"Oh, hey," he said, nodding politely.
Serah smiled. "Hello."
She didn't have much contact with Nicholas, meeting him a few times in passing when he was home, but he seemed like a good man.
"Where's Sam?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, a twinge of worry in his voice. "Is she—?"
"Relax," Samantha called out, making her way back to the kitchen. "I'm right here. What are you doing home?"
"Thought I'd check on you," he said, "so I came home for lunch."
Samantha kissed her husband before shuffling to the fridge. "I'm fine. Now sit down and I'll make you something."
Serah took that as her cue to leave, ignoring their declarations that she should stay and at least have a sandwich. She made her way through the tall grass to her home and headed into the bathroom, stripping out of her clothes to take a cold shower.
Climbing under the spray, she stood there, letting the water rain down on her, cooling her clammy skin. Her eyes drifted closed but flashed back open within seconds when a banging echoed through the house.
Somebody was knocking on the door.
Sighing, Serah turned off the water, cutting her shower short as the banging echoed through the house once more. Stepping out, she grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself, opening the bathroom door. The moment she did, she nearly ran right into someone. Gasping, grabbing her chest, she nearly lost the towel as she recoiled.
Luce.
He was inside her house, standing in the hallway right outside the bathroom door. "Jesus!"
"No, it's me," he said. "Jesus isn't around."
Serah rolled her eyes, clutching the towel closed. "Was that you?"
"Was what me?"
"The banging."
He needn't answer, as the sound rang out once more. Serah's eyes darted past Luce, settling on the door, her brow furrowing. Clearly it hadn't been him. She had half a dozen questions, like where'd he come from, where had he been, and how in the world had he ended up in her house, but the frantic knocking distracted her.
"No," Luce said, casting a glance at the door. "Not me."
Serah pushed past him, heading for the door, and carefully tugged it open. Nicholas stood on the other side, eyes panicked.
"Nicholas? What's wrong?"
"I hate to do this... I hate to ask you this. I know we hardly know each other, but my wife really likes you, and my daughter does, too. So I'm just wondering if you could do me a favor, if there's any way you can watch Nicki this afternoon for us?"
"Uh, sure," Serah said. "No problem."
"She's at day camp. The bus will drop her off in about an hour. If you could just watch her for a bit, we'd be eternally grateful."
"Absolutely."
"We can pay you," he continued.
"Nonsense," she said. "It'll be my pleasure."
"Thank you." Relief tinged his voice. "Truly, thank you."
"Of course."
Nicholas started to rush away when Serah called out to him.
"Wait," she said. "Is something happening?"
He glanced back at her, his expression lighting up, swallowing back the fear. "Sam's water just broke. We're having a baby!"
A smile graced Serah's lips as she watched Nicholas sprint next door. She stood in the doorway, just staring out at the street, until the voice behind her startled her from her daze. "It's a little indecent, don't you think?"
She turned, eyeing Luce from a few feet away. "What?"
"You," he said. "Wearing that, right here, right now."
Glancing down, Serah felt her cheeks flushing as she quickly closed the front door. "Where did you even come from?"
"Loaded question."
"How did you get here?"
"I'm not certain you want to know."
She eyed him hesitantly as he evaded answering her questions. "I don't recall inviting you inside."
"Oh, but you did," he said. "Weeks ago."
"That doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because that was then and this is now."
Luce just stared at her. Serah could feel her blush deepening further at his intense gaze and fidgeted a bit, clutching hold of the towel around her to keep herself concealed. She feigned annoyance at his company, pretending to be put off by his presence, but truthfully she felt at ease about him being in her home. She'd just been surprised, not at all disturbed.
She should've been, though.
It should've bothered her. Frightened her.
There was nothing normal about the situation, nothing safe about these circumstances, but she couldn't seem to force herself to be troubled.
It felt natural, like he'd been there all along.
"Do you want me to go?" Luce asked as she strolled toward him.
"No," she whispered, stepping around him. "I don't."
Lucifer stared hard at the tattered cards in his hand. The edges of them were singed and the white was tinted a grimy shade of gray. They'd seen a lot of play over time, and he was definitely due for a new deck, but he had an attachment to these.
They were the ones Serah played with him down in the pit.
The deck had been through thousands of games of War, had seen hundreds of rounds of Solitaire, but none had been as strenuous as the battle it saw now.
"Does you have sixes?"
Lucifer's eyes stayed fixed to his hand. "Does I have sixes," he repeated, muttering the grammatically fucked up words under his breath.
"Yes." Her voice was serious… so, so serious. "Does you?"
Luce stared at the two sixes in his hand for a second before his gaze shifted overtop his cards, meeting a pair of wide, brown eyes. Nicki Barlow. The little girl stared him down, waiting about as patiently as a nine-year-old could wait.
Go fish. Those words were on the tip of his tongue. Anyone else, and he would've said them. Anyone else, and he would've lied. But she looked at him with the same sort of reverence that Lucifer once felt toward his Father. She trusted him implicitly to tell the truth.
Grudgingly, Luce pulled out the two sixes and handed them over. Squealing excitedly, Nicki formed a book, putting all of the sixes in front of her. She was winning now, two to one.
