Harley Quinn (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} extraharley) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} toboldlyrpg,@ 2017-03-08 18:21:00 |
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| Entry tags: | ! enterprise, - crew quarters, - deck five lounge, ^ log, lucifer morningstar | lucifer, mary crawley | downton abbey |
WHO: Lady Mary and the Devil
WHEN: 226403.07
WHERE: Deck 5 Lounge, Lucifer’s Quarters
SUMMARY: A conversation and a walk and technology
WARNINGS: None
After eyeing the piano in the Deck 5 Lounge for days, Lucifer finally sat down to play. At Lux he never would have hesitated, but that was his club, his space. He didn’t play for an audience though he wasn’t one to shy away from being the center of attention. But for someone who otherwise avoided emotions, music was where he escaped. It was odd, in this new place and time to be singing a song now hundreds of years old, his frustration resonating from the opening verse of wanting to find a way out.
But there wasn’t a home, not yet. Maybe never. So when he finished the song he just sat there, staring at the keys, feeling no better than when he started and completely oblivious as to whether anyone had paid him any mind.
For someone who didn’t feel like she belonged in a bar, Mary certainly found herself at Deck 5 quite often. Maybe it was because it was the only place on the ship to get a decent drink. Lately she’d felt like she had needed a steady flow of alcohol to keep herself sane on the ship. She never got drunk in public - ladies did not do that - but her daily drink helped her take the edge off.
She was sipping a whiskey with water when she heard someone start to play the piano. When she turned, she was surprised to find that it was the man who called himself Lucifer, who indeed claimed to be Lucifer. That revelation had unnerved Mary completely and she had been avoiding him since. Nothing but trouble could come from associating with him. As she sat and listened to him sing though (a song she didn’t know), she felt herself drawn in. What harm could it do to simply talk to him? Even though the thought made her wonder if this wasn’t the devil tricking her somehow. Just a small conversation. A few questions.
He actually had a nice voice and played the piano quite well. Mary picked up her drink and crossed slowly over to where Lucifer sat at the piano. She moved into his line of vision, but she wasn’t quite sure if he saw her or not, as he seemed so caught up in the music. Mary waited a moment after he finished before she spoke quietly. “Are you truly what you say you are?”
Lucifer looked up when someone spoke, smiling once he recognized the voice. “I don’t lie,” he said simply. Considering her a moment, he shifted on the bench to give her room to sit down. “Relax. I’m not after your soul. I have no desire to make you do anything you don’t already want to do yourself. Frankly, I get a lot more blame and credit than I should.”
He lifted his drink from the top of the piano and took a sip, waiting to see if she’d join him.
That sounded like something he would say to lure someone in and feel a false sense of security. Still, she tentatively sat on the other end of the bench from him, trying to put as much distance as she could between them.
“How do I know that I can trust you?” Could she at all? Even the idea was absurd. He hadn't shown any sort of evil magical powers yet, but that didn't mean he didn't have them.
Smiling broadly at her as she chose to sit down next to him, even if it was as far over as possible on the bench, he answered her cheerfully, “You don’t!” Then he added, “But I am the devil. My word is my bond.”
Gesturing to the piano keys, he asked her, “Do you play at all?” He figured if she did, she might relax from being so tightly wound, and still somehow concerned with being proper. She was a product of her times, certainly, but they were no longer in the early twentieth century.
“It seems that the devil would have every reason to lie to a person,” Mary said quietly. But what could he do, really? He was stuck here just like the rest of them. If he had any true power he would have escaped by now.
She sighed. “No. My sister does. I sing.” Upper class families always had their daughters do different things musically. That way they could be a little ensemble. Mary had the best voice, so she was the singer. Edith was on piano and Sybil learned violin, though she hated it and didn't play much after she was no longer forced to for recitals.
“Why do you say that?” he asked. “I’d like to recall my earlier sentiment and say that I often get too much credit and too much blame. But keep in mind that I wasn’t always the devil. I’m not really now, either.”
He took his drink and drank half of it down. “So what do you do to relax, Lady Mary? And have you managed to do so at all since ending up here?”
