#trixiefic

[mizukiri]

Penny Dreadful - Chapter One:

DECEMBER 16TH 2028

 "Hello Urchin." He softly greets her, and Penny needs to remind herself that her father and Linda have been worried sick about him. 

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Penny continues in her cold disapproving tone while she nears Lucifer, her arms crossed. Her previous quadruple D (drunk-dead-demon-dude) is not forgotten so easily. 

Lucifer's brilliant white wings are a vision to behold, as usual, flexing to their grandest state before he tucks them away into their incorporeal-other-dimension form. His black suit reveals no signs of wear, although there are traces of blood on his dress-shirt collar. He smells of brimstone and smoke again, and she's pretty sure she knows exactly where he's been for the last six months.

"I considered you may react as such, and I can explain." He tells her, holding up his hands submissively as she continues her march towards him. At twenty, she knows she has always terrified him, but instead of binding him with the torturous embraces of her youth, she seizes his elbow and turns him on the heels of his Louboutins towards her original bounty.

"You can explain as we follow one of your friends. I assume that's what this is about." As soon as the words are out of Penny's mouth, he roots himself and her momentum has her turning to face him.

"I'm afraid that we share a mutual interest in your target—"

"Fuck—"

"Pardon? My child I have no need—"

"WHATINTHEACTUALHELLPENNY?!" Seems to come out in one singularly loud breath, as though she is angrily singing her way over to them. For the briefest of moments when he appeared, Penny had forgotten her. But Lucifer had a way of causing that within her, visions of tackling him repressed deep in her heart.

"Penny?" Lucifer lifts a brow at Beatrice Penelope Jane Espinoza, standing in front of him.

"Want to go there right now Sam?"

"Duly noted." The corner of his mouth curls up, and he bows his head gently at her.

Vae swallows, her eyes bright and wide. Penny can see she is breathing erratically solely from the steams of breath coming from her mouth.

"And who might your uh, angel-winged-five-seconds-ago-and-now-clearly-not, friend be?"

My mom's partner. Satan? My step-devil? That had always been Penny's favourite moniker he held, but she decides against it in this instance. 

"Vae. This is my stepfather I was telling you about," and she swears out of the corner of her eye she can see Lucifer stand a little taller (if that's even possible) and smile.

"You speak of me?"

"Of course, dummy." Penny gives him a dubious look. "How on Earth can I get around that?"

Vae starts to giggle, her whole face going red as she looks back and forth between Penny and Lucifer. 

"Right, of course. Are we still not going to address the issue I'm currently having with the ethereal white wings?" Vae is doing that thing she does with her whole arm when she's circling a situation in front of her that she needs to get to the bottom of. Penny also registers that she is looking at her step-devil with a longing that Penny has watched women project for as long as she can remember. But Vae also seems far more interested in finding out precisely what she had seen more than throwing him to the snowy ground.

Penny looks over to Lucifer and sighs.

"Lu...ook Dad, could you maybe, help a daughter out and explain to my roommate and longest friend, since I left home... exactly, what she may have seen?"

Lucifer's eyes travel between the two young ladies in front of him, and his shoulders sink as he resigns to Penny's request.

"Right. Well, first— is it possible to meet you back at the loft? I never actually allowed Hell to freeze over and while immortal I'm not impervious to this..." and she watches him wave his hand with fluid grace at the snow falling around them, "temperature."

A brisk wind picks up, and she watches as he fights a shudder standing there in nothing but his suit. They're wasting time, and he doesn't seem to be that concerned about her quadruple D. 

"Are we not tracking... someone?"

"You might be Urchin. But I have no clue what you are talking about."

"Well that's just fucking perfect. Isn't it?" 

Scowling, Penny turns from him and takes Vae by the arm, turning her back towards the park entrance. 

"Come on Vae," Penny sighs, "Let's go home."

"What about—" And the sound of Lucifer leaving interrupts Vae, who was turning around to address him.

"Right. Wings."

~***~ 

"Are we not going to talk about the fact that your stepfather has wings? Like straight up, gorgeous angelic—"

"We'll talk about it when we get home," Penny tersely answers. They are almost halfway home before Vae has seemingly come down from whatever level of shock she had been suffering from. Vae feeling better, however, also means Vae being her usual talkative self. 

"How about the fact that he smelt like sulphu—"

"We'll talk about it when we get home." 

Penny relishes in a brief reprieve before Vae starts again. 

"He said 'allow Hell to freeze over.' "

"We'll talk—"

"He said immortal."

"—about it when we get home."

"I guess the immortality makes sense. I mean when I was processing it all, images of your Mom as a hot cougar or having you when she was like twelve kept popping up."

"Vae."

"Nicely done by the way, Penny's mom because DAAAAAAMN girl, your dad—"

"Vae."

"Yes?"

"Please don't tell me you want to sleep with my stepfather." 

"Don't you?" 

"NEVAEH!" 

"Oh please. You have eyes," and Vaeh dramatically rolls hers before crossing her arms and adding, "don't pretend you don't know that kink exists."

Penny remembers when they had boundaries. Vae did warn her, but Penny wasn't expecting L.A. to catch up with her so fast.

 ~***~

 In her bedroom, she finds Lucifer, freshly showered, and redressed in a crisp white dress shirt covered in a grey cashmere sweater. He's brushing his hair in her vanity mirror when he sees her. 

"I see you found the extra clothes Linda sent me in your in my closet." Penny tells him, sighing and leaning up against the doorframe. 

"I would have preferred more than just one suit, and a Burberry at that. If it's black it might as well be Prada. Nonetheless I appreciate the good Doctor thought of something a tad warmer. Now, your friend—"

"Vae."

"Vae, what exactly is you're expectation?"

Penny sighs. "I don't expect you to lie, if that's what you're asking."

"Yes," and he places her brush down before rubbing the bridge of his nose impatiently, "but what, for your sake my dear, am I omitting here?"

"Just, take it as it comes. She thinks Mom is dead or maybe has dementia? It's easier when they don't straight out ask. She knows you were missing; she saw your wings, and she knows me as Penny. The name we chose when we agreed I was being stationed here undercover, so... that being said."

"Right. Well as you know time in Hell moves much differently than here—"

Penny cuts him off. "Yes. Yes. Millenia’s, probably ten. Put it back in the deck Lucifer. You're choice this time."

"Right..." He stares off beyond her and nods, swallowing. "Well, I'll do right by you Urchin, as best as your favourite celestial parent can." 

"That's... not fair, regardless of how accurate, in the moment."

"Well, we're all doing our best."

"Are you? Because after Vae goes to bed you and I," Penny practically snarls, "are going to have our own conversation about how you abandoned training Charlie—"

"About that—"

"—After being an absolute asshat to both Dad and Maze." 

"So, you heard about that did you?"

"And you know how I got to hear about that? From a very concerned Linda who took your note to mean something COMPLETELY different than what I think you intended."

"I was TRYING to communicate!"

"Then the same day I receive three bloodied feathers from Maze, after a text that read, and I quote, 'A gift from the King of Fuckery.'"

"Oh, so you got my gift!" He exclaims.

A giggle echoes from the floor below, and Penny steps out of her room to see Vae waiting for them in the living room. Turning back, Penny leans in towards him.

"Lucifer?" She whispers harshly.

"Yes, my dear."

"You have ten seconds to get downstairs or so help me Mom you're going to lose more than three feathers."

 ~***~

 Vae sits in Penny's favourite chair, where she keeps her knife and scotch, sitting on her knees. Her hands are placed in her lap like a child waiting for their instructor this evening, amber brown eyes wide with wonder.

She had always imagined Penny had some insanely wild upbringing. Vae had fantasized that it involved chauffeurs and private jets, boarding school and the social elite. 

Months ago, Vae had found a hidden photo of what she had assumed was Penny's incredibly beautiful parents, all surrounding her as she blew out nine candles on a cake. It had been tucked in Penny's dresser and had been accidentally seen while putting Penny's socks away. So when Vae witnessed him appear out of nowhere, with ethereal white wings, she had assumed that he was Penny's father. Their colouring had seemed to her, the most similar.

But this?

Vae isn't a private investigator, but she has always been keenly inquisitive and observant as far back as she can remember. That and an hour trip back home? She's pretty sure she's figured out some details. 

He said Hell. He said immortal. No one denied angel wings.

Penny is sitting closest to her on the couch, her feet tucked up underneath her as she takes a knife and soap carving out of the end table that separates them. Vae watches while Penny takes the tumbler of scotch and pours him a glass. He takes it graciously from her and sips, slightly wincing.

"I'm not legal yet. It's not like I have Macallan or Woodford Reserve on hand." Penny tersely tells him.

Penny's impossibly-handsome-most-likely-an-angel-possibly-the-devil stepfather crosses, then re-crosses his legs, placing his hands over his knees and exhaling loudly. 

"Alright Vale,"

"Vae—"

"Vae, what would you like to know about?"

"Wings. Angel?"

"Once."

That adds up. Vae looks over at Penny, who is doing an excellent job of pretending her soap carving is far more interesting than the conversation happening in the room currently. Vae swallows down the silence. There is one part that isn't making much sense to her.

"And Penny called you Sam."

"For Samael. The name Father gave me."

"Father as in God?"

"The only Father I've ever had."

"Right."

Silence once more. Penny's impossibly-handsome-definitely-a-fallen-angel-was-there-a-Sam-name-for-the-devil? Stepfather holds her gaze with a wry smile plastered on his face, but she senses sadness in his eyes. He told her his name, so why does she feel if she were to refer to him as Sam, it would bother him immensely? 

"Why do I feel like I'm being lied to?"

"I do NOT lie Miss Vae, friend of my daughter." 

"What should I call you then sir?"

He looks at Penny, and she sighs before saying. "She's going to find out sooner or later."

"Lucifer Morningstar."

Vae's signature giggle of wonderment springs forth in awkward waves. Lucifer laughs, charmingly along with her, but Penny, Penny, chooses to remain silent if the point needs to be driven home. Vae's eyes go slightly bigger as the realization hits, and then...

And then she's laughing hysterically, a gasping wheeze as tears are falling out of the corners of her eyes.

"Vae?" 

"It's natural Urchin, although the delay seems to be a new variable, almost all humans go slightly mad at the sight of divinity."

Vae finds this even more amusing and is holding her side and going slightly red.

"I didn't." 

"Yes well, you were never for following norms were you dear?"

"Vae?!"

"I'm sorry..." Vae manages to get out, "I'm sorry Penny... but... You don't like taking the Lord's name in vain?" And she's back to dying of laughter as she tries to spit out, "But then you called him a flying fuck?!"

"Once." Penny's eyebrows almost lift into her hairline as she turns to Lucifer, her hand holding the blade lifts a finger in protest. "Maybe twice. And sorry-not-sorry."

"So, let me get this straight Miss Vae, you just found out that celestials, divinity, God, and the Devil are real, and your reaction seems to be one of mocking my adopted offspring?"

Vae nods her head fervently. "You can't see the humour in this? How can you NOT see how bullshit-cuckoo-bananas this all is?"

"Oh, so you’re merely mocking me, and calling me a liar," and flames are alight in his eyes. 

"Lucifer!" Penny chastises. 

But whatever Lucifer's desired effect may have been, it doesn't seem to have worked because now Vae is practically falling out of the chair laughing at Lucifer and Penny. 

"YOU DO THE EYE THING EVEN!"

"Urchin, I don't know if I have the fortitude to handle this ridiculousness much farther."

"They literally relaunched the Diablo television series last year, and she wouldn't let me talk about it at ALL with her! I mean Penny even told me that all her parents worked in law enforcement in some way or another. So, I mean, while I'm aware this is my current reality. You can't blame me for thinking I've had a stroke and have woken up today to live in this fairy tale wouldn't you agree?"

Lucifer leans back on the couch and takes another sip of the scotch.