"Does you have any queens?" she asked, going again.
Luce didn't have to look at his hand. "Go fish."
Nicki drew a card from the pile.
"Give me your kings," Luce said.
Nicki didn't even think before saying, "Go fish."
Luce pulled a card from the pile and was arranging it in his hand when she spoke. "Does you have kings?"
Luce froze, no part of him moving except his eyes as they darted to her. "What did you just ask for?"
"Kings."
"That's what I asked you for," he said, tone clipped as he glared at the girl. "You said you didn't have any."
She shook her head, steadfast. "Nuh-uh. I do have them. See?"
She held up a king to show him.
It took everything inside of Luce not to snatch it from her hand.
Un-fucking-believable. He detected nothing but innocence inside of her, no sort of benevolence beneath her skin, even though she'd just lied right to his face. He hadn't had a creature baffle him so much since Serah. Children, to him, were an unknown entity. Children didn't go to the pit.
This tiny mortal felt no shame for manipulating him, had no remorse for lying to win the game.
That was his M.O.
He had to admit, he was impressed. Carefully, he pulled the kings from his hand and wordlessly passed them over to her, letting her, for the moment, get away with cheating him.
The game went on for a few more minutes before Serah stepped into her living room where they sat, Luce on the couch and Nicki cross-legged on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table.
"Who's winning?" Serah asked casually.
"Me!" Nicki exclaimed.
Walking over, Serah plopped down on the couch beside Luce, sitting so close her body brushed against his. She lean
ed over, resting her head on his shoulder as she glanced at the cards in his hand. Luce tensed at the contact, largely trying to ignore it to focus on the game. Her touch felt stronger with his shield down, making himself visible.
The things he did for her...
"Does you have fours?" Nicki asked.
Luce turned a four over to her, although he was pretty damn sure he had asked her for those not long ago. She asked for another king next and drew a card to go fish, as Luce cleared his throat. "Give me your twos."
As soon as the words were from his lips, Serah elbowed him in the side. "Geez, you can't ask?"
Luce cut his eyes at her. "What?"
"Give me your twos." She mocked him, the words low and gritty as she tried to emulate his voice. "You sound so demanding... so mean."
Mean?
If only she knew who she was talking to…
"Fine," Luce said. "Do you have any twos?"
"Go Fish!"
The game went on for a few more rounds before Luce gathered enough matches to pull ahead. They were two books away from completion when Nicki suddenly jumped to her feet, throwing the rest of her cards down. "I'm done playing now."
Luce gaped at her. "You can't be done."
"Why?"
"Because I was about to win."
Nicki shrugged, turning her attention to Serah. "Can I go outside and play? Please?"
Serah hesitated before smiling. "Sure, just stay where I can see you."
Luce stared at the little girl as she skipped away, disappearing out the front door. She'd been there for less than an hour and Luce was already frazzled because of her. His gaze shifted to the discarded cards. No one had ever just quit on him before.
Mostly because they couldn't, he wouldn't allow it, but still…
Reaching over, Luce gathered all the cards from the table and started shuffling them. He shifted his body slightly, turning toward Serah beside him. She was staring straight ahead, watching out the large window at Nicki running around the front yard.
As if she could see his gaze, a small smile lifted her lips, her cheeks flushing slightly. "So strange," she whispered.
Luce certainly agreed with that. "Children are strange creatures."
She turned his way. "I was referring to you."
"Ah, I'm not so strange," he said. "I'm not much different than you."
"People think I'm strange," she counters.
"Do they tell you that?" Luce asked curiously, defensiveness prickling inside of him. He knew humans could be cruel. He wasn't always around to hear what they said to her.
"No, but I know they do," she said quietly. "I can sense it."
Her answer surprised Luce.
"I know what you're thinking," she said right away, continuing. "That I'm crazy, thinking I can sense it, but I do. I sense a lot, and maybe it's all in my head… I don't know. But I get feelings about things that I can't shake."
"What kind of feelings?"
She sighed. "All kinds. I know things, things I shouldn't know. I can tell when someone's being genuine or when they're just humoring me. I can walk into a crowded room and automatically be drawn to someone, one person among dozens, and I just get this overwhelming urge to talk to them. I walk down the street and find myself somewhere I hadn't planned to go, like some force lured me there. It's like I have some kind of radar."
"Maybe you do," Luce said, "but it's not fool-proof."
"And how do you know?"
"Because that wasn't what I was thinking. I don't think you're crazy, Serah. I think you're special."
"Like you," she said. "You said we weren't much different, after all."
He smiled at that. Special? There was no denying it. He was special. He'd been purposely created that way. The debate had always been whether or not it was for the good.
"We are alike," he said, continuing to shuffle. "The difference being I wish I could forget everything you no longer remember."
"And I wish I could remember."
"I know you do."
"I wish you'd tell me."
"And I wish I could."
She was quiet for a moment, just watching him shuffle. "I sensed things about you, too, you know."
"I'd be surprised if you hadn't."
