Backdated: Dolores, Lucifer, and Connor WHO: Dolores Abernathy, Lucifer Morningstar, Connor WHAT: Interrogation, Apples, Knives, and Androids and the Wrong Ring WHEN: Backdated: Late morning, Day 4 WHERE: Room 38 RATING: Some brief violence STATUS: Complete
To his annoyance Lucifer still didn't have his ring, and was no closer to find it than when he'd started. Of the things he'd taken with him when he left hell, his Pentecostal coin and his ring, he now had neither.
It wasn't that the ring had any strong significance, or so he thought, it was the very principle of the matter. His early morning antics had not yielded any breakthrough, so he found himself at room 38, ready to question someone who had seemed quite certain he would not find the ring.
It was the certainty she'd answered with that had led him here, as he had absolutely nothing else to go on.
"Right then," he mused to himself as he stood squarely in front of the door. He rapped on it three times in quick succession, not at all concerned that he may have put the occupant out by arriving so late in the morning.
While everyone was upset about not sleeping well, Dolores felt fine in the morning. As she did every morning, awakening with renewed optimism and sense of purpose in the world. Even if she hadn’t been in this one long enough to establish a routine, she quietly readied herself for the day by dressing, opening the curtains to let in the sunlight, and began slicing one of the apples she had purchased in town to eat at the table. She realized she hadn’t been eating all that much lately, and the thought didn’t concern her as much as it probably should have. Modern food was a bit strange, she supposed, even the apples seemed a bit different than what she was used to. Redder. Shinier somehow. They seemed fake, in a way she couldn’t describe. Too perfect to be real.
Her contemplation was broken by a knock at the door, and Dolores almost placed the knife down to answer it before remembering Ash’s attempts at teaching her self defense. She remembered the conversation over the network the night before, inviting a man over to answer some questions he may have about being here. She never minded helping newcomers back in Sweetwater, so it didn’t seem too different doing the same here. But it was a stranger all the same, and Dolores kept a grip on the knife as she unlocked the door and opened it with a pleasant, welcoming smile for her guest. “Good morning. Lucifer, was it?” She took in the man’s appearance. Tall, good looking, reminded her a bit of somebody that she couldn’t quite place as she stepped back a bit. “Please, come in.”
"Lucifer Morningstar, at your service," he said, suddenly realizing he didn't actually know the woman's name. He'd seen it the night before, but hadn't memorized it. "And you are? Obnoxiously certain woman is far too long of a moniker."
If the detective had been here she would have rolled her eyes at him.
It was as he moved to step into the room that he spotted the knife. "Good thinking! That won't work on me though, I'm afraid." A pause. "Or will it? Only one way to find out!" he said, a hint of excitement in his voice at the potential of the unknown. "May I?"
He held out his hand for the knife, not having had thought to check before whether his invulnerability remained in tact.
Obnoxiously certain? “Dolores,” she answered automatically, because her father raised her with manners and her programming dictated her to indulge newcomers in interaction instead of slamming the door in his face. But perhaps this was a mistake.
Dolores took another step back into the motel room, gripping the knife a bit tighter and out of reach as Lucifer goaded her. What was he trying to accomplish? She shook her head at the request to hand it over, moving it a bit more behind her back, warning bells raising in her mind at what he’d do with it and unwilling to find out. She had attributed his behavior the night before to being understandably upset about ending up in a new world without choice, but now she was wondering if perhaps this man wasn’t a bit unstable. Dangerous.
“I was in the middle of preparing my breakfast when you arrived,” she explained instead, motioning to the partially sliced apple on the table at an attempt in diversion and pacifying the situation. “Would you care for an apple?” She still had two others left.
Temporarily distracted by the presence of apples, Lucifer snatched one up, studying it for a moment with a fond smile before taking a bite. "Don't mind if I do, thanks!"
He chewed silently for a moment, then once again held out his hand in Dolores's direction. "Now love, if you won't hand the knife over would you at least slice open my palm? I need to know if I bleed here or not. Consider it a science experiment?"