"This is so unfair, Penny. This whole time we kept listening to Rose and David talk about future religious upbringing for their non-existent progeny at our dinner party and you didn't even mic drop them? And we have lived together for almost a year, and this is how I find out? What the Hell was going on back there? What were we chasing? Why does Satan have bad ass angel wings? I mean I'm an arts major and I've heard of the Gentlemen Devil archetype but this," and she waves her arm at Lucifer. He is sitting there, his hair in light curls from no product, a five o'clock shadow already appearing even though he seemed to have shaved before they got back.

"This, I gotta say seems a tad on the nose."

"Archetypes exist for a reason Miss Vae."

"I'm not finished." Vae tells him, and he appears shocked by her blatant rudeness. "—sir, Morningstar sir. Sorry. But again... but I'm going to roll with it."

"Like do I watch that show and I know your entire life story? Is that on purpose? How did you meet Penny's Mom? I know she said you were partners for years before you got together. I thought you guys had married, does the Devil write vows? Is it before God? Do Satanists get it right, or do you despise them?"

"Vae—"

"If you're here what's going on with Hell? Wait are Hell and Heaven real? You don't seem evil; do you work with God? That's what always threw me off... why punish the bad if you're all about it am I right?"

"Vae—"

"Urchin, dear, let me." Lucifer says, holding his hand out gently in Penny's direction and placing the glass of Scotch on the table in front of him. He turns his gaze back towards Vae and smiles.

"No. No. Through a case. We were partners four years before we became partnered. Yes. Yes, I wrote them and yes. They get some right and some wrong, like every being and organization on the planet, and yes because I abhor most organizations that misinterpret the truth. I am here, meaning Hell has no ruler currently, and yes both are very real." He pauses to take another sip of the scotch Penny poured him but does not seem to wince this time at the lacklustre taste, "I am pleased to hear that you skipped past the exam's evil portion. So yes, I punish the wicked, those whose guilt sends them to my kingdom, and yes, I work with God. I think that covers everything. So please, do you have any more banal queries you'd like to subject me to Miss Vale?"

"Vae—"

"Or will you relinquish my time so I can spend what little I have with my daughter before returning to my post?"

Vae rolls her eyes. "Passive aggressive gentlemen devil? You've underhandedly praised my ability to weather this, but then chastise me for wasting time? You can just say you'd like some alone time, just please don't kick me out, I also pay you rent."

Both look at Vae inquisitively.

"Right Penny. A top floor apartment that's 2300 square feet in Greenwich Village and you're telling me that one of your other three parent's name is on the deed?"

Penny and Lucifer exchange looks and shrugs in understanding. It seems Vae is more than capable of deducing elements without the two other investigators in the room. 

"Penny, I know how articulate you can be and how well-bred, but I've also seen what you can do in 5.4 seconds to that—" and Vae points to Penny's practice target, "—you lovingly rename every month depending on who has pissed you off. I know to buy you the ramen that is spiciest, that you need at least three expressos a day just to function, and that when I really annoy you, I can always rely on chocolate cake to get back into your good graces. So I am asking you, as what I had assumed was your best friend: What. The. Actual. Fuck?"

"Vae." Penny sighs, turning her body away from Lucifer and towards her friend.

"I know I have ALOT to catch you up on—a lot. And you deserve answers, and you know I don't lie."

"OOOOH OOOOH You said you don't lie." Vae is snapping her fingers and pointing at Lucifer, every snap causing him to wince. "Why do they call you the prince of lies?"

"My twin brother Michael used to bare a striking resemblance to me, even though I've never been one to see it, it's all in the posture. Anyways, he has always been the one to enjoy deceiving humans. From my understanding, he has changed a lot also since his fall."

"When did that happen?" Vae asks.

"When I was twelve, or was I eleven?" Penny asks Lucifer.

"It was after you initiated martial law at our family dinner, Urchin."

Vae looks slightly horrified.

"I started a food fight. Martial law to him means I started a food fight."

"You're little act of vigilantism ruined a very lovely Armani suit that night Beat...iful daughter of mine?" 

Vae gives them a confused look. Lucifer and Penny so weird around each other, she assumes it's because he's been missing (from the smell of sulphur probably back in Hell) for the last six months. But there's an undercurrent that Lucifer needs to do a lot more than show up to get Penny to calm down. 

"So, you're saying that Michael liked to lie and because he looks like you everyone associates it with you because you have a bad wrap." Vae postulates.

"That would summarize the situation very well indeed."

"Twin stuff."

Penny eyes Vae as though she can tell Vae is bringing another new thing to the table she wasn't expecting. Vae doesn't give in to Penny's expectant look. Vae is now acutely aware of JUST how much Penny keeps from her, and she's allowed to have secrets too. 

"Vae we need to talk."

"Yes, we do."

"No, I know that. I understand you and I, but I'm saying, Lucifer and I, we need to discuss some things. Privately. And tomorrow? Tomorrow when you get up? We will go grab breakfast," And Penny turns around, "ON HIM, wherever you want to go. And if he is still here in the morning, I will make him come with us, and you can subject him to as many questions as you want."

"Please," Vae eyes him suspiciously, "He's already made it clear he's going to be gone by morning."

"True, but he's still going to leave me an allowance because regardless of who he is, Lucifer's still my dad, and if he leaves, I promise I will fill you in. But I have to find out first."

  ~***~

"My child—" but Penny holds up a finger to Lucifer and waits for Vae to leave the bathroom and return to her room. She looks up to see Vae watching them suspiciously as she walks out of the upstairs bathroom and into her room, a brush stroking her hair as she paces towards her door. The door closes, and then Penny puts her finger down.

"Cut the crap Lucifer, I heard you say he was a mutual suspect."

"Then why call him a friend? you knew I could deny that."

"For that reason. You don't have friends in Hell, you have subjects. If you wanted me to track him, you would have agreed."

He looks at her with such wistful pride she is taken back. "You have so much of her in you. Her bravado, and keen mind."

"Dad stop! I don't want to talk about Mom." They both stop and break eye contact; the emotion is a little too raw for either of them. It was a slip into old habits, comfortable years ago, yet painful in their current state.

"Well then, the next part is going to be rather difficult, as that is why I'm precisely here." 

   FEBRUARY 6TH 2020 7:06 P.M. | | 

  Trixie thumbs her iPod's volume to the max, watching everyone around her argue in a pantomime to the music. Gathered with her at the table are angels, adults, a demon, the Devil, and God.

Charlie is asleep in the pack-and-play that Linda set up in her bedroom. 

She kind of envies Charlie right now.

She tries to get her mother's attention by staring lasers at her, but Chloe is too busy yelling at her Dad sitting to her right, wincing. The bench that they share with Maze and Michael is vibrating underneath the eleven-year-old. She looks at Maze to her left, who is currently pointing at Linda and Amenadiel. 

No one is paying her any attention, except for one. 

She looks back at God and gives him her best Who-do-you-think-you-are? Scowl, the one she mastered last year when she met Eve. 

No one asked Beatrice if she wanted to be here, listening to this.

She had no choice in the matter. 

Okay, well, she did demand a seat at the table, but she thought it would be a typical awkward family dinner, not watching every adult in her life outside of Ella and school lose their temper on each other.

She picks up her fork and scrapes a bounty of mashed potatoes on to it. Maybe it's the music that inspires her, or perhaps it's the frustrations of being trapped with a bunch of adults who are behaving worse than her seventh-grade peers. Still, she looks up at God once more, meeting each other's eyes, and he smiles kindly at her, an invitation for what is about to happen next.

Like a miracle, white fluffy clouds of potato fly through the air catching the attention of the adults around her as they reach their final destination, landing with a resounding sloppy sound on God's right cheek. 

And as the track dies out, the adults– speechless stare at her in awe, and she pulls off the headset of her ears and sighs. 

"Finally," she murmurs and picks up the knife to cut into the roast beef on her plate. 

She hardly participates as carrots begin to bounce of chests, potatoes slap against faces and into hair. There is still an uproar, but the cacophony now has squeals of laughter interlaced between ridiculous insults. She looks up at her original target, and he continues to smile warmly at her, not engaged in the foolishness around her.

 FEBRUARY 6TH 2020 11:06 A.M.

 Eight hours before Trixie started pandemonium at the dinner table, she had been sitting in her room listening to the hurried whispers of her mother on the phone. 

"Dan, he asked that you be there, and really? After everything in the last few days you owe him."

She's anxious. And bored. And continuously feeling the battles that her mother and father seemed to be facing. Her birthday is next month, and she's pretty sure they both haven't even had time to think about it because usually, they're asking her what she wants for a special treat, perhaps a gift, anything at this point.

"No... Nonono... I mean God, as in you friend Amenadiel's dad. Your once frenemy Lucifer's father? HIM. He's asked that you be there. So essentially you're saying no to God Dan."

She moves from sitting on her bed to the chair at her desk and pulls out her coloured pencils and some paper before slapping it on the surface. 

The school counsellor took her aside recently and helped her understand that she's frustrated and sad when she feels like this. And that when she does, she can always turn to her artwork, and so she does. She draws aliens and herself on Mars, even though she realizes that her childish dreams of being the first president of Mars are soooo three years ago.

But she doesn't see the harm in pretending, so she draws her mother first, a smile on instead of the tears that Trixie has gotten used to pretending not to notice. Then her Dad, his arms up in the air, cheering her on. She draws Maze because Maze was the first to take the dream seriously and can't imagine what life was like before she met Maze. She loves Maze and misses coming home to her every day. She doesn't understand how adults can be so hot and cold with each other. A few weeks ago, before Lucifer got back, Maze was spending almost every day with them.

"And you know what, Dan? I can't wait to watch you squirm because it's God Dan, and now that we are aaaaallll up to speed, I know you dated Lucifer's Mom, and so do you!" Before lowering her voice and harshly whispering, "because I'm petty, and you tried to kill my boyfriend."

Trixie had missed Lucifer, but it had been a long time since he and her Mom had been getting along. It seemed like ever since they left for Rome, her Mom had just been lost. So, when he left, and she could see just how upset that made her mother, she talked to Maze about it and found out exactly where he had gone. Maze doesn't ever speak to her like she's a child; Lucifer does.

Trixie finds herself drawing him, using red to create his glowing eyes. Trixie learned from her father and mother a long time ago you don't give up any information on anything unless someone asks you a direct question. Trixie has known precisely who Lucifer is and what that entails from the moment she met him. 

Sure, she has accepted she'll always be urchin, or offspring. But he doesn't push her away like he used to. She also knows that he praises her most when she's clever and conniving, which makes her feel great. He saved her from those scary men who showed up when she went to see him and Eve. She saw his eyes then, even with Eve desperately trying to hide her behind her skirts. She watched him throw them through the stained glass and pick them up like they were nothing. It made her feel safe. He and her mother saved her from Malcolm. He came into her life, saving her mother, and her mom told her that he left it doing the same thing. 

Lucifer never lies to her; everyone else in her life has. More than once.

Trixie also now knows what a hooker is.

"Trixie-babe?" 

Trixie turns around to see her mother standing in the door-jam.

"Time to pack up; I've got Ella coming to get you to go for a girl’s night."

"What? Come on."

"What's wrong with that? I thought you liked Ella?"

"I love Ella, but why can't I have dinner with you and the family?"

Chloe pauses for a moment, her left eye twitching slightly, but that's all her face betrays.

"Why would you wanna hang out with a bunch of boring old adults? Come on Monkey, you're going to totally love this!"

"No! You're lying!"

Chloe squints her eyes at Trixie, and she can tell her mom is deducing right now, so she sits still while she assesses the situation.

Trixie watches as her mother's eyes fall on the drawing on the desk.

"This is really important to you hey?" Chloe asks, sounding resigned.

Sometimes her mom doesn't talk to her like a child; That helps.

"Mom, I know you're worried. It's God. It's a big deal."

Her mother's eyes narrow again. 

"You're not that quiet, and even if you were. I figured it out pretty early. Maze and Lucifer have always told me the truth." 

Chloe removes herself from Trixie's door and heads over to her daughter's bed. Trixie turns in her chair so she can face her.

"Yeah, I guess that helps, hey Monkey? Having adults in your life who treat you like your not a little kid."

"Lucifer treats me like a little kid Mom, he just never lies to me." Trixie looks back at her drawing. "He saves that for himself."