Her eyes narrowed contemplatively as she stared at his hands before meeting his gaze. "You're a stranger to me, Luce. In my head, I don't really know anything about you. You walk around barefoot, you find shoes out of nowhere, you order an apple for breakfast but you don't eat it, and you're always there. Everywhere I look, you're there, and then you're gone again. It's not normal."
Normal is relative, he wanted to say. Fuck normal anyway.
Before he could say anything, though, she continued.
"You're a stranger to me," she said again, "but somehow I know you. I see you pop up out of nowhere, I find you standing in my hallway, or lurking outside of my work, and my heart starts to race, but it isn't because I'm afraid. It races, because it knows you. It skips a beat, because it knows you're there. My heart knows you even though the rest of me doesn't."
Luce's eyes drifted down toward her chest briefly before looking at the cards in his hand. Her heart was beating steadily, melodically. "It's not racing now. It's been at ease today."
"You can tell that?"
He shrugged a shoulder, absently dividing the deck of cards down the middle and pushing half of it toward her. "You want to play?"
Carefully, she picked up the partial deck. "What are we playing?"
"War."
"War," she repeated, starting to turn her cards over, but Luce reached over, grasping her hand, stopping her before she looked at them. He quickly ran through the basics of the game as she stared down at his hand on top of hers. When he was finished, she looked back up at him. "I've played this before."
She posed it as a statement, but Luce could see the questions in her eyes. "Yeah, you have."
"Did I play it with you?"
"Many times."
"Did I win?"
"Once."
She nodded, shifting to face him more as she smiled. "Well, Luce, it's about to be twice."
He laughed, amused, as they started playing.
Twenty minutes later, Serah won the game.
"We really appreciate this," Nicholas whispered, standing on the front porch, a sleeping Nicki wrapped around him, drooling on his shoulder. "Seriously, I can't thank you enough."
"I told you it was my pleasure," Serah said. "If you need anything else, I'm here."
Nicholas smiled. "You might live to regret that."
Serah laughed. "Never."
Nicholas departed after thanking her a few more times. Serah waited until they were out of sight before closing the front door and leaning back against it. It was nearing three o'clock in the morning and Serah had missed work. Her boss had understood, but it still weighed heavily on her.
Serah's gaze shifted around the room in the darkness, the only source of light from a very dim lamp. Luce sat still right in the center of the couch, elbows resting on his knees, eyes on her. He'd stayed the entire evening, never once complaining that he had somewhere else to be.
Did he? She couldn't help but wonder. Where did he go when he had to leave?
As if on cue, he rose to his feet. "I should go."
"Stay."
The single word from her lips stalled him. He stood there, still staring at her in the darkness, as he seemed to contemplate it. After a moment, he stepped toward her, cradling her face between his hands. His thumbs lightly stroked her cheeks.
"You're beautiful, angel," he whispered. "You sure you want me to stay?"
She nodded.
She wasn't sure the implication of it, what his staying truly meant, but the thought of him leaving made her chest tight. Parts of her ached, aching to be reacquainted with what she used to know, with what she used to be with him. It was the closest to remembering she got. She wanted that.
Maybe she wanted him.
Leani
ng down, he softly kissed her, the lightest touch of their lips. Without deepening it, he picked her up, and Serah gasped in his mouth as he carried her through the house. He took her right back to the only bedroom, laying her on the center of the bed.
Serah relaxed as Luce's lips left hers to instead explore her skin. He kissed her face, her jawline, her neck, sending tingles deep down through her body as he kissed her again and again.
His hands roamed, gently caressing her. He tugged her dress up over her head when she raised her hands, letting him take it off. His lips traveled the length of her torso, easily shedding the rest of her clothes.
His mouth found the apex of her thighs. Sparks ignited inside of her as she arched her back, her hands in his hair. It was soft, much softer than she expected from someone constructed from such harsh lines and dark features. He kissed her, tasted her, caressing her flesh with his tongue.
Pleasure tore through her, orgasm gripping her as her muscles twitched. She cried out, and he didn't let up, continuing the motions until the sensations subsided and she relaxed again.
She lay there, breathing heavily, body tingling, as he tore off his own clothes haphazardly. Her eyes trailed over his naked form, mesmerized by the lines and contours. He was stunning, absolutely perfect, no flaws or blemishes, nothing out of place. Even the mark that had not long ago been carved in his chest was gone, fully healed, having faded away.
Luce stared down at her, something brewing in his eyes, unexpectedly dark. Her back prickled with a sense of danger, but desire shoved it aside.
Maybe he was dangerous, but for some reason, she trusted him.
"So beautiful," he said again, voice rough and gritty as his hands massaged her breasts. "You sure about this?"
All it took was another nod.
She didn't even have to speak.
Luce settled between her thighs, meeting her lips again as he pushed inside of her. Serah moaned as he filled her, an overwhelming sensation swarming her. She felt warm, so warm, like he was kindling a fire in her bones. He moved slowly at first, letting her adjust to the feeling, before increasing the pace just a bit.
Breaking the kiss, he pulled back, his hand coming to rest on her chest, on top of the circular scar over her heart. His palm felt like burning embers, searing flames, as her heart frantically pounded against it.
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