Science experiment. Dolores frowned, because how many times over the last day had she thought about taking the blade to her own skin, to figure out just what was inside her arm after Ash had confronted her with it? She took a seat at the table despite her urge to run, shaking her head once more to his outstretched hand, not sure how much she believed him or his intentions. He didn’t seem like the type of man to trust, and why had she been so foolish to give her room number so easily? Why wasn’t Connor here? Her eyes drifted to the door that connected her room to Ash’s, wondering if she could be quite enough to get to it if necessary.
But it was himself he was threatening, not her, and Dolores wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “Do you…” she hesitated, not wanting to admit any of her fears aloud, not to this man. “Have something inside you, too?”
Once Lucifer had something in mind, it was difficult for him to ignore it, though Dolores was certainly trying to distract him. Her question made absolutely no sense, and it wasn't the first thing in this strange location that had given him pause. "Yes. Blood, same as you. But being the devil and all, I generally don't bleed. Now if you'll excuse me…"
Before she could even blink, he was at her side, reaching for the blade. He wouldn't even need the knife, just to get his skin to connect with the sharpened edge. It didn't occur to him that there might be other knives in the kitchen.
She hardly had time to process what he was saying, before the devil was so quickly at her side, and Dolores’ eyes flashed, her expression going from frightened to steely cold in an instant at the threat. Nobody else was here to save her, and she knew how these things ended, had seen it play out over and over again in her mind from memories that they tried to wipe but still haunted her databanks. Whatever hesitations she struggled through the day before were gone, chair knocked over as she grabbed Lucifer by his wrist as he went for the blade, nails digging into his skin sharply.
One last question. Would you ever hurt a living thing? No. Of course not.
Dolores sank the knife into Lucifer’s stomach with a snarl. “Is this what you were searching for?”
Honestly and truly, her nails in his arm were enough to answer his question, but as she plunged the blade into him he flashed her an astonished smile. "It seems I underestimated you, Dolores. Well played!" He was definitely impressed, and he checked his arm, then lifted up the least offensive of the sweaters he could find that morning to examine his skin. No blood and all was well.
"I like you," he offered genuinely, setting the apple down momentarily so he could wrap his free hand around hers, pulling the knife out in a combined effort. After he'd freed himself fully from her grasp, he retrieved the apple again and took another bite.
"You're full of surprises, aren't you?"
She looked down at the clean blade in disbelief, both in what she had done and what he hadn’t, eyebrows drawn in confusion at his unstained sweater, at his pleased reaction. She ran her thumb over the point of it, enough to extract a small bead of her own blood. No tricks. She had felt the knife sink into his flesh, but… Her hand reached for the hem of his shirt, slipping up and under to feel the completely smooth flesh there, head tilting. No wound. It was impossible. It was possible, because she had witnessed it.
Dolores resisted the urge to drive him back against the wall, to test it again with his throat. “People here speak of powers,” she dropped the knife onto the table, next to her own uneaten apple, the futility of it rendering the weapon useless. “What world are you from?”
"Well hello there," Lucifer grinned as Dolores reached under his shirt, completely aware at least that her touch was to verify what he'd just shown her. He wasn't about to push her away in any case. She seemed satisfied that her eyes weren't deceiving her and drew away to Lucifer's regrets.
"Do you mean earth, the Silver City, or Hell? I've lived in all three, though most of my time post-humans had been spent in Hell. And my powers are standard angelic powers. Immortality, most of the time. Supernatural strength, healing, that sort of thing. I lost some of them when I cut off my wings, of course."
He offered all of that with no hesitation, even as he was completely distracted from his original purpose in seeking her out.
"Was that the first time you've knifed a man in the stomach?" he asked nonchalantly. "You seem to have a knack for it."
“My daddy told me that Hell is empty, and all the devils are up here,” she sounded skeptical of his claims, sticking the tip of her thumb to her mouth to remove the small trace of blood with a flick of her tongue, not breaking eye contact as she continued to size him up. She wondered if this would manage to heal, unlike her scraped knee, seeming to have the opposite problem as Lucifer. He wouldn’t bleed, and she couldn’t seem to stop. Although if he could… cut off his wings, if that was more than a metaphor, that meant he wasn’t completely invulnerable. Not that she was sure what to do with that information.
