Mike and Lucy

"You've got to be shitting me."

"Language, little sister," the man at the bar laughed. He took a long sip of his already nearly empty glass, then lifted it in a toast toward the doorway and the smartly dressed young woman in it who had gone icy still at the sight of him. “I’d hate for you to receive some sort of official reprimand for improper conduct.”

The woman growled under her breath as she stalked forward to claim an empty stool at the opposite corner of the bar. “Get fucked, Lucy,” she spat. “I’m really not in the mood.”

“Ooooo, Little Miss Perfect is in a mood.” His tone was absolutely delighted, and dark eyes glinted with a vindictive sort of glee over the rim of his glass. “Not expecting the challenges of your current assignment, I take it?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” his sister scoffed and snatched up the frothing pint that the bartender had placed in front of her; though she hadn’t actually ordered anything, with not a single other patron in sight it could only be meant for her. 

As she gulped the beer back, the bartender suddenly paused, looking down at the place where she’d placed the glass. She frowned, blinked, then shook her head and shrugged to herself before returning to wiping down the length of the bar between the two.

“How did you get stuck with this detail anyway?” Lucy asked with a smirk, propping one elbow on the bar and resting his chin in his hand. “Seems a bit beneath your usual responsibilities, Mikey.”

“Since I know better than to think that if I ignore you you’ll shut up, fine,” Mike replied caustically. “If you must know, I requested the job.”

Lucy’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” He placed his empty glass back on the bar. Within a few moments, it was whisked away and replaced with a full one, the large square ice cube clinking merrily.

"When’s the last time you did something like that?”

“...London. Last year. Same time.”

Some of the amusement drained from Lucy’s expression. “Ah.”

“Yeah.”

Silence drifted down between them as they each took a long drink. 

“That wasn’t your fault, you know.”

“I do know,” Mike hissed, staring straight ahead. “It was yours.”

“Mine?” Lucy exclaimed, genuinely offended. “I wasn’t even there!”

“Your people were,” she snapped back.

He snorted. “My people, right.” He took another deep drink.

“They are, aren’t they?” Dark eyes that matched his almost perfectly snapped with a fierce light as she finally deigned to glance in his direction. “Don’t try to tell me you didn’t give those orders.”

“I didn’t.”

“Liar.”

“I mean, yes,” Lucy chuckled, though there was nothing amused in either his voice or expression anymore. “Generally, I am. But not this time.”

Mike, with her pint halfway to her lips, hesitated. She flicked her eyes toward him again, looking him up and down. She blinked.

“You…really aren’t, are you?” she murmured, slowly placing her glass back on the bar. “But you--I saw them. I saw them tempting her, if they hadn’t been there I could have kept her from…”

Her mouth twisted as she trailed off. Something in Lucy’s expression shifted toward a hint of sympathy. “I don’t doubt you could’ve,” he murmured. “But I didn’t send them there.”

“And I’m just supposed to believe that.” The words themselves were sharp, but much of the vitriol had seeped from her tone. “Believe you.”

Lucy scoffed. “You can do anything you like, Mikey.” He paused, then smirked a bit and added, “To a point, of course.”

“Not funny,” Mike huffed. 

“Agree to disagree.”

They both lapsed into silence; two figures staring straight ahead at either end of the bar, nursing their drinks, with not a single human soul in sight between them save for the diligently scrubbing bartender. 

“Alright.” Mike took another quick gulp before clunking her pint down again. “Let’s say I did. Believe you, I mean. About London. Are you saying no one sent them?”

“Of course no one sent them,” Lucy snorted. “You think that lot listen to orders? Not listening to orders is sort of our whole thing.”

“But…well, surely they take orders from you,” Mike exclaimed, increasingly exasperated. “You’re the one in charge!”

“Like Hell I am,” Lucy chuckled, sounding properly amused again. “What sense would that make? Finally rid yourself of your greatest adversary only to put them in charge of the opposition--not exactly a genius plan.”

“Well, yes, you say that, but we all know you have more pull with…them than anyone else does.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m in charge.” Lucy started to bring his glass to his lips, hesitated, then slowly put it back down. “Honestly, Mike, I just…try to keep out of their way, most of the time. Not like people really need me around for the job to get done.”

Mike frowned into the frothy amber of her drink. “Surely they do,” she muttered, though she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than stating a conviction.

Lucy pursed his lips. “I don’t make people wicked,” he replied lowly. “Not anymore than you make them good.”

Silence again for a long, taught moment. Then Mike exhaled heavily and turned in her seat to look at him properly for the first time since she’d entered the bar. 

“Do you ever think they’d be better off if…we all just stayed out of it?”

Lucy’s eyebrows went up, and he twisted to better face her. “Well now. That’s not something I ever expected to hear from you, Little Miss Perfect.”

Mike glowered. “If you’re going to be an ass about it--”

“Alright, alright.” He chuckled lightly and raised his hands in surrender. “Honestly? Yeah. I do think that. More and more, these days.”

It was Mike’s turn to purse her mouth into a hard line, her brow still furrowed. Then she stood in a sharp burst of movement and crossed the length of empty stools arrayed along the bar in four brisk, snapping steps. Lucy’s eyes widened in momentary alarm before she pulled out the stool beside him and hopped up onto it.

“What…are you doing?”

“Skiving off,” she replied promptly. “When the mark gets here, he’s leaving on his own. Sound good?”

Lucy stared at her for a long moment. Then one side of his mouth twitched upward. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Brother and sister reached for the two drinks that had been placed before them by a still seemingly oblivious bartender. Michael held up her pint, and Lucifer clinked his scotch glass lightly against the rim. 

“Well then. Happy New Year, Lucy.”

“…Happy New Year, Mike.”