He seemed so normal, almost like a real person. She wondered if that was the point. And then she wondered why she was so concerned about this anyway. Mary had never been a particularly religious person. Even if he was the devil, so what? She still had her own free will.
She laughed slightly. “I enjoy walking around on the estate I live on, or riding my horse. I've tried to walk around the ship, but it isn't the same.” Everything was so clinical. It felt like a hospital. Thus the drinking.
“Compared to the time you come from, everything here is probably completely new and unfamiliar,” he mused. “Too bad we can’t land this ship and be on solid ground for a bit. Stretch our legs. Maybe see some trees. Buy some new clothes…”
Finishing the rest of his glass, he nodded at her. “Drink up, Mary. We’re going on a walk.”
Mary arched an eyebrow at him. “We are?” She probably shouldn’t go walking anywhere with him. Then again, what else did she have to do? Mary finished her whiskey and placed the empty glass on the piano before standing up. She supposed that if he tried to do something untoward she could scream until someone came to rescue her.
“We are,” he agreed cheerfully, being a gentleman and offering her his arm.
As they left their glasses behind on the piano and left the bar, he glanced over at her. “Is there anything here that reminds you of home?” It was a genuine question, because planes would have been fairly new to her time, nevermind manned space flight. And this starship was equipped with technology far more advanced than even he had known.
“Other than the stars, that is,” he added, leading her toward one of the large windows. “They’re different, of course. But who hasn’t stared up at the night sky on a particularly clear night where the stars seemed almost close enough to touch?”
Mary tentatively put her hand in the crook of his arm, though she kept bodily distance between them. “There is… not much,” she answered honestly. “I have been able to make some clothing that reminds me of home by using the replicators.”
She stared out the window at the expanse of stars, trying to think of something that was familiar to her home. “Some of the food, perhaps, but even that is different.” Maybe the alcohol. That hadn't seemed to change much.
Mary turned to him. “How long were you… living on Earth?” That was an odd question to ask.
”Replicators?” Lucifer asked. “I can replicate my clothes?” He’d just been laundering his suit every night which was painful. “You need to show me how,” he informed her, waiting for Mary to take the lead and solve one of his most pressing problems.
Smiling at her question, however, he replied with a bit more calm. “Five or six years. Not nearly long enough.”
“You haven't used them yet?” Mary was surprised to hear that. How had she managed to become more familiar with technology than someone from the future had? “You can create just about anything. I have never seen such a marvelous machine.” How easy it made life.
“But, you have been alive for…?” A great deal longer than that, she surmised.
“No, I need you to show me where they are and how to use them. I’ll even put on some of the alternative clothes that they gave me while I refresh this suit.” Since she wasn’t yet leading them to the replicators, he decided to lead her to his room. Hopefully his roommate was gone, he didn’t think Mary could handle Wade yet.
“I was born before Adam,” Lucifer replied. “My father met my mother, fell in love… Well, I suppose the big bang theory was slightly after your time? Either way, the name is apt.”
Guiding her along he added, “Anyway, I dared question my father, led a rebellion or so he says, and bam! Damned to rule over Hell for all eternity. Until I decided I wasn’t going to do that any longer, of course.”
“I can try to teach you,” she said. Truthfully, Mary’s grasp on it was tentative, but she had managed to make a few very nice dresses, so perhaps she at least had some skill.
Mary didn’t realize where they were heading, only followed as he led. Of course, she had heard his story before. One bit of it confused her though. “Who exactly was your mother?” As far as she could remember, there had only been God and no female deity.
“The Goddess of all Creation, Mother of Angels, my dad’s ex-wife, take your pick. Probably the ex bit, thrown in with our traditionally patriarchal society, has led to you never learning about her. Well that and dear old dad threw her in hell for millennia. She’d only recently escaped when I ended up here.” Lucifer gave her the rundown rather matter of factly, focused more on their destination.
“Right,” he said, gaining entry to his quarters and then leading her into the common part of his room, happy that the coast seemed clear. “We best go into my room,” he mentioned. “If you think I’m weird, you should meet my roommate.” He smiled at her and immediately shrugged out of his jacket, then started unbuttoning his shirt, the process done with such ease that he was standing there half naked before she would have realized what was happening.