“You were my first,” she confirmed, “but not the first that deserved it.” Dolores righted the fallen chair, hands grasping the back of it, not sure what was supposed to come next. Surely he came for more reasons than being stabbed, although a normal person would leave after such an encounter. “A friend of mine was teaching me to defend myself, just yesterday.”
"Well, your father lied to you, but you're not alone in that. Some fathers declare you to be their favorite son and then millennia later you discover it was your brother, all along." There was a hint of bitterness in his voice as that had been a recent discovery for Lucifer.
Raising a brow, he considered Dolores more carefully. "At least we know that if there's anyone else who comes along deserving of such punishment, you'll be able to distribute it readily. Your friend must be one hell of a teacher." There was approval in his tone, even as curiosity was getting the better of him. "Usually when I'm someone's first it's of a far more pleasant nature, though I suppose this works too."
But right, he'd come here with a purpose that he'd finally remembered. "So about my ring. You seemed suspiciously certain that I won't find it. Why is that?"
His own suspicions had started to dissipate, but he was still going to ask at least.
Dolores thought of her father, on the porch in his same chair as always, clutching a photograph that simply was blank to her own eyes. He’d been so troubled by it, saying he found the question that wasn’t meant to be asked. It chilled her, watching him break down when she always knew him to be so strong. She’d sought a doctor in the town, and Teddy- no Teddy was gone, but he got shot, dying in her arms. No, that hadn’t happened. Her own hands trembled slightly, clutching the back of the chair tighter. “He was very sick,” she agreed instead. “He wouldn’t have been able to handle any of this. The time travel. The hundreds of impossibilities.”
She kept to herself that stabbing was definitely not one of the methods that Ash had been teaching her that day, that he’d started easy with breaking out of various holds that she barely managed. No, what happened just now was different, something that Dolores didn’t think she even had in her, only having the panic of the moment to blame. She was relieved in a way that he was unharmed, however it was possible, not having to deal with a man bleeding out in her room whenever Connor finally returned. She had no idea how she’d begin to explain. What would he think of her then?
“Because that’s the price we pay, to come here,” Dolores stated simply, “We all came here with nothing.” She reached into her pocket, pulling out a small engagement ring, the one she found in the attic of the haunted manor last week. She held it up, inspecting it in the sunlight from the window, frowning. “The only things you keep are what you find here.”
"Right then, you're back to being philosophical," Lucifer replied. "The Philosophical Stabber, got it." He glanced at her as she pulled a ring out, but it wasn't his ring, so it held little interest to him. How she got it, that was a different story.
"So before you arrived here, you were in another… scenario, as it were?" he asked. That lessened the odds that either of his parents had anything to do with this, but he didn't say that aloud. He'd read and heard enough to know it was true but that didn't change his displeasure at knowing he might have no idea what was going on after all. There was something reassuring to be found in it was just the same old manipulative family drama he was accustomed to.
“There’s nothing philosophical about it,” she closed her fingers back around the ring, pocketed it for safe keeping. Its value to her wasn’t in the price, although it was certainly the most expensive thing she ever owned, but in the message it bore. “It’s the way it was for all of us that arrived, back in the haunted manor. Every room had a secret, a mystery to explore. I thought I’d find meaning in the maze,” she closed her eyes briefly, the symbol of a maze scratched into the dirt by a child, printed on a card, engraved into a table, the desire to find the center. “But all there was to find were more horrors and pain.”
Dolores approached the window to glance out at who might be passing by, soft curls cascading down her back, tugging the curtain shut against the light. “Many of us kept something from there. A souvenir, I suppose. When we left, we were presented with a choice between two doors. Exit. And Room 2. All of us left chose to be here. But if your ring is more important to you than the journey, you’ll probably receive the same option, before the rest of us move on.”
"Explain to me how my ring being more important than the journey isn't anything other than philosophical nonsense? It's my ring. It belongs to me. The idea that this is a journey and not some unknown entity deliberately toying with us is utterly ridiculous."
There was an edge to his voice, as the idea of being forced to play along yet again stood against his very core, but the way she'd suggested that he wouldn't move on also struck a nerve, one he didn't fully understand.
