Lucifer eats my pudding and he has no concept for privacy, but he never would have damaged anything that belongs to you, or would have forcibly tried to open a vault belonging to you in order to extract your secrets-“
“That’s because he does that weird door thingy… Stuff just opens for him sometimes! I don’t know how he does it.”
“-apart from the fact that we just damaged property amounting to several hundred thousand dollars at least,” he continued. That shut her up quickly.
“What?” said Linda, aghast.
“That whisky you two drank is around 70,000 USD per bottle,” said Dan, remembring that from a case from years ago. “If that draft you read is from some famous person, and I’m sure it is, his library looks unique and irreplacable, that’s adding up to 100K, at least. I don’t want to know how much 5000-year old wall with cuneiform writing is, but I cannot imagine that it is cheap. We’re lucky he thinks of us as friends, or we’d spent the rest of our lives paying him back.”
Heavy silence followed that statement. Chloe looked horrified, Linda deeply sorry and Dan felt a mix of both.