Deserving

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Dan is so focused trying not to think about Trixie and tuning out the devil's prattling in case he has anything more to say about it that it's only halfway up the long driveway to the doomed man's ordinary-for-the-area mega-mansion before it occurs to him that there could be problems with the plan of a cop walking in the front door of a notorious rapper who, he assumes, is as coked up as anyone else in LA.

He looks at the devil sitting shotgun. "...talked my ear off about how important consent is to him and how he'd never make anyone do anything, and yet he's riddled with the emotion. I'm glad I don't have that problem. You humans are so strange. You and your guilt. Practically universal, it is. And then the one or two who don't, ugh, they're a bunch of..."

This 2Vile is probably also as damned as anyone else in LA, and so far Lucifer has been fine giving him additional help to make sure the devil's will gets done. But Lucifer seems to want Dan to provide something here beyond just his soul, and maybe if Dan really hits a roadblock, the deal will be off.

Caught up in staring at Lucifer, Dan drives into a bush on the way up the long driveway and the devil curses and threatens to take the wheel himself if Dan doesn't stop doing that.

"Sorry," Dan says, reversing the car and returning his eyes to where he's going.

When they get out, the devil opens his coat and hands him a small bag with pills in it "since you've having so much trouble". Obediently, Dan takes one. It's Adderall, 30 mg if the printing on the gelcap can be believed.

When was the last time he took speed? Maybe three years ago. And he'd avoided Adderall longer. Made his hands shake worse than any of the others he tried. Made him feel anxious, too, but he's not sure even chemical assistance will be enough to feel that anymore.

Maybe the devil will tell him to drive 2Vile into the desert too. Maybe Dan's hands will shake too badly to kill the man in one shot. He can almost see it, a figure writhing on the sand with its jaw shot half off, the gurgling screams. Maybe he keeps shooting until it stops moving. Maybe the devil decides he'd rather watch him bleed out instead. A taste of Hell before the final act?

But he walks to the door anyway.

The butler waiting inside tells him he'll need a warrant.

"It's about the death of -" Dan tries, not really expecting anyone here to fall for that, and the devil shoulders past him with a disgusted sound and says, "I really must insist about seeing the man sadly known as 2Vile."

"And I really must insist you either produce a warrant or leave."

"What do you desire?" Lucifer asks.

It turns out this harmless-looking man would like to run a homeless shelter. Lot of things you can do to homeless people without anyone stopping you, Dan knows, and probably even more than a cop in a position like that. The devil shakes his hand, gives him a card, and tells him to see Maze at the Lux. The man looks...almost starstruck, abandoning his post without a look back. Probably too busy thinking of what he'll do next, just as Dan's trying not to.

"You didn't, uh..." Dan says, "write anything. What happens if he says you, uh, said to give him something else?"

Lucifer looks perplexed. "Why would he do that?"

"He doesn't even know you're the devil," Dan says. Then he wonders why that would matter either. In for a penny in for a pound, right? What more do you have to fear once you're already damned? "Why wouldn't someone - or, someone like that, anyway - what if he tells Maze to give him a billion dollars instead?" That's enough to do whatever that man's going to do to people with a lot less work than the cover of running a shelter.

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