“No,” Mary said with furrowed brow, “I don't believe she's in the Bible.” Maybe he was from another “universe”. Mary had just discovered that such a thing was possible after speaking to some of the other people on board.
She walked tentatively into his quarters, wondering why exactly they were there. There were dozens of places they could have gone, but he had picked here? When he started to unbutton his shirt, it suddenly became painfully clear.
Mary jumped back immediately, her hand on her chest. “Mr… Lucifer. Exactly what do you think is going to be happening here?” How had she managed to let him lead her this far?
“She’s not,” Lucifer replied. “Patriarchal society, remember? Ever considered why there’s so few women of note in the Bible? Or history in general, really.”
Reaching for the sweater Lucifer had been given when he requested more clothes, he grinned at Mary’s obvious discomfort. “You’re going to show me how to use a replicator and I’m going to finally have a decent wardrobe. First I need to clean these though.”
Glancing at the pants he was going to have to wear in the meantime, he flashed her a grin. “I’ll finish changing in the bathroom. Wait here?” If it wasn’t for the potential of the Detective showing up on board sometime, he probably wouldn’t have been so courteous. For now, his discretion was Mary’s loss.
“I shall wait in the common area,” she said decisively. Being in a man’s bedroom was wildly inappropriate. That was how rumors got started. Lucifer was a handsome man, but Mary supposed that was part of the whole appeal of the devil.
Mary sat on the couch in the public area of the dorm, sighing as she waited for him to emerge. Her posture, as always, was perfect.
Lucifer changed, frowning at himself in the mirror. Who dressed like this, anyway? Certainly not him, other than the rare occasion where a case required him to do so, and that was usually after things got unnecessarily messy.
He set the clothes he’d been wearing since arrival to clean once more and then and went and sat down next to Mary on the couch. “Sorry, but I couldn’t miss the opportunity to gain a bigger wardrobe,” he mentioned.
Where she was sitting properly, he slung his arm against the back of the
couch, behind her, and kicked his feet up on the table in front of them. “Have you met Maze yet? You’ll have to show her too.”
Mary glanced up at him. He was acting so confident, as if nothing fazed him. Then again, did anything really faze the demon? “I have not met her, no.” Mary replied. “Shall we, um… have a look at one of the replicators?”
She knew there was one somewhere near the entrance to his dorm, because it was such a handy thing to have whenever a person was in need something.
“Gotta wait on the clothes,” Lucifer pointed out. “Unless you’re saying there’s one of these magical wardrobe increasing devices here? Why wasn’t I told about this?” Or maybe he was, in all the information Peggy Carter put together that he’d never looked at. He was instantly curious, and said, “Alright, show me where this thing is and how it works.”
Maybe it would be a good idea to test it on something that wasn’t so important to him anyway.
“I think you misunderstand how the replicators work, though I admit that the name is confusing.” Mary can’t believe that she of all people has to tell someone how these machines work. “It does replicate things, but it can also create things if it has some basis as to what it is creating. That is how I was able to make dresses that are different but have a similar style.” She had followed the steps on the screen and it had been surprisingly easy. Surely someone with nearly 100 years on her could understand it even better?
“I’ve never used it,” Lucifer replied. “Didn’t even pay any attention to it, as I’ve only really been in my room to sleep. If the bar was open, he was there and if not, he’d been busy exploring other aspects of his new home.
“Interesting,” he said as she gave him an introduction to such an useful device that was right in his own quarters. For once he was a good student, paying close attention to her instructions. “This thing even makes tea,” he mused. Maybe he should have listened to Peggy Carter when she was giving her introduction speech. He wondered if she’d mentioned this replicator thing.
“Lady Mary, this is so useful I could kiss you right now,” he mused when she was done. He was finally going to feel more at home while floating through space.
“It does make tea,” Mary confirmed. Even better tea than what the mess hall offered. Mary explained what she could to him, still feeling incredulous that she would be called on to explain something about this ship to anyone.
