[Lucifer] Ch: 42 [Maze & Truth] (Patreon)

AN: I'm kinda 50/50 on this chapter.

[A Few Minutes Later]

The penthouse had gone quiet again, although the room looked as if something violent had torn through it.

Blood stained the polished floor where Lucifer had collapsed, pieces of his ruined shirt and coat were scattered nearby, and several feathers rested around his feet. Maze stood a few steps away, still watching him with an expression that shifted between confusion, suspicion, and something dangerously close to awe.

Lucifer barely noticed the mess.

His attention remained entirely on the wings stretching from his back.

The right wing was brilliant white, almost painfully bright beneath the penthouse lights. The feathers caught every bit of illumination around them and seemed to carry a faint glow of their own. The left wing was completely different. Deep crimson covered most of the feathers, darkening near the edges until parts looked almost black when they moved through shadow.

Lucifer slowly turned his head, trying to examine both sides at once.

“Well, this is a rather bold fashion statement,” he muttered while flexing one shoulder carefully. "White and crimson? Honestly, it clashes terribly with the suit. I look like a bloody candy cane."

Maze moved closer and reached toward the crimson feathers, though she hesitated before actually touching them. “I thought once you cut them off with a demon blade, they stayed gone. That was the whole point of the agonizing amputation.”

“Yes, well,” Lucifer replied, glancing toward the white wing before slowly rolling his shoulders. “Apparently my celestial anatomy didn't get the memo. Seems Dear Old Dad's rules are subject to change without notice.”

Maze finally ran her fingers along one of the crimson feathers.

Lucifer felt it immediately.

His entire left side reacted with a strange tingling sensation, and his wing shifted instinctively beneath her hand.

He blinked.

Maze noticed. “You felt that?”

“Intensely. So please, mind the merchandise.”

Lucifer spread both wings wider.

The movement came naturally, almost embarrassingly naturally. Muscles he hadn’t used in years responded without hesitation as the enormous wings unfolded across the penthouse. The right nearly reached the glass windows while the crimson left wing extended toward the bar.

He flexed them once.

Air rushed through the room hard enough to send loose papers skittering across the floor.

Lucifer stared forward while trying to understand the sensation. The wings didn’t feel attached to him in the way clothing or even an extra limb might have felt. They were simply part of him. Every feather seemed connected to his awareness, every shift of air brushing across them registering somewhere inside his mind.

“It’s... odd,” Lucifer murmured, more to himself than Maze. “I’ve lugged wings around for millennia, usually as a divine uniform imposed upon me. But these... they feel entirely mine.”

Maze watched him carefully. “Because you actually sprouted them this time instead of storing them in a shipping container?”

“Perhaps.”

Lucifer closed his eyes and took a slow breath.

He remembered what he had learned about self-actualization. Celestials shaped themselves through belief, emotion, identity, and whatever wonderfully inconvenient nonsense their subconscious decided to make physical.

He pictured the wings folding away.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then pressure built beneath his shoulder blades.

Lucifer clenched his jaw.

The wings began withdrawing into his back.

Pain tore through him again, although nowhere near as violently as when they had emerged. Feathers disappeared beneath his skin, followed by bone and muscle that seemed to compress into places where no reasonable anatomy should've allowed them to exist.

Lucifer sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed the edge of the bar.

A few seconds later, both wings vanished completely.

He stayed leaning against the counter for another moment.

“Bloody hell,” Lucifer muttered through clenched teeth. “Sucking those back in felt like passing a divine kidney stone.”

He immediately grabbed the nearest bottle of whiskey, removed the cap, and took a long swig directly from it.

Maze leaned against the opposite side of the bar with her arms crossed, studying him as if she'd discovered an entirely new species. “So what's the plan?”

Lucifer lowered the bottle.

That question carried considerably more weight than Maze probably intended.

He stared into the amber liquid for several seconds while countless possibilities moved through his mind. Wings mean more power. Amenadiel would probably lose whatever remained of his sanity if he discovered they had regenerated. His new abilities were multiplying faster than Lucifer could understand them, and there was still the future he remembered hanging over everything.

Too many deaths and disasters he now had the opportunity to prevent.

Lucifer took another drink before answering. “Business as usual, Maze. At least until I finish whatever absurd fetch quest the Almighty has set me upon.”

Maze's eyes narrowed almost immediately. “Cut the crap, Lucifer."

Lucifer remained silent.

Maze pushed away from the bar. “You've been acting completely different. Well, more than usual. Suddenly stronger than Amenadiel, spouting nonsense about Dad's 'signs', and now you're half-pigeon, half-flamingo.”

She stepped closer, her voice lowering as she watched him carefully.

“Stop holding out on me. I want the whole bloody story.”

Lucifer stared at her for a long moment.

For weeks, he'd avoided this conversation.

He could joke with Chloe, tell Linda almost everything because therapy somehow made insanity socially acceptable, and dodge Amenadiel because irritating his brother remained one of life's purest pleasures.