Chloe's eyes go wide.

"Well, that's definitely not a deduction a little kid would make, especially one so astute." And Trixie looks back to her mother, shrugging.

"We all have our moments. Can I ask you a question Mom?"

"Anything baby. You can always ask me about anything, and if I have made you feel like you can't, for however long, I'm really sorry about that."

"When did you start believing?" 

Trixie watches Chloe's eye twitch.

"Was it when you took us to Rome?"

Chloe's eyes fill up with tears, and she nods quietly.

"Was it because you were afraid?"

"So afraid baby. Afraid for you, afraid for me. Afraid for Lucifer even."

Trixie nods and gets up from her chair and moves over to the bed. Trixie knows if she tells her mom that she overheard that her dad tried to hurt Lucifer, it will break her heart. Sometimes adults forgot she was there. She knows it's not just her mom though, she and her friend Celine have been talking about it when they walk the school halls at recess. So instead of bringing up Dan, Trixie tries a different approach.

"Who... doesn't know?"

"Ella."

Trixie's shoulders drop. She knows how this conversation is going to end. Her mom is going to tell her that she needs to go for her safety. That angels and demons, while totally wicked-awesome, are also dangerous. And everyone is kind of mad at each other right now, and Lucifer really doesn't like his dad, and it's just not the place for an eleven-year-old mortal kid from Los Angeles. 

"Well, I'm going to tell you the truth then, Monkey. I'm still not entirely comfortable knowing about angels and demons, and God and the Devil are real. Monkey don't you ever miss when it was just you and me?"

Trixie shakes her head; it's a lie. She does miss it, but she fears that if she admits to her mother, in this moment, that that information will be fodder for her mother to send her away. She needs this; she needs to see Maze and her dad, Lucifer, and Charlie. If her mom makes her go with Ella, she feels like it's her mother lying too. So, she lies.

Chloe looks slightly hurt, but she smiles sadly and nods. "Okay baby, I'll call Ella and you can stay."

  ~***~

Penny sometimes lies awake at night, remembering this lie. Now that loft is silent, and Lucifer's headed back to the Penthouse to make arrangements for her upcoming travels, Penny finds herself thinking about that day once more. As she rolls over to try once more to go to sleep, she twirls the ring she wears and sigh, biting her lip in a way that would remind most of her mother. As she drifts off, she can't help but let her guilt remind her, once more, that if she had not lied— if she had gone with Ella if things may have ended up differently. 

[pennydreadfulbook]

Penny Dreadful - Chapter One

Content Rating: M Relationships: F/F + F/M  Content warnings: No Warnings

______________________________________________________________

DECEMBER 20TH 2028

 "Hello Urchin." He softly greets her, and Penny needs to remind herself that her father and Linda have been worried sick about him. 

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Penny continues in her cold disapproving tone while she nears Lucifer, her arms crossed. Her previous quadruple D (drunk-dead-demon-dude) is not forgotten so easily. 

Lucifer's brilliant white wings are a vision to behold, as usual, flexing to their grandest state before he tucks them away into their incorporeal-other-dimension form. His black suit reveals no signs of wear, although there are traces of blood on his dress-shirt collar. He smells of brimstone and smoke again, and she's pretty sure she knows exactly where he's been for the last six months.

"I considered you may react as such, and I can explain." He tells her, holding up his hands submissively as she continues her march towards him. At twenty, she knows she has always terrified him, but instead of binding him with the torturous embraces of her youth, she seizes his elbow and turns him on the heels of his Louboutins towards her original bounty.

"You can explain as we follow one of your friends. I assume that's what this is about." As soon as the words are out of Penny's mouth, he roots himself and her momentum has her turning to face him.

"I'm afraid that we share a mutual interest in your target—"

"Fuck—"

"Pardon? My child I have no need—"

"WHATINTHEACTUALHELLPENNY?!" Seems to come out in one singularly loud breath, as though she is angrily singing her way over to them. For the briefest of moments when he appeared, Penny had forgotten her. But Lucifer had a way of causing that within her, visions of tackling him repressed deep in her heart.

"Penny?" Lucifer lifts a brow at Beatrice Penelope Jane Espinoza, standing in front of him.

"Want to go there right now Sam?"

"Duly noted." The corner of his mouth curls up, and he bows his head gently at her.

Vae swallows, her eyes bright and wide. Penny can see she is breathing erratically solely from the steams of breath coming from her mouth.

"And who might your uh, angel-winged-five-seconds-ago-and-now-clearly-not, friend be?"

My mom's partner. Satan? My step-devil? That had always been Penny's favourite moniker he held, but she decides against it in this instance. 

"Vae. This is my stepfather I was telling you about," and she swears out of the corner of her eye she can see Lucifer stand a little taller (if that's even possible) and smile.

"You speak of me?"

"Of course, dummy." Penny gives him a dubious look. "How on Earth can I get around that?"

Vae starts to giggle, her whole face going red as she looks back and forth between Penny and Lucifer. 

"Right, of course. Are we still not going to address the issue I'm currently having with the ethereal white wings?" Vae is doing that thing she does with her whole arm when she's circling a situation in front of her that she needs to get to the bottom of. Penny also registers that she is looking at her step-devil with a longing that Penny has watched women project for as long as she can remember. But Vae also seems far more interested in finding out precisely what she had seen more than throwing him to the snowy ground.

Penny looks over to Lucifer and sighs.

"Lu...ook Dad, could you maybe, help a daughter out and explain to my roommate and longest friend, since I left home... exactly, what she may have seen?"

Lucifer's eyes travel between the two young ladies in front of him, and his shoulders sink as he resigns to Penny's request.

"Right. Well, first— is it possible to meet you back at the loft? I never actually allowed Hell to freeze over, and while immortal, I'm not impervious to this..." and she watches him wave his hand with fluid grace at the snow falling around them, "temperature."

A brisk wind picks up, and she watches as he fights a shudder standing there in nothing but his suit. They're wasting time, and he doesn't seem to be that concerned about her quadruple D. 

"Are we not tracking... someone?"

"You might be Urchin. But I have no clue what you are talking about."

"Well that's just fucking perfect. Isn't it?" 

Scowling, Penny turns from him and takes Vae by the arm, turning her back towards the park entrance. 

"Come on, Vae," Penny sighs, "Let's go home."

"What about—" And the sound of Lucifer leaving interrupts Vae, who was turning around to address him.

"Right. Wings."

 ~***~

 "Are we not going to talk about the fact that your stepfather has wings? Like straight up, gorgeous angelic—"

"We'll talk about it when we get home," Penny tersely answers. They are almost halfway home before Vae has seemingly come down from whatever level of shock she had been suffering from. Vae feeling better, however, also means Vae being her usual talkative self. 

"How about the fact that he smelt like sulphu—"

"We'll talk about it when we get home." 

Penny relishes in a brief reprieve before Vae starts again. 

"He said, 'allow Hell to freeze over.' "

"We'll talk—"

"He said immortal."

"—about it when we get home."

"I guess the immortality makes sense. I mean, when I was processing it all, images of your Mom as a hot cougar or having you when she was like twelve kept popping up."

"Vae."

"Nicely done by the way, Penny's mom because DAAAAAAMN girl, your dad—"

"Vae."

"Yes?"

"Please don't tell me you want to sleep with my stepfather." 

"Don't you?" 

"NEVAEH!" 

"Oh, please. You have eyes," and Vaeh dramatically rolls hers before crossing her arms and adding, "don't pretend you don't know that kink exists."

Penny remembers when they had boundaries. Vae did warn her, but Penny wasn't expecting L.A. to catch up with her so fast.

 ~***~

 In her bedroom, she finds Lucifer, freshly showered and redressed in a crisp white dress shirt covered in a grey cashmere sweater. He's brushing his hair in her vanity mirror when he sees her. 

"I see you found the extra clothes Linda sent me in your in my closet," Penny tells him, sighing and leaning up against the doorframe. 

"I would have preferred more than just one suit and a Burberry at that. If it's black, it might as well be Prada. Nonetheless, I appreciate the good Doctor thought of something a tad warmer. Now, your friend—"

"Vae."

"Vae, what exactly is your expectation?"

Penny sighs. "I don't expect you to lie if that's what you're asking."

"Yes," and he places her brush down before rubbing the bridge of his nose impatiently, "but what, for your sake, my dear, am I omitting here?"

"Just, take it as it comes. She thinks Mom is dead or maybe has dementia? It's easier when they don't straight out ask. She knows you were missing; she saw your wings, and she knows me as Penny. The name we chose when we agreed I was being stationed here undercover, so... that being said."

"Right. Well, as you know, time in Hell moves much differently than here—"

Penny cuts him off. "Yes. Yes. Millenia’s, probably ten. Put it back in the deck Lucifer. You're choosing this time."

"Right..." He stares off beyond her and nods, swallowing. "Well, I'll do right by you, Urchin, as best as your favourite celestial parent can." 

"That's... not fair, regardless of how accurate, at the moment."

"Well, we're all doing our best."

"Are you? Because after Vae goes to bed, you and I," Penny practically snarls, "are going to have our own conversation about how you abandoned training Charlie—"

"About that—"

"—After being an absolute asshat to both Dad and Maze." 

"So, you heard about that, did you?"

"And you know how I got to hear about that? From a very concerned Linda who took your note to mean something COMPLETELY different than what I think you intended."

"I was TRYING to communicate!"

"Then the same day I receive three bloodied feathers from Maze, after a text that read, and I quote, 'A gift from the King of Fuckery.'"

"Oh, so you got my gift!" He exclaims.

A giggle echoes from the floor below, and Penny steps out of her room to see Vae waiting for them in the living room. Turning back, Penny leans in towards him.

"Lucifer?" She whispers harshly.

"Yes, my dear."

"You have ten seconds to get downstairs or so help me Mom you're going to lose more than three feathers."

~***~

 Vae sits in Penny's favourite chair, where she keeps her knife and scotch, sitting on her knees. Her hands are placed in her lap like a child waiting for their instructor this evening, amber-brown eyes wide with wonder.

She had always imagined Penny had some insanely wild upbringing. Vae had fantasized that it involved chauffeurs and private jets, boarding school and the social elite. 

Months ago, Vae had found a hidden photo of what she had assumed was Penny's incredibly beautiful parents, all surrounding her as she blew out nine candles on a cake. It had been tucked in Penny's dresser and had been accidentally seen while putting Penny's socks away. So when Vae witnessed him appear out of nowhere, with ethereal white wings, she had assumed that he was Penny's father. Their colouring had seemed to her, the most similar.

But this?

Vae isn't a private investigator, but she has always been keenly inquisitive and observant as far back as she can remember. That and an hour trip back home? She's pretty sure she's figured out some details. 

He said Hell. He said immortal. No one denied angel wings.

Penny is sitting closest to her on the couch, her feet tucked up underneath her as she takes a knife and soap carving out of the end table that separates them. Vae watches while Penny takes the tumbler of scotch and pours him a glass. He takes it graciously from her and sips, slightly wincing.

"I'm not legal yet. It's not like I have Macallan or Woodford Reserve on hand." Penny tersely tells him.

Penny's impossibly-handsome-most-likely-an-angel-possibly-the-devil stepfather crosses, then re-crosses his legs, placing his hands over his knees and exhaling loudly. 

"Alright, Vale,"

"Vae—"

"Vae, what would you like to know about?"

"Wings. Angel?"

"Once."

That adds up. Vae looks over at Penny, who is doing an excellent job of pretending her soap carving is far more interesting than the conversation happening in the room currently. Vae swallows down the silence. There is one part that isn't making much sense to her.

"And Penny called you Sam."

"For Samael. The name Father gave me."

"Father as in God?"

"The only Father I've ever had."

"Right."

Silence once more. Penny's impossibly-handsome-definitely-a-fallen-angel-was-there-a-Sam-name-for-the-devil? Stepfather holds her gaze with a wry smile plastered on his face, but she senses sadness in his eyes. He told her his name, so why does she feel if she were to refer to him as Sam, it would bother him immensely? 

