Chapter 12: Morning Light
The truth was a stone in his throat. Lucifer watched Robert sleep, the dawn light painting his face in shades of grey and gold, and the weight of the feeling was so immense it felt like it should crack the bedframe. Love. Not the distant, starstruck fantasy from a 2025 movie screen, but this: the mole on his shoulder, the soft snore, the way his fingers twitched in dreams. The terrifying, beautiful reality of him.
Robert stirred, eyes fluttering open. For a second, there was pure, unguarded confusion. Then his gaze focused on Lucifer, and a slow, sleep-soft smile appeared. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Lucifer echoed, his voice rough.
Robert stretched, wincing slightly. The scratches on his own back from the kitchen floor were dark against his skin. He studied Lucifer’s face. “You’re doing the intense staring thing. What’s wrong?”
Everything. Nothing. I love you and I’m from the future and you’re going to break your own heart a hundred times before you find peace. “Just thinking,” Lucifer said.
“Dangerous pastime.” Robert rolled out of bed, his naked body a pale flash in the dim room. He padded toward the kitchen. “Coffee. We need coffee. I think my brain is still back in that bathroom where I first saw you. Thought you were a halucination. A really, really good one.”
Lucifer followed, pulling on his jeans. The apartment in the morning light looked more tragic, less nostalgic. The peeling posters, the dust motes dancing in sunbeams that cut through the lingering haze of smoke. The phone on the wall by the fridge looked innocuous. Ominous.
Robert busied himself with the grinder, the loud mechanical whir drowning out any possibility of conversation. He moved with a frenetic energy, like if he stopped moving, the thoughts would catch up. He dumped grounds into a filter, slammed the carafe under the drip.
“So,” Robert said, not looking at him. “One day. Simple. What do people do on simple days?”
“They exist,” Lucifer said, leaning against the counter. His height made the small kitchen feel like a dollhouse. “They don’t plan. They just… are.”
The coffee began to brew, its bitter aroma cutting through the stale air. Robert finally turned, crossing his arms. He looked young, and tired, and stubborn. “I’m not great at just ‘being.’ Being leads to thinking. Thinking leads to… calling people.”
As if on cue, the phone rang.
The sound was a razor slicing through the calm. It wasn’t a gentle trill; it was a harsh, jangling bell that vibrated in the laminate countertops. Robert flinched as if struck. His eyes snapped to the phone, then to Lucifer. A silent plea, a silent war.
It rang again.
“Don’t,” Lucifer said, the word quiet but absolute.
“It might be my agent,” Robert said, but his voice was thin. They both knew.
A third ring. Robert’s hand twitched at his side. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped. This was the addiction, right here. Not just the substance, but the ritual, the connection, the promise of escape. The phone was a lifeline to the void.
Lucifer pushed off the counter and walked to the phone. He didn’t look at Robert. He watched the black, clunky receiver as it shook with each ring. A fourth. A fifth.
He yanked the cord from the wall jack.
The silence was instantaneous, profound, and deafening. The plug dangled from his fist, useless.
Robert stared at the dead phone, then at the plug in Lucifer’s hand. His expression cycled through shock, anger, and a dawning, helpless relief. “You… you can’t just do that.”
“I just did.”
“What if it was important?”
“It wasn’t.”
“You don’t know that!” Robert’s voice rose, cracking with a panic that wasn’t about the phone. It was about the loss of control, the severing of a thread he thought he needed. He took a step forward. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“The guy who is trying to give you your one simple day,” Lucifer said, his own temper fraying. He dropped the plug. It hit the floor with a plastic clatter. “You said you didn’t want to answer. So now you can’t. Problem solved.”
“It’s not solved! He’ll just come here. He knows where I live.”
The air left the room. Lucifer went very still. “What?”
Robert ran a hand through his messy hair, turning away. “Nothing. Forget it.”
“Robert.” Lucifer’s voice carried a command that made Robert’s shoulders tense. “Does he come here?”
A long pause. Robert nodded, just once, toward the window overlooking the street. “Sometimes. If I’m not answering. He’s… persistent.”
A cold clarity washed over Lucifer. The game had just changed. This wasn’t about ignoring a call; it was about intercepting a visit. The protective instinct in him, already a live wire since his realization at dawn, solidified into a hard, focused plan.
“Okay,” Lucifer said, his tone shifting, becoming practical. “Then we won’t be here.”
Robert finally turned back, skepticism etched on his face. “We? Where’s ‘we’ going?”
“Out. Anywhere. You have a car?”
“A kinda-functional Porsche that hates me. Why?”
“Get dressed.” Lucifer moved past him, back toward the bedroom to find his shirt. “We’re going for a drive. We’re going to be somewhere with no phone, and no address he knows.”
“This is insane. I have lines to learn. A script somewhere…” Robert trailed off, looking around the cluttered living room as if seeing the chaos for the first time.
“Bring it.” Lucifer pulled his shirt on, the fabric catching softly on the antiseptic-sticky scratches. “You can learn them with me. Or you can sit in silence. But you’re not sitting here waiting for that phone to ring or for that knock to come. Not today.”
He stood in the doorway, waiting. Robert just watched him, a tumult of emotions in his eyes. The fear was there, bright and sharp. But beneath it, something else was sparking. Adventure. Defiance. A fragile trust.
A slow grin began to tug at Robert’s mouth, the first real one of the morning. “You’re actually serious. You’re going to kidnap me for my own good.”
“Call it a field trip.”
Robert laughed, a short, surprised burst of sound. “Okay. Okay, fine. You win.” He walked toward the bedroom, brushing past Lucifer. His fingers trailed lightly over Lucifer’s hand. “But you’re buying the gas. And the shitty diner coffee. And you have to listen to me recite dialogue about a corrupt lawyer for two hours.”
“Deal,” Lucifer said.
As Robert rummaged for clothes, Lucifer walked to the window and peered down at the quiet, sun-drenched street. It was empty. For now. The plugged phone lay on the floor. It was a small victory, a temporary barricade.
He thought of the love that had announced itself at dawn. It wasn’t a soft thing. Not here, not now. It was this: standing between a man and his demons, unplugging the phone, planning an escape to nowhere. It was fierce, and maybe foolish, and the only thing that felt true.
Robert emerged, pulling a worn leather jacket over a t-shirt. He tossed a dog-eared script onto the kitchen table. “Ready to be my audience of one?”
Lucifer took one last look at the dead phone. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go be somewhere else.”