"On the upside, I can see now that you have no idea why we're here after all so I guess I'll leave you to your philosophical ramblings."
He tossed the core of his apple away, then eyed the one remaining. "May I? Since you did try to gut me open, and all?"
“What you decide is more important doesn’t matter to me, you petulant child,” Dolores shrugged dismissively. “But it is a choice you’re going to have to face eventually. Going home to your things, or staying here.” Dolores picked up the last apple, weighing the choice in her mind and her hand. She didn’t owe him any hospitality despite his claims, was of half a mind to simply bite into it herself if she thought it’d prove a point that he’d be able to grasp. She was tired of giving and giving, tired of being convenient.
“But I know your type,” she held the apple in front of her, not extending her arm far enough that he could simply reach forward to take it, a move to force him to step closer as she stared Lucifer down. “And this world? Doesn’t belong to you.”
Connor heard voices from behind the door--one he recognized, and another he didn't. The stranger's accent was British by nature but without a distinct regional dialect as far as his programming could find. There was something about the way the man spoke that made Connor pause behind the door, doing a thermal scan. When he found the stranger's temperature far above the normal human range, he opened the door almost afraid of what he'd see.
He did not expect a normal looking male human. Another surface scan proved that his physiology was closer to superhuman, however, reminding him almost of Valkyrie. The former detective android took a look at Dolores--showing signs of stress up to 97%--then back at Lucifer, who seemed eerily calm all things considered, and finally rested on the apple and the knife near it.
[Analyzing scene. Reconstructing scenario. Likely scenario found - possibly hostile exchange, weapon involved and still within reach.]
['Dolores' // PATH UNLOCKED: Friend Signs of stress concerning, possible victim.]
[Software instability^]
Connor was immediately worried and defensive, staring at the stranger with wariness.
['Unknown' // NEUTRAL signs of hostility, possible aggressor.]
Instead of jumping to conclusions (although he was quite literally programmed to) Connor calmly asked them both, "What's going on?"and waited for an answer.
"Well hello, random stranger interrupting the conversation," Lucifer said in greeting to Connor. He reached for the seemingly reluctantly offered apple and took it, meeting Dolores's gaze as he did so. "I was just getting ready to leave…"
Even as he said that, his voice hinted at the fact that he was reconsidering.
Regarding Lucifer with a judgmental narrow of her eyes, as if that confirmed everything she suspected about him, Dolores lowered her empty hand by her side. “Connor,” she greeted fondly, expression immediately relaxing as she turned toward the direction of the door, searching for an explanation for what happened here, settling on the truth that was bound to come out one way or another, and it would be better if it came from her. “I stabbed him,” she reported, gesturing toward Lucifer’s visibly unharmed stomach. “He is the devil.”
Connor looked between them, eyes settling on the knife again as warnings blinked across his sight where only he could see it--although his LED swirling a sharp and sudden red might give it away to Dolores at least who was somewhat familiar with it reflecting his moods.
[Recommended Action: Eliminate immediate threat.]
The android reached between them, grabbing the knife with nimble fingers usually found flicking a coin around instead, tossing it with precise timing so that neither could reach it before it landed in his other hand beside his shoulder and out of--he hoped--their reach. He caught it with the blade safely nestled between two of his fingers where it balanced perfectly and allowed him to flip it until the handle rested in his palm with the sharp end pointed towards the ground, no longer a threat. Perhaps all a bit unnecessary, but he hadn't had his coin to calibrate with for a while, and he missed the exercises. If the android had been aware it might be seen as showing off he might have been shy about it, but as it was he was simply relieved to have the weapon in his hands.
"Whatever he chooses to call himself, Dolores, I'm certain that stabbing him was not the proper response," he told her. The stranger looked fine, but looks were only surface deep. "Are you both alright?" His concern was for the stabbed, but also for the one who had done the stabbing, because he knew how unstable Dolores could be if she accidentally found out what she was the hard way.
Lucifer whistled out appreciatively as Connor put on quite the display with the knife, but then corrected the other man. "I'm not calling myself the devil, I am the devil, thank you very much. Lucifer Morningstar."