"Why do I feel like I'm being lied to?"

"I do NOT lie, Miss Vae,  friend of my daughter." 

"What should I call you then, sir?"

He looks at Penny, and she sighs before saying. "She's going to find out sooner or later."

"Lucifer Morningstar."

Vae's signature giggle of wonderment springs forth in awkward waves. Lucifer laughs, charmingly along with her, but Penny, Penny, chooses to remain silent if the point needs to be driven home. Vae's eyes grow wider as the realization hits, and then...

And then she's laughing hysterically, a gasping wheeze as tears are falling out of the corners of her eyes.

"Vae?" 

"It's natural Urchin, although the delay seems to be a new variable, almost all humans go slightly mad at the sight of divinity."

Vae finds this even more amusing and is holding her side and going slightly red.

"I didn't." 

"Yes, well, you were never for following norms, were you dear?"

"Vae?!"

"I'm sorry..." Vae manages to get out, "I'm sorry, Penny... but... You don't like taking the Lord's name in vain?" And she's back to dying of laughter as she tries to spit out, "But then you called him a flying fuck?!"

"Once." Penny's eyebrows almost lift into her hairline as she turns to Lucifer, her hand holding the blade lifts a finger in protest. "Maybe twice. And sorry-not-sorry."

"So, let me get this straight, Miss Vae, you just found out that celestials, divinity, God, and the Devil are real, and your reaction seems to be one of mocking my adopted offspring?"

Vae nods her head fervently. "You can't see the humour in this? How can you NOT see how bullshit-cuckoo-bananas this all is?"

"Oh, so you’re merely mocking me and calling me a liar," and flames are alight in his eyes. 

"Lucifer!" Penny chastises. 

But whatever Lucifer's desired effect may have been, it doesn't seem to have worked because now Vae is practically falling out of the chair laughing at Lucifer and Penny. 

"YOU DO THE EYE THING EVEN!"

"Urchin, I don't know if I have the fortitude to handle this ridiculousness much farther."

"They literally relaunched the Diablo television series last year, and she wouldn't let me talk about it at ALL with her! I mean, Penny even told me that all her parents worked in law enforcement in some way or another. So, I mean, while I'm aware this is my current reality. You can't blame me for thinking I've had a stroke and have woken up today to live in this fairy tale, wouldn't you agree?"

Lucifer leans back on the couch and takes another sip of the scotch.

"This is so unfair, Penny. This whole time we kept listening to Rose and David talk about future religious upbringing for their non-existent progeny at our dinner party, and you didn't even mic drop them? And we have lived together for almost a year, and this is how I find out? What the Hell was going on back there? What were we chasing? Why does Satan have bad ass angel wings? I mean, I'm an art major, and I've heard of the Gentlemen Devil archetype but this," and she waves her arm at Lucifer. He is sitting there, his hair in light curls from no product, a five o'clock shadow already appearing even though he seemed to have shaved before they got back.

"This, I gotta say, seems a tad on the nose."

"Archetypes exist for a reason Miss Vae."

"I'm not finished." Vae tells him, and he appears shocked by her blatant rudeness. "—sir, Morningstar, sir. Sorry. But again... but I'm going to roll with it."

"Like do I watch that show, and I know your entire life story? Is that on purpose? How did you meet Penny's Mom? I know she said you were partners for years before you got together. I thought you guys had married. Does the Devil write vows? Is it before God? Do Satanists get it right, or do you despise them?"

"Vae—"

"If you're here, what's going on with Hell? Wait, are Hell and Heaven real? You don't seem evil; do you work with God? That's what always threw me off... why punish the bad if you're all about it, am I right?"

"Vae—"

"Urchin, dear, let me," Lucifer says, holding his hand out gently in Penny's direction and placing the glass of Scotch on the table in front of him. He turns his gaze back towards Vae and smiles.

"No. No. Through a case. We were partners four years before we became partnered. Yes. Yes, I wrote them and yes. They get some right and some wrong, like every being and organization on the planet, and yes, because I abhor most organizations that misinterpret the truth. I am here, meaning Hell has no ruler currently, and yes, both are very real." He pauses to take another sip of the scotch Penny poured him but does not seem to wince this time at the lacklustre taste, "I am pleased to hear that you skipped past the exam's evil portion. So yes, I punish the wicked, those whose guilt sends them to my kingdom, and yes, I work with God. I think that covers everything. So please, do you have any more banal queries you'd like to subject me to Miss Vale?"

"Vae—"

"Or will you relinquish my time so I can spend what little I have with my daughter before returning to my post?"

Vae rolls her eyes. "Passive-aggressive gentlemen devil? You've underhandedly praised my ability to weather this, but then chastise me for wasting time? You can just say you'd like some alone time, just please don't kick me out. I also pay you rent."

Both look at Vae inquisitively.

"Right, Penny. A top floor apartment that's 2300 square feet in Greenwich Village, and you're telling me that one of your other three parent's name is on the deed?"

Penny and Lucifer exchange looks and shrugs in understanding. It seems Vae is more than capable of deducing elements without the two other investigators in the room. 

"Penny, I know how articulate you can be and how well-bred, but I've also seen what you can do in 5.4 seconds to that—" and Vae points to Penny's practice target, "—you lovingly rename every month depending on who has pissed you off. I know to buy you the spiciest ramen, that you need at least three expressos a day just to function, and that when I really annoy you, I can always rely on chocolate cake to get back into your good graces. So I am asking you, as what I had assumed was your best friend: What. The. Actual. Fuck?"

"Vae." Penny sighs, turning her body away from Lucifer and towards her friend.

"I know I have ALOT to catch you up on—a lot. And you deserve answers, and you know I don't lie."

"OOOOH OOOOH, You said you don't lie." Vae is snapping her fingers and pointing at Lucifer, every snap causing him to wince. "Why do they call you the prince of lies?"

"My twin brother Michael used to bare a striking resemblance to me, even though I've never been one to see it, it's all in the posture. Anyways, he has always been the one to enjoy deceiving humans. From my understanding, he has changed a lot also since his fall."

"When did that happen?" Vae asks.

"When I was twelve or was I eleven?" Penny asks Lucifer.

"It was after you initiated martial law at our family dinner, Urchin."

Vae looks slightly horrified.

"I started a food fight. Martial law to him means I started a food fight."

"You're little act of vigilantism ruined a charming Armani suit that night Beat...iful daughter of mine?" 

Vae gives them a confused look. Lucifer and Penny so weird around each other, she assumes it's because he's been missing (from the smell of sulphur probably back in Hell) for the last six months. But there's an undercurrent that Lucifer needs to do a lot more than show up to get Penny to calm down. 

"So, you're saying that Michael liked to lie and because he looks like you everyone associates it with you because you have a bad wrap." Vae postulates.

"That would summarize the situation very well, indeed."

"Twin stuff."

Penny eyes Vae as though she can tell Vae is bringing another new thing to the table she wasn't expecting. Vae doesn't give in to Penny's expectant look. Vae is now acutely aware of JUST how much Penny keeps from her, and she's allowed to have secrets too. 

"Vae, we need to talk."

"Yes, we do."

"No, I know that. I understand you and me, but I'm saying, Lucifer and I, we need to discuss some things. Privately. And tomorrow? Tomorrow when you get up? We will go grab breakfast," And Penny turns around, "ON HIM, wherever you want to go. And if he is still here in the morning, I will make him come with us, and you can subject him to as many questions as you want."

"Please," Vae eyes him suspiciously, "He's already made it clear he's going to be gone by morning."

"True, but he's still going to leave me an allowance because regardless of who he is, Lucifer's still my dad, and if he leaves, I promise I will fill you in. But I have to find out first."

~***~

 "My child—" but Penny holds up a finger to Lucifer and waits for Vae to leave the bathroom and return to her room. She looks up to see Vae watching them suspiciously as she walks out of the upstairs bathroom and into her room, a brush stroking her hair as she paces towards her door. The door closes, and then Penny puts her finger down.

"Cut the crap Lucifer, I heard you say he was a mutual suspect."

"Then why call him a friend? you knew I could deny that."

"For that reason. You don't have friends in Hell, you have subjects. If you wanted me to track him, you would have agreed."

He looks at her with such wistful pride she is taken back. "You have so much of her in you. Her bravado and keen mind."

"Dad, stop! I don't want to talk about Mom." They both stop and break eye contact; the emotion is a little too raw for either of them. It was a slip into old habits, comfortable years ago, yet painful in their current state.

"Well then, the next part is going to be rather difficult, as that is why I'm precisely here." 

  FEBRUARY 6TH 2020 7:06 P.M. | | TRACK TO BE PLAYED HERE.

 Trixie thumbs her iPod's volume to the max, watching everyone around her argue in a pantomime to the music. Gathered with her at the table are angels, adults, a demon, the Devil, and God.

Charlie is asleep in the pack-and-play that Linda set up in her bedroom. 

She kind of envies Charlie right now.

She tries to get her mother's attention by staring lasers at her, but Chloe is too busy yelling at her Dad sitting to her right, wincing. The bench that they share with Maze and Michael is vibrating underneath the eleven-year-old. She looks at Maze to her left, who is currently pointing at Linda and Amenadiel. 

No one is paying her any attention, except for one. 

She looks back at God and gives him her best Who-do-you-think-you-are? Scowl, the one she mastered last year when she met Eve. 

No one asked Beatrice if she wanted to be here, listening to this.

She had no choice in the matter. 

Okay, well, she did demand a seat at the table, but she thought it would be a typical awkward family dinner, not watching every adult in her life outside of Ella, and school lose their temper on each other.

She picks up her fork and scrapes a bounty of mashed potatoes on to it. Maybe it's the music that inspires her, or perhaps it's the frustrations of being trapped with a bunch of adults who are behaving worse than her seventh-grade peers. Still, she looks up at God once more, meeting each other's eyes, and he smiles kindly at her, an invitation for what is about to happen next.

Like a miracle, white fluffy clouds of potato fly through the air catching the attention of the adults around her as they reach their final destination, landing with a resounding sloppy sound on God's right cheek. 

And as the track dies out, the adults– speechless stare at her in awe, and she pulls off the headset of her ears and sighs. 

"Finally," she murmurs and picks up the knife to cut into the roast beef on her plate. 

She hardly participates as carrots begin to bounce of chests, potatoes slap against faces and into hair. There is still an uproar, but the cacophony now has squeals of laughter interlaced between ridiculous insults. She looks up at her original target, and God continues to smile warmly at her, not engaged in the foolishness around her.

        FEBRUARY 6TH 2020 11:06 A.M.

 Eight hours before Trixie started pandemonium at the dinner table, she had been sitting in her room listening to the hurried whispers of her mother on the phone. 

"Dan, he asked that you be there, and really? After everything in the last few days, you owe him."

She's anxious. And bored. And continuously feeling the battles that her mother and father seemed to be facing. Her birthday is next month, and she's pretty sure they both haven't even had time to think about it because usually they're asking her what she wants for a special treat, perhaps a gift, anything at this point.

"No... Nonono... I mean God, as in your friend Amenadiel's dad. Your once frenemy Lucifer's father? HIM. He's asked that you be there. So essentially, you're saying no to God, Dan."

She moves from sitting on her bed to the chair at her desk and pulls out her coloured pencils and some paper before slapping it on the surface. 

The school counsellor took her aside recently and helped her understand that she's frustrated and sad when she feels like this. And that when she does, she can always turn to her artwork, and so she does. She draws aliens and herself on Mars, even though she realizes that her childish dreams of being the first president of Mars are soooo three years ago.

But she doesn't see the harm in pretending, so she draws her mother first, a smile on instead of the tears that Trixie has gotten used to pretending not to notice. Then her Dad, his arms up in the air, cheering her on. She draws Maze because Maze was the first to take the dream seriously and can't imagine what life was like before she met Maze. She loves Maze and misses coming home to her every day. She doesn't understand how adults can be so hot and cold with each other. A few weeks ago, before Lucifer got back, Maze was spending almost every day with them.

