WHERE:Vallo: New Asgard, Thor's Cottage WHEN:June 16th, 2021 (Backdated) WHAT:Lucifer tries to help Thor with dinner and love. They end up burning down the kitchen instead and that seems very fitting. WARNINGS:None STATUS:Complete
“I believe my father made these creatures so dumb as to not give themselves an existential crisis by realizing a hand might be shoved up their bum after they perish.” Lucifer picked the creature up by the raw drumsticks and turned to face Thor, making the turkey do a little shimmy in the air. “Of course they also look like a bum once all the feathers are removed.” As if offended from beyond the grave or wherever turkeys went (he was sure a few ended up in Hell as they deserved), one of the legs slipped from Lucifer’s grasp and he scrambled to catch it in his arms before it hit the floor.
Salmonella was hardly a concern to an immortal but it didn’t stop him from wrinkling up his nose as the slimy bare skin hit his forearms where he rolled up his sleeves in preparation. “I suppose I deserve that,” he murmured under his breath though probably loud enough that his cousin would hear.
Cousin. The title came naturally in application to Thor and Torunn. Different ‘pantheons’ so to speak but he found more of a kinship with them than most of his family, Amenadiel and Azreal excluded. They were certainly less judging by far.
“Did you get this yourself or the grocery market?”
Thor, who had been preparing the stuffing for the turkey, looked up in time to see Lucifer’s almost mishap with the bird they were cooking. He laughed, setting aside the knife he had been using to cut the onions, and went to get the baking pan they were going to use to actually cook the bird.
Offering the pan to Lucifer so he could set the turkey down and wash up, Thor explained, “Hunted it. Thori bit its head clean off, so I thought it might be nice to have for dinner instead of letting it go to waste.” The helhound in question was asleep in the living room, tired out after a morning full of play with Sabrina’s hounds. Little puffs of smoke and flames could be seen coming out of his nostrils, as the hound breathed deeply in his sleep.
It was still early in the day, but prepping and cooking this bird would take awhile, “You’ll be staying for dinner, yes?” He knew Lucifer had responsibilities, such as his family and Lux, but Thor was always happy to have the other man around.
Lucifer dropped the turkey from a height a bit higher than necessary, the bird making a quiet thud sound as it hit the pan. “Well Thori is quite well behaved then as the ones I’m familiar with never leave anything behind. Of course demons are hardly hunting for sustenance.” Most did so for the callous pleasure of watching an animal (or human but Lucifer wisely didn’t mention that part) be torn to bits. “I’m hardly one to judge bird corpses but that does seem like a magnificent one fit for an oven.” He waved casually to the pan Thor held.
“I never turn down a dinner invite with guests I happen to be fond of.” He flashed Thor a charming smile before he turned to the sink and turned it on, scrubbing whatever slime came from the uncooked turkey off his forearms. “Besides, this is quite fun. I don’t get a chance often to join in preparing dinner and such as it changes with the centuries, the experience has yet to get old.” Grabbing the towel from the counter, he wiped off his hands. “What do you need done now that I’ve finished fondling the turkey for giblets?”
“Cousin, you do have a way with words,” Thor said with a grin, setting the pan down and off to the side. “How about you finish up making this stuffing for me and I’ll start seasoning this turkey?”
It was nice, hanging out with Lucifer. Thor was big on family and he had been sorely missing his parents for awhile now. Thankfully with Loki and Torunn around, it didn’t seem so lonely in that regard, but Lucifer also filled that familial shaped hole in his heart rather well. “I have an apron you can borrow, if you want to keep that handsome suit of yours relatively clean,” he said, holding up the apron in question for Lucifer to look at.
A few hours passed in easy camaraderie as they worked on the kitchen. It wasn’t long before they found themselves outside in the backyard, relaxing with cold beer (in Thor’s case) and some fine scotch (in Lucifer’s), while the turkey cooked. “So,” Thor said, leaning back in the reclining deck chair he was lounging on. “How are things between you and your lady love?”
Lucifer held out his arms and took a bow. “As also relayed to me by William Shakespeare but I do appreciate your kind words as well, cousin.” He slipped behind Thor to change places with him, having to raise his hand higher than he did with most to pat his shoulder. “I will make sure this stuffing is fit for a turkey’s arse,” he reassured him, unable to help himself.