At his last statement, Mary drew back and gave him a skeptical look. “If you’re aiming to get slapped, we can simply skip the kiss and get right to it.” Her tone was amused though. For better or worse, she kind of liked Lucifer.
“If you’re eager to slap someone, be my guest,” he replied. “The detective isn’t here so my immortality is secure. I won’t even feel it.”
Feeling like he had a good enough grasp on the replicator he went to sit back on the couch, not actually attempting to kiss her. “So what was your life like, before? I have a feeling you weren’t always so proper and behaved as you were meant to be.”
It wasn't that she wanted to slap him. But she would. Or maybe she wouldn't. It depended on whether or not he wanted to press his luck.
Mary followed him, perching next to him on the couch. “No one is perfect.” She had done some improper things in her life, some that she regretted and some that she did not. Being a grown woman, she made her own choices and sometimes they were not in line with her upbringing.
“Who is the detective?” She asked, going back to his earlier comment.
“I’ll answer your question when you answer mine,” Lucifer replied, raising a brow at Mary. That was decidedly a non-answer. “Perfect is boring. When you end up in the Silver City, you’ll see.” He might not have known many details about her life, but he was fairly certain she wasn’t the type to end up in his domain. Both were terrible destinations as far as he was concerned. Earth had been where it was at.
This ship was entertaining, but he was never the sort who appreciated being trapped in any one place for long.
Mary crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look. It was not a ladylike way to sit, but if he was going to challenge her, then she was going to be slightly defensive. “You want to know what my life was like? I lived on my parents’ estate and helped run the business end of it. I dressed for dinner, which was always four courses. I went to parties and other social events wearing beautiful frocks. I had a maid who did my hair. I have a son whom I was raising.”
He probably wanted to hear more salacious details, but the question was about what her life had been like. It was lavish, but she also worked hard to keep the estate going.
“You left behind a son?” Lucifer asked. “How old is he? How’s that been?” His questions were genuine, as he imagined that would be far more difficult than his own scenario which he didn’t yet volunteer.
“Three,” Mary said. She had pictures of him in her room, but it wasn't enough. “It's been as difficult as you might imagine.” He was the person that she missed the most. It had taken some time for her to come into motherhood, especially because her husband had died so soon after George’s birth. Now though she felt that she had hit her stride. To be taken away from him was devastating to her if she thought about it for too long.
“I’m sorry,” Lucifer said with sincerity in his voice. He looked at her for a moment with a new admiration for handling that separation with as much grace as she was. Deciding not to press anymore, he finally answered her question.
“The detective is the one woman who I think could put up with being in a relationship with me. Unfortunately, I have no idea how much of that was real and how much of it was the fact that my father very specifically placed her in my life as a pawn in his great game of screwing over his creation.” Here he made no attempt to hide his bitterness toward his father, or how he really felt about him. “Naturally, I ran away from her, and was actually in the process of doing so when I ended up here.”
He glanced toward the replicator. “Can that thing produce liquor?”
Color her surprised, both at his empathy and at hearing someone speak about God that way. Lucifer’s whole situation was naturally very foreign to her. It was hard for her to imagine being the devil and battling with God himself.
“Did you love her?” She asked, wondering if she should. Her eyes followed his to the replicator. “I suppose it does. It seems to produce everything else.”
“Yes, I think so,” Lucifer replied. “I mean, I did go to hell and back for her, which isn’t as easy as you’d think it would be for me after I had Maze cut off my wings.”
His tone was casual, as it often was when he discussed moments from his life no matter how important or trivial he found them. Right then, however, he’d mentioned two of the more defining moments of his recent history in the same tone he’d use in telling her what he had ordered to drink or what designer he was wearing.
Mary knew a thing or two about hiding her emotions, so his tone did not shock her. The only time she had cried aboard this ship was when she was locked away in her room where nobody could hear her. She'd be damned if anyone saw her appear to be weak.
Impulsively, she stood up and went to the replicator, looking through the menus on the screen until she found what she was looking for. “Do you like martinis?”