"And you know what, Dan? I can't wait to watch you squirm because it's God Dan, and now that we are aaaaallll up to speed, I know you dated Lucifer's Mom, and so do you!" Before lowering her voice and harshly whispering, "because I'm petty, and you tried to kill my boyfriend."

Trixie had missed Lucifer, but it had been a long time since he and her Mom had been getting along. It seemed like ever since they left for Rome, her Mom had just been lost. So, when he left, and she could see just how upset that made her mother, she talked to Maze about it and found out exactly where he had gone. Maze doesn't ever speak to her like she's a child; Lucifer does.

Trixie finds herself drawing him, using red to create his glowing eyes. Trixie learned from her father and mother a long time ago you don't give up any information on anything unless someone asks you a direct question. Trixie has known precisely who Lucifer is and what that entails from the moment she met him. 

Sure, she has accepted she'll always be Urchin or offspring. But he doesn't push her away like he used to. She also knows that he praises her most when she's clever and conniving, which makes her feel great. He saved her from those scary men who showed up when she went to see him and Eve. She saw his eyes then, even with Eve desperately trying to hide her behind her skirts. She watched him throw them through the stained glass and pick them up like they were nothing. It made her feel safe. He and her mother saved her from Malcolm. He came into her life, saving her mother, and her mom told her that he left it doing the same thing. 

Lucifer never lies to her; everyone else in her life has. More than once.

Trixie also now knows what a hooker is.

"Trixie-babe?" 

Trixie turns around to see her mother standing in the door-jam.

"Time to pack up; I've got Ella coming to get you to go for a girl’s night."

"What? Come on."

"What's wrong with that? I thought you liked Ella?"

"I love Ella, but why can't I have dinner with you and the family?"

Chloe pauses for a moment, her left eye twitching slightly, but that's all her face betrays.

"Why would you wanna hang out with a bunch of boring old adults? Come on, Monkey, you're going to totally love this!"

"No! You're lying!"

Chloe squints her eyes at Trixie, and she can tell her mom is deducing right now, so she sits still while she assesses the situation.

Trixie watches as her mother's eyes fall on the drawing on the desk.

"This is really important to you, hey?" Chloe asks, sounding resigned.

Sometimes her mom doesn't talk to her like a child; That helps.

"Mom, I know you're worried. It's God. It's a big deal."

Her mother's eyes narrow again. 

"You're not that quiet, and even if you were. I figured it out pretty early. Maze and Lucifer have always told me the truth." 

Chloe removes herself from Trixie's door and heads over to her daughter's bed. Trixie turns in her chair so she can face her.

"Yeah, I guess that helps, hey Monkey? Having adults in your life who treat you like your not a little kid."

"Lucifer treats me like a little kid. Mom, he just never lies to me." Trixie looks back at her drawing. "He saves that for himself."

Chloe's eyes go wide.

"Well, that's definitely not a deduction a little kid would make, especially one so astute." And Trixie looks back to her mother, shrugging.

"We all have our moments. Can I ask you a question, Mom?"

"Anything, baby. You can always ask me about anything, and if I have made you feel like you can't, for however long, I'm really sorry about that."

"When did you start believing?" 

Trixie watches Chloe's eye twitch.

"Was it when you took us to Rome?"

Chloe's eyes fill up with tears, and she nods quietly.

"Was it because you were afraid?"

"So afraid, baby. Afraid for you, afraid for me. Afraid for Lucifer even."

Trixie nods and gets up from her chair, and moves over to the bed. Trixie knows if she tells her mom that she overheard that her dad tried to hurt Lucifer, it will break her heart. Sometimes adults forgot she was there. She knows it's not just her mom though, she and her friend Celine have been talking about it when they walk the school halls at recess. So instead of bringing up Dan, Trixie tries a different approach.

"Who... doesn't know?"

"Ella."

Trixie's shoulders drop. She knows how this conversation is going to end. Her mom is going to tell her that she needs to go for her safety. That angels and demons, while totally wicked-awesome, are also dangerous. And everyone is kind of mad at each other right now, and Lucifer really doesn't like his dad, and it's just not the place for an eleven-year-old mortal kid from Los Angeles. 

"Well, I'm going to tell you the truth then, Monkey. I'm still not entirely comfortable knowing about angels and demons, and God and the Devil are real. Monkey, don't you ever miss when it was just you and me?"

Trixie shakes her head; it's a lie. She does miss it, but she fears that if she admits to her mother, at this moment, that that information will be fodder for her mother to send her away. She needs this; she needs to see Maze and her dad, Lucifer, and Charlie. If her mom makes her go with Ella, she feels like it's her mother lying too. So, she lies.

Chloe looks slightly hurt by her lie, but she smiles sadly and nods. "Okay baby, I'll call Ella and you can stay."

~***~

 Penny sometimes lies awake at night, remembering this lie. Now that loft is silent, and Lucifer's headed back to the Penthouse to make arrangements for her upcoming travels, Penny finds herself thinking about that day once more. As she rolls over to try once more to go to sleep, she twirls the ring she wears and sighs, biting her lip in a way that would remind most of her mother. As she drifts off, she can't help but let her guilt remind her, once more, that if she had not lied— if she had gone with Ella if things may have ended up differently. 

[pearl-e-gates]

We had so much fun at @skylarkbarsf performing in #nocovercabaret ! Thank you @trixiefou for having us !!!! (at Skylark) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR-5UCvLEWX/?utm_medium=tumblr

[ao3feed-deckerstar]

As Estrelas Mentem Luz

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2APlDNA

by RushAndTomatoJuice

The LAPD finally has a chance to catch an important drug dealer on a stakeout and Chloe Decker still hasn’t found a sitter for Trixie. She was running out of time and options, and suddenly, Lucifer didn’t seem like a bad idea after all.

Trixie was having nightmares, and Lucifer would do everything in his power to help the little girl. Even buy way too much christmas lights for her. Not that he’d tell anyone that he cared for a human child, mind you.

Words: 10282, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Lucifer (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Gen

Characters: Trixie Decker, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Chloe Decker, Dan Espinoza, Ella Lopez

Relationships: Trixie Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker & Lucifer Morningstar, Chloe Decker & Trixie Decker

Additional Tags: Trixiefer, Deckerstar - Freeform, Fluff, lots and lots of fluff, Christmas Lights, Cooking, the devil as a sitter, post 2x07 my little monkey, Slight Canon Divergence, douche dan, Lucifer is a dork, and trixie loves him, the devil is a damn good babysitter, Stargazing

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2APlDNA

[jbcaptioncontest]

The G-string James is thinking of removing isn't on the guitar.-TrixieF

[vixenland-blog]

Always one of my favorites. The sparklegoddess @trixiefou wearing her custom #vixenland #dressinggown #magic #duster . This one contains about 15 yards between the body and all those ruffles!

[mizukiri]

Penny Dreadful Prologue

Before language and time existed before Heaven and Earth, darkness was all that It knew. Just a formless void of nothingness with no curves, edges or lines, it felt nothing about the void, nothing ill or joyful, but It felt a longing. It felt a desire—a Loneliness. And so It split in two, a divine blinding light became, and equal half of all there was, is, and ever could be, and neither knew who came first, the rooster or the egg. They did not care because they had each other. Before they created together, they were together, equals to one another. Eventually, they made language, their children used it, and words like He and She came to be. They had their favourites, their relational ups and downs, but Neither were alone; they could satiate each other. 

  Until they couldn't. 

Until He grew distant and wanted to create alone. 

But that- that is another story. And yet, that story is like a stone skipping across the surface of the water, mirroring the story you are about to hear—and mirroring one of the oldest stories, the tale of love. 

Time heals all wounds, in the end. But this is not the end for us. His end was our beginning.

Some stories are so compelling that they ripple through time, touching people throughout eons, changing slightly. But never enough.

This is their story. 

     .

JANUARY 7TH

.

Shave and a haircut, two bits, reverberates throughout a Greenwich Village loft. Exhaling her cigarette (an action closely resembling a sigh), a tall olive-skinned woman whom most would assume is in her early twenties stands and stretches. She saunters over to the door. She looks through the peephole to see a curly-haired brunette standing on the other side.

"Penny S.?" The short woman in large-framed cat-eyeglasses asks, holding up her phone. "I'm here about the roommate ad?" 

The door opens an inch, dark eyes peering at her from behind it before they seem to speak. "Let me guess, spring semester N.Y.U.?" 

The stranger in front of Penny blinks twice and flushes. "The New School." 

Penny groans before closing the door and taking the chain off the latch before opening it fully. "Strike one."

Cat-eyed Frames ducks her head in greeting and half-waves before walking into the loft apartment before she slips her shoes and her backpack off by the door. Penny watches her quietly; her arms crossed over her tank top. 

"Holy shit." Escapes Frames mouth as she stands up, taking in her surroundings. The loft is easily over 2200 square feet. There is a bathroom to her left as Frames enters, a modest kitchen to her right, and an island to separate it from the rest of the open space. They move around a dark wooden dining room table stacked full of tomes and books that look like they belong in a university library. 

"Sorry— just it's even more amazing than what I was expecting."

Penny rolls her eyes, but Frames is blissfully unaware as she walks around the loft, her hand tracing a pattern on the kitchen island. Penny wanders over and perches herself back in the armchair she had been sitting on before the interruption. The lithe woman reaches for her cigarette and inhales before placing it back in the ashtray beside a small expresso cup. She exhales and picks up an exotic curved blade and her apple before she begins to slice wedges. Behind the chair is three floor-to-ceiling windows narrowly separated by red brick. Beyond the kitchen is a shared wall completely obscured by bookcases overflowing. 

Frames regards Penny calmly, taking in the two messy buns that look like they belong on a child, not a twenty-something-year-old woman. Booty shorts and a tank top seem to be all that she's wearing outside a black stoned ring on her left hand.

"How can you afford this?" 

"I can't." Penny points out with her knife towards Frame's phone, still in her hand, "Hence the ad." 

Frames intrigues Penny. She's used to girls wearing Uggs and yoga pants answering her roommate ad, only to last a few months at best. This one is different.

"I didn't catch your name." Penny offers, lifting an apple slice to her mouth before resting her head on her knees.

"Nevaeh." 

A giggle washes over Penny long and full of mirth, but again Frames blushes.

"Oh, you're not kidding. Well that's… unfortunate." 

Nevaeh shifts uncomfortably on the couch. "I could change it—  if it's another one of your strikes." 

Penny shrugs lazily at her. "Hey man it's not for me to judge you based on your name. TRUST me. If you want to change it, change it for yourself. But just to be clear, your parents sound like the worst."

Nevaeh laughs. "That's a little too easy to deduce isn't it? After all, don't most of us flock here to New York to get away from them?"

Penny's heart skips a beat. If you only knew.

"What about you? Do you go to school?" Nevaeh asks, her eyes roving the apartment's layout. To her left, a staircase leads up to a second-story loft where she assumes the rooms are. Her eyes meet Penny, whose back is to the floor to ceiling windows, most of the space filled with bookshelves full of books and interesting looking weapons that couldn't possibly be real decorate the walls.

"I am a private investigator." Penny murmurs, picking up an expresso cup beside her ashtray and takes a sip. 

"How many tenants?"

"Just me."

Nevaeh laughs, beginning to unzip her jacket and remove it. 

"What?" Penny inquires.

"A woman in her twenties lives alone in a Greenwich Village loft inside a building that values rent at over five thousand a month. And you are asking for less than a tenth of that for my portion?"

Rolling her shoulders, Trixie reaches over for her drink to take another sip of it.

"That is correct if we both choose to move forward with this arrangement."

"Do you always keep it this warm?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Not if I don't have to pay for it."

"No the price listed is all inclusive."

"That sounds, like a dream. This whole thing sounds like a dream." Nevaeh stares around the apartment wistfully. 

Penny snorts a small laugh and shakes her head. "Look I think I may like you, against my better judgement, so I'm going to be honest with you. For the last few girls it has been more of a nightmare than a dream. I'm pithy, and sometimes vile. I swear like a sailor and I smoke in the loft. I come and go at all hours, I forget personal boundaries, if you leave chocolate, cake, or chocolate cake in the fridge I will eat it." 