The apron was donned without a second thought. “A new designer I had not heard of before here of course but relatively new to the fashion game still. Let me know if you’re looking for one of your own and I would be happy to send along their number. You hardly need much help to fill out clothing very well though. A dream client.” Though his sleeves were already rolled up, Lucifer nudged them a little farther and raised his hands, wiggling his fingers. A devil prepared.
He never quite expected the amount of prep time a good sized dinner took but the company made the difference. Otherwise he may have found a way to stay for dinner but wiggle out of preparations. Instead the time passed quickly as the two of them worked and got the food in the oven, leaving nothing but the waiting which Lucifer was all too happy to do.
“Quite nice, thank you,” he replied happily, comfortably reclining in his own deck chair with a glass of scotch in hand. “The lack of Heaven and Hell has taken a dynamic out of the relationship that would otherwise need to be dealt with. Chloe is free to explore whatever desires she may have in regards to her personal and professional life. It’s going quite well.” Which meant a wrecking ball would soon appear to cause destruction and that was something he did not want to dwell on.
He just to refocus on the god next to him instead. “And you, cousin? Been putting your godly thunder bolt to good use with anyone?”
“You flatter me, Lucifer,” Thor said, laughing. He appreciated a nice suit if the occasion called for it, but preferred slacks and a comfortable t-shirt above all. He couldn’t pull a suit off daily - well, rather, he wouldn’t want to. “I’ll be sure to take you up on that offer if an occasion comes up for it, but I’m fine in my jeans and shirts all the same. You can keep the market on suits.”
Taking a pull of his drink, he ran a hand over his face at Lucifer’s question. Fandral and the messy situation he found himself in with him, came immediately to mind. “You ever want something and it’s just out of reach, Lucifer? Mostly because of your own doing?”
“And yet you know I speak the truth because I never lie.” Omit the occasional detail here or there or avoid something altogether but never lie. Not that he would need to as Thor truly was built like a...well, a god. “You do pull that look together as well. Should the need arise in the future, just let me know.” Though it did remind him to send the number to Dan as the man could use a good suit himself.
Lucifer almost inhaled the scotch the wrong way, managing to swallow it before it made a return to the glass. “Entirely familiar with such a situation unfortunately. Generally speaking of course.” He didn’t miss the Silver City like he once had and it was his choice to rebel, it was just a complicated situation with complicated feelings which he decided were better pushed aside for Thor’s. Acting as his emotional voyeur.
“Out with it, cousin. Let me put my time in therapy to good use on your behalf,” he added, pointing a finger over at Thor with the hand holding the glass.
The marketing team on Lucifer did a really awful job getting across how the archangel really was. Father of Lies, Thor’s ass. But he was distracted away from that train of thought when Lucifer pushed for details about what Thor was hinting at. So much for keeping it to hypotheticals. Sighing, he leaned forward, putting his drink down on the ground and propping his elbows against his legs.
“I don’t think that’s how therapy works, but very well.” He knew it wasn’t how therapy worked because Thor had seen therapists before. “I have a friend who I care deeply for. Love, even. We’ve been friends for centuries and the occasional bed partners as well, with a third warming our beds for a night or so.” A weighted pause there. “Until we got here and started to see each other without someone between us. And then the crush I had developed over time became something more and...well, I got jealous. And mean. Fandral is very open with his love and gives it freely. He isn’t the type to settle for one partner for life, has said as much. So I ended the casual sex before I let my feelings ruin a friendship I treasure.”
Fandral was, after all, one of the very few friends he had left from back home. To lose that friendship would have sent him back into beer binges and yelling at young children through video games. He didn’t want to spiral like that again, didn’t want to become that terrible version of himself again. “He says he cares deeply for me as well, but our approaches to relationships are too different and I fear I cannot bridge that gap. So I ended it before it could begin and I feel awful about it. Mostly because of the look on his face when I did.”
From his own previous experience with opening up, Lucifer wasn’t even sure that Thor would take the bait. He pushed his sunglasses up on his head and sat up, the picture of an active listener for whatever his cousin might need to talk about. “Well now you’re the one that sounds like my therapist,” he replied dryly though with no small amount of affection. He credited Linda with far more than he’d ever said, the work she’d put into him...and what she put up with.
“Ah yes the complication of feelings, the numerous little emotions that work themselves beneath your skin and give you quite the time trying to navigate the labyrinth that is life,” he murmured, feeling a bit of sympathy for Thor’s predicament because his cousin had certainly gotten himself into a complicated knot of a situation. Even finding a bit of humor to break the heaviness of the moment was near impossible.