“Yes,” Lucifer replied. He had a machine in his quarters that made drinks, which would provide him with alcohol when the bar wasn’t open. This was brilliant news. “You’re my hero right now,” he informed her.
“So, one does not willingly spend time with the devil without having a bit of a naughty streak. What is it?” he asked, going back to an earlier topic that he never really abandoned.
Mary put in the coordinates for the drinks and they appeared a few moments later. She smiled as she picked both of them up, handing one of them to Lucifer.
At his question though, she sighed and rolled her eyes. He was not going to let this go. Mary took a long drink of her martini, until she felt the alcohol sufficiently coursing through her bloodstream. “Fine. You want to hear about the time I met a man in Liverpool for a tryst?” And how she'd had to acquire birth control before it.
“Clearly,” Lucifer said, leaning in for the story. “This is the good stuff.”
Taking a sip of his own martini, he found himself quite impressed with the ability to make drinks appear in his own room. “I want to know all of the details, including the why of it all.”
Of course, that got his attention. Was she about to confess to the devil? She would rather tease him, which was probably equally as dangerous.
“Surely you don't mean every detail,” she demurred. “I can't see why you would be interested in something so salacious. You seem to forget that I am a lady.”
The truth of it wasn't nearly as exciting as anything she could make up.
“You’ll find that I take interest in the details that others are more likely to find distasteful or boring,” Lucifer pointed out. “And I’ve not forgotten that you’re a lady. You being Lady Mary Crawley makes this far more interesting. So tell me about your forbidden tryst. Was it out of love? Passion? Boredom? Unfulfilled sexual desires?”
Mary sat down next to him again, a bit closer this time than she had last time. “We were courting. He suggested it and though it was scandalous, I agreed. I did it because I wanted to know what it would be like to be with him before we were married.”
She was already a widow, so what did it matter? Unfortunately, the experience had been underwhelming.
Lucifer’s eyes widened as she told her story, but then he laughed, giving away that he was teasing her. “Oh dear. Times have changed. Do you know that by 2017 it’s not uncommon for couples to live together and have children together without ever getting married? Divorce is also commonplace for those who marry and then regret it. Oh, and men can now marry other men and women can marry women.”
His expression softened slightly as he regarded her again. “Maybe you were too smart for your own time period, as that’s not scandalous at all, and instead rather wise thinking. Did you end up marrying him?”
“That doesn't surprise me very much,” she said quietly. Well, the last bit about men marrying men did. Not that she'd never met a gay man before, but she didn't expect they would ever be able to get married. “Even in my time men and women were living together, though it was a scandalous thing. A woman of my station could not do such a thing and keep her reputation.”
She sighed. “No. I broke it off soon after.” Mary sipped her martini. Let him surmise why that might have happened.
“Would you have wanted to do such a thing, had it not been so taboo?” Lucifer asked. “And good on you. Better to go through something so ‘scandalous’ and come out all the wiser for it than submit yourself to a lifetime of disappointment and frustration.”
He glanced down at his drink and discovered it was still almost full, so he remedied that by taking a long drink. “All these societal norms and laws and inferior punishments that people come up with almost make me regret handing Eve that apple.”
“No,” she said. She’d never felt the desire to live with a man without marriage. Sex, yes, but a permanent arrangement, no. If she was going to be with a man like that she wanted to be married.
“Ah, yes, you are the one to blame for all of this,” she agreed. Eve was vilified and all women along with her.
“Do you assume that my tryst was disappointing?” It was. Tony was a lovely man, but Mary simply didn't love him. Sleeping with him only confirmed that for her.
“Am I though?” Lucifer asked. “I played a role, but we all do. It’s a terrible game and then you die. You’d think the end reward would be a bit more promising.”
Leaning back into the couch, Lucifer nodded. “Of course it was. If it had been amazing you’d have married him and counted your lucky stars that you found a man who knew what a woman wants, who saw sex as more than just a duty to produce babies or for his own pleasure. Else you’d be foolish not to, and you’ve proven yourself to have more wisdom than that already.”
Mary bit her lip at his words, knowing that they were the truth. She took another drink of her martini before deciding to push even further.