Nevaeh nods and narrows her eyes at the woman in front of her. "You say against your better judgement. We've spent maybe two minutes together. What have you gotten from me so far?"

"Well you yelled my name outside our apartment, which tells me you're naïve and not from the area, since you're obviously not a cop. You took you're shoes off at the door which rules out more of the states, giving me the impression you're possibly Canadian. You're clothing is simple but timeless, made with quality fabrics which tells me while you don't have much to your name, you're aware of the difference between quality and not quantity. Your name screams that your parents were millennials, but ones who must have valued the arts given your choice of school."

Nevaeh reaches over to the coffee table and takes an apple from the bowl before leaning back and crossing her legs underneath her on the couch.

"Want to know what I've gleaned in the last two minutes?" She asks before biting into the fruit.

"What's that?"

Nevaeh just smiles, "you said 'our' apartment."

.

FEBRUARY

.

"Damn it, Penny close the door!" Nevaeh's heart skips a beat as she walks in on Penny going to the washroom. She turns around and raises her eyes to the sky, towels and bathrobe in hand.

"I'm just peeing Vaeh, you're fine." 

"I don't think you're grasping my point!" Vae squeaks. When she hears the toilet flush, she turns around to see Penny doing up her jeans. 

"You said boundaries." Vaeh pleads; Penny shrugs and simpers as she glides past her before Vae adds, "believe me, if you keep pressing, I will release the floodgates and you won't know what hit you."

Vaeh goes to close the door behind her now that she's alone to enjoy her bath. She hears Penny start the espresso machine for the fifth time that day; the percolation's sound causes a small epiphany.

"And wash your hands!"

"I just PEED!"

"Don't be gross or I'll start calling you PigPen!" Vae finishes barking down to Penny on the floor below. Before she closes the door, she listens and is rewarded by hearing the kitchen tap spring to life.

"That's what I thought," she mutters more to herself than anyone as she closes the door to draw herself a bath.

The next morning as she starts the coffee maker for their first pot of coffee, Vae sees Penny's ring sitting on the sink beside the tap. She picks it up and examines it, realizing it's neither new looking nor old, modern nor antique. The smooth black appears to be onyx, the band most likely platinum. Biting her lip, Vae looks around for a safe place to put it instead of right beside a very industrial drain. Walking upstairs, she finds one of Penny's hair elastics, loops the ring through and then walks into the hallway where there are hooks for hats and scarves. She places on a hook closest to Penny's door before heading off to school.

   ~***~

You have 31 unread text messages .

Vae's heart sinks and begins to scroll through a lengthy one-sided conversation Penny seemed to have been having with herself while Vae was in class.

She reads the last one first, as one tends to do upon opening the chat.

  PigPen | 3:32p.m.

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but please, PLEASE, just call me when you get this message. 

  PigPen | 3:30p.m.

/your room.

  PigPen | 3:28p.m.

I mean, I understand if that's what happened, but I just thought I should check in before I destroy this garburator by ripping it/the rest of the house apart trying to find it.

Vae autodials Penny before scrolling through the rest of the messages, and Penny answers in one ring.

"Pleasetellmeyouhaveseenmyring."

"It's on the hat hook closest to your room, on a hair elastic. You left it by the sink."

Vae listens to Penny scramble with the phone, up the stairs and an audible exhalation of relief before she returns to the call.

"I blame you for this." And Vae can sense there is some truth to her mocking yet biting tone.

"You're welcome." She returns in a sing-song voice, only to annoy Penny further. "Next-time, where would you like me to put it?"

"There shouldn't be a next time."

"Uh-huh."

.

MARCH

.

"Happy birthday!" Vae squeals, handing Penny a luxurious looking piece of chocolate cake with a single candle in it.

"You made this for me?" Penny inquires suspiciously.

"Of course!"

"How did you find out?"

"Through FaceFilm, that app keeps all your personal data. For someone so private I'm surprised you're even on it."

"It's for work... it helps with the investigating." 

"Right." Vae murmurs, watching as Penny continues to eye the cake. "One more year then your legal! Not that that's ever stopped you, did you know I thought you were like... twenty-two or something when I first met you? Aren't you going to make a wish?"

Penny closes her eyes and her lips tremble as though she's silently speaking the words so fiercely, they may erupt from her throat.

Then she opens them and quickly blows out the candle.

"What did you wish for?" Vae asks her, placing her own piece of cake down in front of her.

"More time." Penny murmurs before digging into the cake.

 ~***~

"Is that a sex swing?" Vaeh asks as she assesses Penny's room. 

"Can't it just be a swing Vae?" Penny doesn't seem to be too flustered by the question as she leans against the doorframe, her signature double buns replaced with a long raven ponytail, resting high on her head.

"Por qué no los dos?" Vae shrugs, jumping onto the bed as she flops into a sitting position. Their rooms are opposite one another, the bathroom they share between them, but after Vae passed the two-month mark, permission had been granted. It hasn't been easy, Penny was willing to compromise, and Vae laid tape down in areas of the living room where knives might fly past towards its target dummy at any given moment. Vaeh also has learned that Penny won't feed herself, but she gets hangry, making it easier to cook for her. Still, Penny is not without her virtues. 

"It's a gift from my stepmother. Besides, I'd have to be having sex for it to be both." She laments before flopping down beside her companion on the bed. 

Vaeh looks Penny up and down with an incredulous look, choosing whether to comment on the fact her stepmother gifted her a sex swing or, "You… have a hard time finding-" Vae wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, "Someone?" 

Penny smiles wistfully, "It's not like we're playing hide and seek Vae, but I don't make friends easily. It would require me to socialize with... people. And my upbringing while badass, was… complicated."

Vae has assumed that Penny came from money. The books, the clothes, the apartment. They eat and drink like broke students, but Nevaeh is acutely aware her roommate is taken care of in ways that she is not.

"So, what your saying is that ordinary people bore you?" Vae enquires.

"Yes? That sounds so petty." Penny whinges.

"Yeah, well, at least you're honest. Vae tells her, staring up at the ceiling. "Always."

"My sweet little bigot." It occurs to Vae that even though it is a 20-foot ceiling above them (the highest in the whole building, as they reside on the top floor), tiny greenish-yellow stickers are scattered in what she  thinks  might be constellation patterns. A sex swing was adequately bolted to the roof. Even with access to the right ladder, the project would have taken hours upon hours without some sort of divine intervention.

"My upbringing wasn't that badass," Vae murmurs.

"No, from the sound of things it wasn't."

"I'm no basic bitch though."

"Oh, I believe it." Penny laughs, "Otherwise, why would you live here with me?"

  .

MAY

 .

"Penny pleeeeease?" Vae begs; she is getting tired of dehydrated noodle cups and macaroni and cheese for supper.

"I said no Nevaeh." Penny sternly tells her, and Vaeh begins to pout. She crosses her arms over her chest and finds herself folding her legs underneath herself as she watches Penny continue to pick an outfit in the mirror.

"Come on, I seriously need your help. The Dior," and Penny holds up a black silk collared blouse, "Or this one, I think I got at H&M," and she shows her a heather grey cable knit that is similar in colour to the wool skirt she's got on. 

"Why should I help you get dressed for a fancy dinner that you get to go to, for free, when you won't even take me?"

"I take you for dinner on work ONE TIME."

"It was not one time." 

"I can't take you on every case."

"You're going to a fancier place?"

"No."

"Possibility you're coming home will blood all over you again?"

"... Hopefully not?"

"The black silk. It's from B.C.H."

And that's how Penny and Vaeh begin to categorize much of their life. There is now, and B.C.H. (Before CoHabitation), and as two people who don't have much or many, B.C.H. stuff doesn't work its way into everyday conversation frequently. Vaeh doesn't know what Penny used to do before they met, but now she spends her free nights walking Vaeh back from the corner market down the street from their loft. 

Vae's shift is over, she and Penny both with their free coffee in hand. They tend to talk about Vae's day more than Penny's, as Vae learned early into their friendship that Penny does not usually discuss much about her work as a private investigator. 

 .

JULY

 .

Tears are running down their faces as credits roll. They are lying in Penny's bed, where one of the two household televisions is located.

"Okay, breathe."

"Prometheus School of Running, oh my God," Vae chokes out, and Penny immediately shudders and rolls her eyes, the hair on the back of her neck standing up. 

"You okay?" Vae giggles, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, it's just, I have a weird reaction to hearing people take the lord's name in vain."

"Are you serious right now? You swear like a drunken sailor, on shore leave..."

"I don't think it's that bad." Penny counters.

"... In a brothel."

"Now you're just exaggerating."

"We are banned from that Macdonald's on 11th."

"Okay, but that eleven-year-old was a bully."

"You once used the word 'fuck' for every word in a sentence."

"Well that's my point exactly. Monty Python was not that far off in their assessment in the versatility of the word fuck."

"So is it that you believe in God?"

And Penny begins to laugh hysterically, bitterly almost. "You could, you could say that."

"Alright." Vaeh sighs her head, resting in her hand, taking in her weird, eccentric friend who has now established another parameter to their relationship.

"Alright?" Penny questions.

"Alright."

 .

AUGUST

.

Vaeh climbs the stairs to their fourth-floor loft, meeting with a delivery person leaving a note.

Penny's shouting can be heard on the other side of the door. 

"She not answering?" She asks.

"I knocked miss, and it's only her voice in there. I think she's on the phone."

Vae offers an apologetic smile. As she turns the keys and enters, she catches Penny's eyes, her shoulder pressed into her phone, giving her the ability to play with a knife, bright and silver (a personal favourite) in erratic short bursts.

"I don't give a flying fuck Linda, which, is rather apropos in this case, don't you think? He knows where I live; it's not like his name isn't on the deed."

Vae creates a peace sign towards Penny before turning the aforementioned fingers towards her eyes, then motioning across the room at Penny to force her attention.

"What?" And there is petulance in Penny's tone as she uses her free hand to hold her phone and give Vae her attention.

"You have registered mail." Vae whispers as if to try and give the caller and Penny privacy that has already been broken. 

"Just sign for me." Penny huffs, and then she's back on the phone. "What are you even talking about? "

Vae wants to tell her that this isn't how these things work. That the delivery person isn't going to allow Vae to sign for mail just that easily, but Penny is deeply invested in an argument once more, and the stranger at the door interrupts with a "Miss, can you can just sign x and type her name in."

"What?! " Penny clips out so pithy it sounds odd and catches Vae off guard. 

"How? WHY?" And Vaeh is now REALLY intrigued as she signs the package. Not many things can get Penny to use that many investigative words that closely in order, that she's now playing 'wh' word bingo in her mind.

"How long?" 

DOUBLE HOW! 

"I've been gone two years— "

Booo, you broke the chain after a double how? Boooooo...  Vae giggles internally as she closes the loft door, dumps the package on Penny's desk and slips her headphones on at her workstation.

Sometime later, after Vae has slipped her focus into the design she's creating, her head and shoulders bouncing as she plays with colour palettes, Penny crosses her field of vision. 

Vae slips the headphones off, "Hey roomie," she greets in a sing-song voice, "Who was that?"

She watches as Penny absent-mindedly fiddles with her ring. "My thera—  Linda."

"You have a thera-Linda too? Where do you keep yours?" Vae pantomimes looking around the apartment leerily before leaning in and whispering, "I keep mine in a drawer by my bed." 

"What?" Penny asks, caught off-guard.

"Exactly." Vae says and goes back to her monitor. Her shoulder-dance slowly begins once more even though she respects Penny enough to keep her headset off until she's done. 

"Linda was a family therapist and friend. She's like an aunt to me." 

"Ah, family problems." She murmurs as she watches Penny slip into the chair at her desk. 

"It's my stepdad. He's gone missing." 

Vae's attention is peaked now as she looks over at Penny, who is staring off into the middle distance. "Wow, are you okay?" 

"Yes," Penny's eyes go wide in realization. "Sorry, I should have explained. He does this from time to time. When my mom and he—   this one time." She looks at Vae with jaded eyes, seemingly confused as to what is holding her back.