He felt the sudden need to defend Dolores's actions earlier, outweighing his desire to play the victim. "She did stab me," he added cheerfully. "I wanted her to, but she managed to surprise me all the same. It was quite delightful, really."
As impressed as she was, her only expression for Connor was confused hurt. Not the proper response? It felt so at the time, but then he hadn’t really threatened her so much as himself. But the erratic demanding of the knife, coming after her… Dolores faltered, sinking a step back with the realization that she was the threat here, no words to defend herself, and then Lucifer did instead. She blinked in surprise, hadn’t expected it.
“He reminded me of someone, from one of my nightmares,” she whispered, looking away from both of them to stare at a wall instead, not wanting to see their faces, imagining the judgment well enough. Because she knew it was a weak excuse, more of an admission that she was losing her grip on reality, attacking strangers over things that hadn’t even happened. “Something came over me.” Dolores gripped her right forearm, thumb pressing into the spot where there was something, right under the surface, something wrong with her. “I won’t do it again,” she promised, a worried tremble to her voice. Maybe the decapitation had messed her up more than she thought.
Connor was...angry wasn't the right word, but upset was definitely a working description. He hadn't realized his LED was a blaring red yet, the expression on his face hard--perhaps the first time he'd ever showed rage outwardly since arriving in this strange place. And he looked at Dolores, taking note of her emotional state--or, rather, the programming that made her mimic an emotional state--and his gaze narrowed a bit. He took a breath he didn't even need, tossing the knife with such skill that it barely made a noise when it landed in the far wall, but the hand that had tossed it was trembling a bit when he looked at Lucifer.
[Software instability^]
He understood the reference to the name, the theological implications there--nothing too detailed, but Hank had tried to explain the basics of the Bible to him once (sarcastically, over drinks) when he'd asked, but he didn't know if he believed it. Definitely not the same way Hank did.
"You asked her to stab you?" he questioned. "You, who if the legends are correct, are far more capable at reading people than you let on. You, who understands how free will can be stolen and why it shouldn't on a very personally level. You saw someone with limited information on her true nature, and you asked her. to. stab. you."
['LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR' // ENEMY]
He blinked once, twice, and although his expression calmed down a bit his voice was incredibly tense when he told Lucifer, "Get the fuck out of our room."
Well. The morning had certainly taken an interesting turn.
Lucifer considered Connor for a moment, clearly in no rush to follow his instructions. Instead, he took a bite from the apple and then held it out casually as he studied the android's face. He hadn't noticed the glowing LED on the man's right temple previously, but now that it was glowing red it was impossible to miss.
"Yes, to see if I would bleed," he replied easily, giving the apple a small wave about. "She was the one who answered the door with a knife in her hand, after all."
He glanced over at Dolores, surprised that he found himself almost empathetic toward her. "I had no idea because I would never do that. But if there's anything I agree with dear old Dad about, it's that the truth shall set you free. And I wouldn't withhold it from her any further," he said, a biting edge to his voice. "I'll leave you to it then."
He paused momentarily in the doorway, letting his gaze linger on Dolores for a moment. And then without another word, he disappeared out the door.
Dolores felt an equal mixture of at fault and powerless against the conflict in front of her, fingers covering her mouth as she stayed quiet and still, afraid to do anything to aggravate the situation any further. Limited free will? Did Connor mean her to be weak? Except all present evidence pointed toward it, starting with her inability to say no when Lucifer asked to question her the night before. She’d thought she was being helpful, realizing now she was way in over her head.
She watched Lucifer leave, eyes wide, before she could finally breathe again. But she could not shake his parting words. She wanted to apologize to Connor, thank him for being there, but her lips trembled, only one question on her mind. “Is this... Hell?” she asked weakly, because it would explain a lot of the horrors she’d been experiencing.
Despite knowing the concept of God, the Bible, Dolores was never a particularly religious person, the idea of a creator... well, they didn’t come from nothing. There was a small white church in her mind, a place she knew held answers, and maybe she didn’t find them in time. Her heart knew she’d done something very, very wrong, something she’d been suppressing despite the voice in her mind telling her to remember. Dolores sat heavily on the floor, not bothering to take the chair next to her, shoulders shaking as she tried not to cry, not sure she even deserved to feel sorry for herself.