“And you are such a man, Lucifer?” The kind who knew how to make sex enjoyable for a woman. Her husband had done that, always making sure that she was satisfied. Whether it was proper or not, Mary liked sex.
“Well there’s the small detail where I’m not a man, I’m an angel, technically fallen, but I can assure you that my reputation is of utmost importance to me. You should have seen it when some chump tried to impersonate me, participating in rap battles and leaving women unsatisfied.”
He looked at her. “Are you wanting to find out if I’m telling the truth? Because I’ll tell you, I never lie. There’s just one small problem at the moment…”
Rap battles? She didn't have time to ask what those were as she was too interested in where else this conversation was going. Mary felt her pulse pick up pace, even though she tried to look detached.
“What sort of problem?”
“The problem where I’d feel as though I’d be betraying the detective,” Lucifer muttered, frustrated with himself for apparently having a conscience. “I’m the devil, that isn’t supposed to be an issue for me.”
Except he wasn’t the devil, not anymore. He’d abandoned that post and saved Chloe’s life for no decipherable reason, which Amenadiel had warned him would change him. And it had. Only now was he seeing the slow burn of that decision play out, when he was light years and centuries away from Chloe, who was a pawn herself in his father’s plan. None of this was reasonable.
“I assure you, this is quite odd to even be saying, but I… can’t.”
“You do love her,” Mary said, not only surprised that the devil could have a conscious, but that he could fall in love as well. He was not what she was expecting at all.
“For the record, I would like to make it clear that I was not making a proposition. I was simply asking a question.”
“Yes, well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?” he asked. They were in space, and as Beckett had helpfully pointed out to him, with over two hundred years between them, the detective was long dead.
“Your curiosity is duly noted,” he said, not even fighting her on that point as he himself felt disappointed that nothing more was going to happen that night. “On that note, we should probably return to the bar before my roommate shows up, unless crazed men in masks interest you as much as fallen angels.”
Truth be told, Lucifer had only seen his roommate a handful of times, and that was fine by him.
Mary raised an eyebrow at Lucifer’s description of his roommate. It did not make her want to meet him. She finished her martini and then placed the empty glass on the coffee table in front of her.
“For what it’s worth… I suppose there is always the chance of her arriving here as well. If you love her, you shouldn’t give up entirely. Even if you feel that she was placed in your life due to your father’s meddling, it doesn’t mean that what you feel for her is any less true.”
She didn’t consider herself to be a hopeless romantic, as she was too practical for that, but she knew what being in love felt like. She and Matthew had obstacles in their way as well. Even though he had died after only a few years of marriage, she never regretted her time with him for a moment.
Lucifer looked at Mary for a long moment, actually listening to what she had to say. Then he stood, offering her his hand to help her up. “Right. Well, enough dwelling in the distant past,” he said, changing the subject. “There are still drinks at the bar I’ve yet to try.”
Even as he appeared to brush off her words, though, he was thinking on them. Maze had said the same thing. The problem with that was Lucifer was never the sort to put much faith in hope. But that didn’t matter right now as long as the ship’s supply of alcohol didn’t run dry.
Mary let him take her hand and help her up. Wow. That had been shut down pretty quickly. “I suppose optimism isn’t a trait of the devil,” she said. She put her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I believe I’ve had enough for the evening. If you would like to return me to my room, that would be much appreciated.”
“Not really, no,” Lucifer replied, escorting her down the corridor toward her room. “Considering that I spent most of my life inflicting punishment on others, I would say optimism is a foreign concept. But hell,” he said, arriving at her door, “Who would have thought I’d have fallen in love in the first place?”
He stopped for a moment, wondering if that was the first time he’d said those words out loud. “Either way, have a pleasant evening, Lady Mary.” He’d actually enjoyed her company.
Indeed. Mary certainly wouldn’t have guessed, but then maybe the devil was more like humans than he would care to admit. He apparently had emotions and desires.
“Thank you,” she said as they stopped outside her door. “You do the same, Lucifer.” The door to Mary’s room whooshed open and she disappeared inside.