"When I was little, he was known to bail when things got rough. When he and mom finally figured their literal prophetic shit out, he got better. He had his moments, but he genuinely tried. Now that my mom is gone. Well," Penny says, her eyes drifting down to the package that Vae had signed for. 

"I didn't know your mom was gone." Vae murmurs reaching over the desks and placing her hand on Penny's. 

"She is and she isn't. That's the worst part. She is and she isn't." Vae looks down at their hands and sees her thumb rubbing Penny's wrist. 

"So Lu—  Dad, Linda says he's not handling it well. Which, newsflash, no one is taking it well. But that's no reason to treat my stepmom and dad the way he has been, regardless of their previous problems. SPEAKING OF WHICH," Penny pivots, pulling her hand out and opening the package. 

"Let's see what the big-bad-momma-bear sent me this time." She takes one of the knives she uses as a letter opener, the sparkly handle painted bright.

No joy or recognition lights up Penny's face as she places the package down on her desk.

"What?" Vaeh asks, more interested than she ever has been with Penny's details about her life before their cohabitation.

Vae stands to look in the box and sees white, radiant feathers reflecting the light from the room back at them. There aren't many, only three, and they are covered in bright red dots of blood. 

"Say what you want about my parents," Vaeh finally speaks, her voice concerned, "but yours sound like the worst. "

  .

NOVEMBER

 .

Vae hears a clinking sound in the sink before she sees it, and her heart stops briefly as it casually rolls towards the garburator drain. Quickly, she snatches it out of the slow-motion moment she foresees it falling down towards a black abyss. 

Frustrated, she takes the ring and seeks vengeance on the woman who almost gave her a heart attack. 

She finds Penny in her room, a file named DROMOS, in her hand, GAUDIUM, MISC. LILLIM, CONSTANTINE on the bed. She's smoking and drinking, listening to piano-heavy dance music so loud that she couldn't hear Vae knocking on the door. 

"Penelope, I swear if I find this thing one more time—"

" I knew where it was." She tells her as she turns down the volume.

"It's no use to you down the drain!"

"It's no use to me period." Penny murmurs, and Vae feels a shriek almost bubbling within her, "just, take it, will you?!"

"I promise, no more hand washing."

 ~***~

"Are you not visiting anyone for Thanksgiving?" Vae enquires from the kitchen, the date looming closer and closer.

"No. Are you?" Penny asks, looking up from a case file she has sprawled out on her desk. Vaeh had answered the door at 7:30 a.m. this morning to receive it for her, forcing her signature since Penny was still fast asleep. As she has noticed before, it comes from Los Angeles. She had tossed it on her best friend's desk before hitting the button to the coffee machine and passing out on the couch while it brews, only to be woke by Penny a few hours after that.

"Canadian Thanksgiving is in October," Vaeh reminds her.

"Right. So you didn't, sorry." Penny murmurs, Vae dressed in pajama pants and a hoodie, shuffles over to her drafting table/computer desk hybrid that they set up on the opposite side of Penny's dark mahogany antique. She hands Penny a cup of coffee before flopping down into her chair.

"Kind of hard when they all live back west," Vae adds, reaching for her drawing tablet.

"Mmmm... mine too, at least those left." Penny adds as she opens her laptop.

Vae nods softly, files this extra information in the THINGS THAT EXPLAIN PENNY compartment of her mind.

.

DECEMBER 

.

The snow falls around them in puffy white clouds, a wind sending them sideways, enough of a nip to the air to have them be hustling back to their loft after dinner with some of Vae's classmates. Penny is still going on about the impending holidays.

"If neither of us see no point— "

"Can't afford." Vae interjects. 

"Oh so you're saying that if I paid for you, you would head back for the holidays then?"

"With your family, sure." Vae replies illusively. 

"No... that wasn't part of the question."

"Then what is our actual plan," Penny begins again, "because I cannot have dinner with your friends Rose and David twice in one month." 

"They have been the worst since they started listening to that new podcast. Sometimes they play it so loud when we are in the studios at school, I can't hear the instructor. I'm not," and Vae makes an awkward motion with her arms, "built to receive that much stimuli." 

"Do you even hear yourself sometimes?" Penny turns to Vae, her breath coming out in steam as they try to fight the cold. 

"Please, coming from the one with a sex swing in her room." 

"It's not used for sex!" Penny huffs, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets.

"Are you telling me you actually swing in it... just because?"

"Are you telling me you wouldn't?" 

"Pffft... I dunno." Vae begins, looking over at a heavily bundled up Penny, dark eyes peering out, "Christmas movie Marathon? But I mean, entertaining Christmas movies. Die Hard, Krampus, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Nightmare Before Christmas— "

"Gremlins?" Penny asks, hopefully.

 "Do you even have to ask?" Vae retorts. "Do you want to watch Zuzu's Petals?" 

"Is that the remake of It's a Wonderful Life?" Penny hesitantly asks.

"I don't know, I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life." They continue their trek towards their loft, the snow gently falling above them before Penny clears her throat.

"Look, I've been meaning to talk to you about something important— "

"Oh Pen, I thought I told you friends don't ask friends to come to their improve shows. "

"No! That's not what this is about, although it really hurts you won't even try. "

"What is this about then?"

"A couple of months ago when we had our Alien marathon— "

"— and I said oh my God and you got hella weird?"

"I did not get hella weird."

"You got sooooo weird. It was visceral! I watched you shudder."

"Do you believe in God?" Penny plows ahead; they're almost to their building. 

"What?" Vae is surprised by the line of questioning, "Why?" 

"I don't know, it just struck me. I never thought about your feelings or thought to ask. I just did kind of what I watched mostly everyone around me my entire life do and focus on my own feelings before realizing I should consider yours." She holds open the door for Vae, and they begin the climb up the stairs.

"No. Sort of? As an artist I've dabbled with the lore of Judeo-Christian theology but like, it's all stories to me. I think I'm agnostic."

"I think it's reasonable to want proof." Penny mutters. 

"Well if I was one for needing proof, I would have given up believing you were a P.I. months ago."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Nothing..." and Vae rolls her eyes towards the heavens before smirking a carefree grin at her. "I mean all those files you could just be a very thorough stalker."

"Stalking is essential to the job yes." Penny agrees before unlocking their front door and letting Vae through before walking through herself.

"And I imagine so are the arts, but that doesn't seem to inspire you to invite me along."

"The Arts?"

"Yeah like, sketching a suspect, or taking photographs. You know I covet your camera, and when I asked you about ISO and aperture, I could have sworn I saw you drool."

"Maybe I could use help with the camera."

"Maybe I could help you with the camera." 

    Hours later, when they are both in sleep clothes and are sitting on the couch, finishing their tasks for the night before heading to bed, Penny signals to Vae she wants to talk to her. Vae puts her pencil down and pulls her headphones off.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a job."

"Saywhat?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a j—"

"Okay, so you said what I thought I heard you say. When? Why?"

"Or forget it, you can stay here."

Vaeh throws a pillow at Penny's head, which Penny spears with her knife reflexively. She pulls the knife out and puts the pillow behind her back as though it were entirely natural behaviour.

"Just a few questions, how good are you at drawing someone from memory?"

 ~***~

The P.I. and the Artist are at a frat party, scoping the crowd. Vae has her arm looped through Penny's, sipping from a solo cup that Penny had procured for her when they entered. They tend to stay tethered together in situations like this, but Vae is barely focusing on Penny's conversation, and some frat dudes are having. If she must draw any of these faces later, she knows she needs to study their features, read their eyes, soak up the details. 

"I'm a private investigator," Penny yells above the music's obnoxious noise to the guy in front of her, her leather jacket groaning with her movements.

Vae's is in the backpack that she brought, containing her pencils and sketchbook; their winter-wear is also stored there. Vae imagines she must look like a hunchback currently, and two men have offered to take it for her, but she'd like to be able to leave at a moments notice and get home without freezing to death, so instead, she continues to look like a clinging humped sidekick to her attractive best friend.

"Oh yeah, so like… do you catch people cheating and shit?" the guys all laugh nervously. Two dude’s high-five as Vae rolls her eyes and continues to nurse her drink. One of the frat bro's winks at her. The party has a strict rule on no phones and even had checked the two of them at the door. Vae's been to parties with no phones before done to encourage people to mingle, but this must be one of her the most boring places she's ever endured it. 

"Cheating and shit is below my paygrade." Penny informs him. Vaeh hyper focuses on this part of the conversation while pretending to be caught in the song. She doesn't know much about many of Penny's cases, but she can agree that seems to be out of Penny's wheelhouse. 

"So, what then?"

"Bounty reconnaissance, sometimes enforcement." Penny adds an eerie smile on her face, her eyes flash darkly, and she looks the most intimidating she has since Vae first met her.

Vaeh is confused at her sudden mood shift until—

"So, if you don't remove your hand," Penny's voice drips cold, "you'll see what kind of enforcement I'm capable of."

 ~***~

"How much longer?" 

Penny narrows her eyes as she continues to look for her target. The bros and the dudes are all high fiving each other loudly while a bunch of partnered sorority girls giggle in a corner. 

"Trust me, this is not how I want us to spend our Friday night." Penny smiles at her briefly. 

"As long as we don't get assaulted—"

"— again."

"— assaulted again. Or roofied. Or both in that unfortunate order." Vae murmurs.

"I figured we would do some reconnaissance for an hour top. If the bounty appears you get a good look, treat you to free drinks, then we can do whatever you want. If you want to go home and get drunk off box wine and binge watch horror films, you just say the word and I'll spend a whole twenty on the booze."

"Penny Espinoza we don't need four boxes of cheap wine."

"Two each?"

"You do you, but I'll stick to one. My final assignments are due in a week."

They both fall silent for a few minutes, each getting lost in their thoughts.

"You said you enforce bounties." Vaeh starts, "Is that what all the knives are for?"

"Not always," Penny answers illusively.   

Penny's eyes fall on the stairs as a frat-bro begins a drunken stagger down the stairwell, and she notices his pallor colour and blood flowing from his left ear.   

"Wait here."  

Vaeh scrunches her face at her roommate, and "What, wait? Why would I wait, I have to see his face if I'm going to draw him."  

Penny continues to follow the possible dead frat-dude as he makes his way to the frat house door and slips out into the night. As she slips between the partygoers, Penny's one hand reaches for the door handle as the other slides behind her back for her blade.   

There are still too many people around in the front yard, but the drunken dead dude (triple D?) is down the sidewalk and heading into the park.  

"Go home, Vaeh." Penny calls out, "The scope of this assignment has changed entirely."  

"You can't just ask me to come with you on a job then tell me to go home, essentially leaving me stranded forty blocks away from it in this Den of Rohypnol." Vaeh catches her and grabs her arm.   

"I doubt that you're at risk." Penny scoffs.  

Vaeh winces, her feelings hurt as she takes a step backwards from her friend. "Wow. Nice Penelope. Real nice."  Vaeh had already removed the winter attire from her backpack and throws Penny her gloves watching as Penny catches them gracefully. She drops the bag as she slips on her peacoat.  

"I don't have time for this!" Penny finds herself begging.   

"Then let's go." Vae holds out her hand in a gesture that indicates that Penny should lead the way.    

Penny growls in frustration and stomps off ahead of Nevaeh, shoving her hands deep into her leather jacket. Vaeh exhales shakily and picks up the bag, placing it on her back before doing the same with her own hands.   

The shorter of the two watches her friend speed walk ahead, trying to make up the difference, but the triple D hasn't managed to get very far away from them.   

She shakes her head and looks down at her feet, leaving imprints in the snow.  

Vae hears it before seeing it; it sounds like a strong wind whooshing around her head, her curls getting caught behind her glasses. When she manages to pull them out of her face and looks up, she stops in her tracks.   

[pennydreadfulbook]

Penny Dreadful - Prologue

Content Rating: M Relationships: F/F + F/M  Content warnings: No Warnings

______________________________________________________________

Before language and time existed before Heaven and Earth, darkness was all that It knew. Just a formless void of nothingness with no curves, edges or lines, it felt nothing about the void, nothing ill or joyful, but It felt a longing.