Maze was different.

She had followed him from Hell.

If there was anyone who deserved some version of the truth, it was probably her.

'Haaa. I see now. I guess, I knew the truth all along. And if I were to win this war, I need to prepare and having Maze would make things a lot easier. Also, I hate how I treated her in the past... It's not fair to keep her in the dark anymore.' Lucifer sighed and pointed toward one of the stools. “Sit down, Maze.”

Her expression immediately became more serious.

She sat.

Lucifer moved onto the stool beside her, keeping the whiskey bottle between his hands while staring at it for another moment. Then he looked toward her and said, “Tell me, Maze. How would you react if I said Dear Old Dad took my soul, snapped it like a wishbone, and tossed half of it into an entirely different universe?”

Maze didn't answer immediately.

Her eyes searched his face.

Lucifer took a large gulp of whiskey before continuing.

“I was human. Disgustingly mortal, terrifyingly ordinary, and wearing dreadful off-the-rack suits," A faint smile crossed his face before disappearing again. “But in that wonderfully mundane existence, I saw our reality as a story."

Maze slowly leaned forward.

Lucifer's fingers tightened around the bottle.

"The future... and it is a complete and utter tragedy, Maze."

Maze's expression changed.

Lucifer looked toward the windows and the city beyond them.

“Deaths, betrayals... things even the Devil doesn't wish to see come to pass...”

He paused and swallowed another mouthful.

“Then, predictably, my fragile human self kicked the bucket, and Dad, in His infinite, manipulative wisdom, glued the pieces back together and shoved me back into this dashing vessel.”

Maze remained completely still.

Lucifer finally looked back toward her.

For once, Maze had absolutely nothing sarcastic to say.

Lucifer gave her a tired smile and lifted the whiskey bottle slightly.

“So, congratulations, Mazikeen. You demanded the truth. I hope it’s appropriately maddening."

Maze grabbed the bottle from Lucifer's hand without asking and took a long gulp.

Lucifer watched her drink in silence.

She lowered the bottle and stared at him for several seconds, clearly trying to process everything he'd just told her. Any other person saying something that absurd would've been dismissed immediately, probably with a knife involved somewhere along the way.

Lucifer was different.

Maze had known him for thousands of years. She knew every trick he used to avoid uncomfortable conversations, every clever way he twisted questions, and every theatrical distraction he pulled whenever something got too personal.

She also knew Lucifer couldn't lie.

Whatever explanation existed behind what he'd just told her, he genuinely believed every word.

Maze took another smaller drink before resting the bottle against her thigh. Her expression slowly changed as a much more personal question entered her mind.

“So, in the future...” She hesitated, which was rare enough for Lucifer to notice immediately. “Do we...?”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “End up together? What, playing house in the suburbs with a white picket fence?”

Maze looked at him for another moment before giving a small nod.

Lucifer's smile faded slightly.

He'd expected that question eventually, although he hadn't expected it quite this quickly. He knew exactly where Maze's life had originally gone, who she'd loved, who she'd lost, and where all of them had ended up after years of chaos.

Except that future was already disappearing.

Delilah was alive. Jimmy had vanished into a completely different fate. Chloe's relationship with him was developing differently. Linda had fallen for him. Amenadiel had already discovered Lucifer was considerably stronger than before, and Lucifer himself had just grown an entirely new pair of wings.

Giving Maze answers about her future could change her choices even further.

“Spoilers, Mazikeen! Besides, if I tell you, it'll likely ruin the ending," Lucifer said as he gently took the bottle back from her. "The timeline is already unraveling like a cheap suit. Every time I pluck a thread, the whole bloody tapestry shifts.”

Maze watched him quietly.

Lucifer took a drink before continuing. “So, my lips are sealed. I suppose we'll just have to rely on that pesky, wonderfully inconvenient human concept of 'free will'.”

Maze remained silent for several seconds before her expression softened.

“Thanks for finally treating me like a partner instead of a pet.”

Lucifer paused with the bottle halfway toward his mouth.

The sincerity caught him slightly off guard.

He lowered it and looked at her properly. “Oh, please. Knowing the future is utterly useless when I keep accidentally rewriting it before breakfast. I'm going to need you in my corner when it all inevitably hits the fan.”

That immediately brought back the familiar dangerous spark in her eyes.

Maze reached behind her waist, pulled out one of her demon blades, and slammed it onto the bar counter hard enough to make several glasses jump.

“I'm always ready to gut someone. Just point me at the target.”

Lucifer looked down at the blade before slowly turning back toward her.

A genuine smile appeared.

“Ah, the promise of extreme violence. And that, Mazikeen, is exactly why I love you so much."

"Did you just...?!" Maze's eyes widened.

"You know, I can't lie," He replied.

[AN: I hated how Lucifer treated Maze in the show. So, I wanted to change that. Also, I know many hates MC telling the truth about their past life.]