He sat up fully, swinging his legs around to plant his feet on the ground so that he could face Thor as they spoke. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? Any way you come at a situation like that, someone is going to get hurt, most likely both of you when the only reason you’re doing it is for the good of it. The road to Hell paved with good intentions and all that.” Without warning he snatched Thor’s drink from the ground and set it down to one side between them, his own drink going on the other side between them.
“Perhaps we need a diagram to work this out,” he stated as he shuffled things around. “Now you are interested in monogamy with your friend, yes? And he is a leaky sieve of affection.” The comparison was made casually, no judgement on either side. Who was he to say how or how not one could love another? He dropped his sunglasses beside his own drink, then his ring, his phone...and his wallet, objects accumulating around the half-drunk glass. Lucifer considered the example he’d set up, brow furrowing. “This is much less helpful than I thought it would be,” he admitted finally.
Lucifer picked up Thor’s drink, his own, and sandwiched his phone between the two glasses, holding all three items up. “How do you feel about compromises?” he asked, offering no explanation as to how he arrived to the indescribable situation of alcohol and data in his hands.
Whenever Thor spent any significant amount of time with Lucifer, his general feelings tended toward amusement, bemusement, and confusion. Today was no exception. He tried following along with whatever Lucifer was trying to get at and failed to. He understood his own situation was very messy, but Lucifer might have actually made the explanation with their drinks a lot messier. A skill, certainly.
“How do you compromise with fundamentals such as these, that are so opposite of each other that there is no common ground?” Thor asked, plucking his drink from Lucifer’s hand because he needed to be drinking if he was going to be talking about this messy situation with Fandral again. He didn’t think he did the wrong thing, no. The two men had two different paths toward happiness in their romantic lives. It would have been unfair for either to compromise that. But he did still feel a terrible amount of sadness that their lives were unable to align with each other like he would have wanted it to.
Agnes had been right though. You couldn’t force anyone to be a certain way.
Lucifer let the drink go without fuss, dropping his phone on the lounge chair while he returned to his own glass. “I do not know,” he admitted reluctantly, unable to tell Thor different, unable to lie to give him any semblance of peace of mind. He scowled. “For all my years, what I have with Chloe is...new.” Perhaps if anyone could understand, it would be his cousin.
“I have made many mistakes along the way and thankfully Chloe has had patience and also told me to pull my head out of my arse when necessary. What I do understand is the progression to a relationship never seems to be a straight line. There are always walls and bumps and hurdles and just when you think you can chart a course, it forces you to rethink. A reminder that there are two people in that relationship and both contribute complications.” His just seemed to be many more given his celestial nature.
He glanced up at Thor. “I am truly sorry though, cousin. That you have found yourself in this predicament. The heart is not an easy thing to navigate. In doing so I have nearly pushed Chloe away entirely. So I suppose the only advice I have to offer is make mistakes, make many. Just find the line from which you cannot return and don’t make the ones that lead to that?” Lucifer shrugged and shook his head. “And never tell the mortals that there are subjects where we find ourselves at such a loss. We will never hear the end of it.”
Lucifer played the fool enough to have a lot of people mistaken for the type of being he was, but Thor knew Lucifer was surprisingly emotionally intelligent and Thor knew good advice when he heard it. Only, it was too late for him, or so he thought. “I’m afraid I may have crossed that line already, cousin.” He smiled, but there was a hint of bitterness to it. “If only we could go back in time, yes?”
Though honestly, what could he change? The original dilemma between the two Asgardian warriors remained the same. The way they loved was different. Possibly too different to overcome.
But before his mood go further south than it had already, Thor smelled smoke. And then looking toward his cottage, he saw fire. “Lucifer!” He shouted, dropping his drink and getting up quickly. “Fire!” And that was the end of tonight’s dinner plans.
“Yes but then we get into butterfly effects and father only knows what else. As it is, humans can’t leave dinosaurs alone and then act surprised when they’re eaten. That we cannot move backwards in time may be a small blessing whether we recognize it or not. At least that is one less headache to cause ourselves - “
Lucifer trailed off in a quiet mumble as Thor did have a good point. However that deeper thought ended abruptly as if slamming into a brick wall as it sunk in what his cousin just shouted. Fire. Fire from the cottage. The devil’s eyes went wide and he shot to his feet, right on Thor’s heels back towards the cottage.