It felt a desire—a Loneliness. And so It split in two, a divine blinding light became, and equal half of all there was, is, and ever could be, and neither knew who came first, the rooster or the egg. They did not care because they had each other. Before they created together, they were together, equals to one another. Eventually, they made language, their children used it, and words like He and She came to be. They had their favourites, their relational ups and downs, but Neither were alone; they could satiate each other.

Until they couldn't.

Until He grew distant and wanted to create alone.

But that- that is another story. And yet, that story is like a stone skipping across the surface of the water, mirroring the story you are about to hear—and mirroring one of the oldest stories, the tale of love.

Time heals all wounds, in the end. But this is not the end for us. His end was our beginning.

Some stories are so compelling that they ripple through time, touching people throughout eons, changing slightly. But never enough.

This is their story.

.

JANUARY 7TH

.

Shave and a haircut, two bits, reverberates throughout a Greenwich Village loft. Exhaling her cigarette (an action closely resembling a sigh), a tall olive-skinned woman whom most would assume is in her early twenties stands and stretches. She saunters over to the door. She looks through the peephole to see a curly-haired brunette standing on the other side.

"Penny S.?" The short woman in large-framed cat-eyeglasses asks, holding up her phone. "I'm here about the roommate ad?"

The door opens an inch, dark eyes peering at her from behind it before they seem to speak. "Let me guess, spring semester N.Y.U.?"

The stranger in front of Penny blinks twice and flushes. "The New School."

Penny groans before closing the door and taking the chain off the latch before opening it fully. "Strike one."

Cat-eyed Frames ducks her head in greeting and half-waves before walking into the loft apartment before she slips her shoes and her backpack off by the door. Penny watches her quietly; her arms crossed over her tank top.

"Holy shit." Escapes Frames mouth as she stands up, taking in her surroundings. The loft is easily over 2200 square feet. There is a bathroom to her left as Frames enters, a modest kitchen to her right, and an island to separate it from the rest of the open space. They move around a dark wooden dining room table stacked full of tomes and books that look like they belong in a university library.

"Sorry— just it's even more amazing than what I was expecting."

Penny rolls her eyes, but Frames is blissfully unaware as she walks around the loft, her hand tracing a pattern on the kitchen island. Penny wanders over and perches herself back in the armchair she had been sitting on before the interruption. The lithe woman reaches for her cigarette and inhales before placing it back in the ashtray beside a small expresso cup. She exhales and picks up an exotic curved blade and her apple before she begins to slice wedges. Behind the chair is three floor-to-ceiling windows narrowly separated by red brick. Beyond the kitchen is a shared wall completely obscured by bookcases overflowing.

Frames regards Penny calmly, taking in the two messy buns that look like they belong on a child, not a twenty-something-year-old woman. Booty shorts and a tank top seem to be all that she's wearing outside a black stoned ring on her left hand.

"How can you afford this?"

"I can't." Penny points out with her knife towards Frame's phone, still in her hand, "Hence the ad."

Frames intrigues Penny. She's used to girls wearing Uggs and yoga pants answering her roommate ad, only to last a few months at best. This one is different.

"I didn't catch your name." Penny offers, lifting an apple slice to her mouth before resting her head on her knees.

"Nevaeh."

A giggle washes over Penny long and full of mirth, but again Frames blushes.

"Oh, you're not kidding. Well that's… unfortunate."

Nevaeh shifts uncomfortably on the couch. "I could change it— if it's another one of your strikes."

Penny shrugs lazily at her. "Hey man it's not for me to judge you based on your name. TRUST me. If you want to change it, change it for yourself. But just to be clear, your parents sound like the worst."

Nevaeh laughs. "That's a little too easy to deduce isn't it? After all, don't most of us flock here to New York to get away from them?"

Penny's heart skips a beat. If you only knew.

"What about you? Do you go to school?" Nevaeh asks, her eyes roving the apartment's layout. To her left, a staircase leads up to a second-story loft where she assumes the rooms are. Her eyes meet Penny, whose back is to the floor to ceiling windows, most of the space filled with bookshelves full of books and interesting looking weapons that couldn't possibly be real decorate the walls.

"I am a private investigator." Penny murmurs, picking up an expresso cup beside her ashtray and takes a sip.

"How many tenants?"

"Just me."

Nevaeh laughs, beginning to unzip her jacket and remove it.

"What?" Penny inquires.

"A woman in her twenties lives alone in a Greenwich Village loft inside a building that values rent at over five thousand a month. And you are asking for less than a tenth of that for my portion?"

Rolling her shoulders, Trixie reaches over for her drink to take another sip of it.

"That is correct if we both choose to move forward with this arrangement."

"Do you always keep it this warm?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Not if I don't have to pay for it."

"No the price listed is all inclusive."

"That sounds, like a dream. This whole thing sounds like a dream." Nevaeh stares around the apartment wistfully.

Penny snorts a small laugh and shakes her head. "Look I think I may like you, against my better judgement, so I'm going to be honest with you. For the last few girls it has been more of a nightmare than a dream. I'm pithy, and sometimes vile. I swear like a sailor and I smoke in the loft. I come and go at all hours, I forget personal boundaries, if you leave chocolate, cake, or chocolate cake in the fridge I will eat it."

Nevaeh nods and narrows her eyes at the woman in front of her. "You say against your better judgement. We've spent maybe two minutes together. What have you gotten from me so far?"

"Well you yelled my name outside our apartment, which tells me you're naïve and not from the area, since you're obviously not a cop. You took you're shoes off at the door which rules out more of the states, giving me the impression you're possibly Canadian. You're clothing is simple but timeless, made with quality fabrics which tells me while you don't have much to your name, you're aware of the difference between quality and not quantity. Your name screams that your parents were millennials, but ones who must have valued the arts given your choice of school."

Nevaeh reaches over to the coffee table and takes an apple from the bowl before leaning back and crossing her legs underneath her on the couch.

"Want to know what I've gleaned in the last two minutes?" She asks before biting into the fruit.

"What's that?"

Nevaeh just smiles, "you said 'our' apartment."

.

FEBRUARY

.

"Damn it, Penny close the door!" Nevaeh's heart skips a beat as she walks in on Penny going to the washroom. She turns around and raises her eyes to the sky, towels and bathrobe in hand.

"I'm just peeing Vaeh, you're fine."

"I don't think you're grasping my point!" Vae squeaks. When she hears the toilet flush, she turns around to see Penny doing up her jeans.

"You said boundaries." Vaeh pleads; Penny shrugs and simpers as she glides past her before Vae adds, "believe me, if you keep pressing, I will release the floodgates and you won't know what hit you."

Vaeh goes to close the door behind her now that she's alone to enjoy her bath. She hears Penny start the espresso machine for the fifth time that day; the percolation's sound causes a small epiphany.

"And wash your hands!"

"I just PEED!"

"Don't be gross or I'll start calling you PigPen!" Vae finishes barking down to Penny on the floor below. Before she closes the door, she listens and is rewarded by hearing the kitchen tap spring to life.

"That's what I thought," she mutters more to herself than anyone as she closes the door to draw herself a bath.

The next morning as she starts the coffee maker for their first pot of coffee, Vae sees Penny's ring sitting on the sink beside the tap. She picks it up and examines it, realizing it's neither new looking nor old, modern nor antique. The smooth black appears to be onyx, the band most likely platinum. Biting her lip, Vae looks around for a safe place to put it instead of right beside a very industrial drain. Walking upstairs, she finds one of Penny's hair elastics, loops the ring through and then walks into the hallway where there are hooks for hats and scarves. She places on a hook closest to Penny's door before heading off to school.

~***~

You have 31 unread text messages .

Vae's heart sinks and begins to scroll through a lengthy one-sided conversation Penny seemed to have been having with herself while Vae was in class.

She reads the last one first, as one tends to do upon opening the chat.

PigPen | 3:32p.m.

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but please, PLEASE, just call me when you get this message.

PigPen | 3:30p.m.

/your room.

PigPen | 3:28p.m.

I mean, I understand if that's what happened, but I just thought I should check in before I destroy this garburator by ripping it/the rest of the house apart trying to find it.

Vae autodials Penny before scrolling through the rest of the messages, and Penny answers in one ring.

"Pleasetellmeyouhaveseenmyring."

"It's on the hat hook closest to your room, on a hair elastic. You left it by the sink."

Vae listens to Penny scramble with the phone, up the stairs and an audible exhalation of relief before she returns to the call.

"I blame you for this." And Vae can sense there is some truth to her mocking yet biting tone.

"You're welcome." She returns in a sing-song voice, only to annoy Penny further. "Next-time, where would you like me to put it?"

"There shouldn't be a next time."

"Uh-huh."

.

MARCH

.

"Happy birthday!" Vae squeals, handing Penny a luxurious looking piece of chocolate cake with a single candle in it.

"You made this for me?" Penny inquires suspiciously.

"Of course!"

"How did you find out?"

"Through FaceFilm, that app keeps all your personal data. For someone so private I'm surprised you're even on it."

"It's for work... it helps with the investigating."

"Right." Vae murmurs, watching as Penny continues to eye the cake. "One more year then your legal! Not that that's ever stopped you, did you know I thought you were like... twenty-two or something when I first met you? Aren't you going to make a wish?"

Penny closes her eyes and her lips tremble as though she's silently speaking the words so fiercely, they may erupt from her throat.

Then she opens them and quickly blows out the candle.

"What did you wish for?" Vae asks her, placing her own piece of cake down in front of her.

"More time." Penny murmurs before digging into the cake.

~***~

"Is that a sex swing?" Vaeh asks as she assesses Penny's room.

"Can't it just be a swing Vae?" Penny doesn't seem to be too flustered by the question as she leans against the doorframe, her signature double buns replaced with a long raven ponytail, resting high on her head.

"Por qué no los dos?" Vae shrugs, jumping onto the bed as she flops into a sitting position. Their rooms are opposite one another, the bathroom they share between them, but after Vae passed the two-month mark, permission had been granted. It hasn't been easy, Penny was willing to compromise, and Vae laid tape down in areas of the living room where knives might fly past towards its target dummy at any given moment. Vaeh also has learned that Penny won't feed herself, but she gets hangry, making it easier to cook for her. Still, Penny is not without her virtues.

"It's a gift from my stepmother. Besides, I'd have to be having sex for it to be both." She laments before flopping down beside her companion on the bed.

Vaeh looks Penny up and down with an incredulous look, choosing whether to comment on the fact her stepmother gifted her a sex swing or, "You… have a hard time finding-" Vae wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, "Someone?"

Penny smiles wistfully, "It's not like we're playing hide and seek Vae, but I don't make friends easily. It would require me to socialize with... people. And my upbringing while badass, was… complicated."

Vae has assumed that Penny came from money. The books, the clothes, the apartment. They eat and drink like broke students, but Nevaeh is acutely aware her roommate is taken care of in ways that she is not.

"So, what your saying is that ordinary people bore you?" Vae enquires.

"Yes? That sounds so petty." Penny whinges.

"Yeah, well, at least you're honest. Vae tells her, staring up at the ceiling. "Always."

"My sweet little bigot." It occurs to Vae that even though it is a 20-foot ceiling above them (the highest in the whole building, as they reside on the top floor), tiny greenish-yellow stickers are scattered in what she thinks might be constellation patterns. A sex swing was adequately bolted to the roof. Even with access to the right ladder, the project would have taken hours upon hours without some sort of divine intervention.

"My upbringing wasn't that badass," Vae murmurs.

"No, from the sound of things it wasn't."

"I'm no basic bitch though."

"Oh, I believe it." Penny laughs, "Otherwise, why would you live here with me?"

 .

MAY

.

"Penny pleeeeease?" Vae begs; she is getting tired of dehydrated noodle cups and macaroni and cheese for supper.

"I said no Nevaeh." Penny sternly tells her, and Vaeh begins to pout. She crosses her arms over her chest and finds herself folding her legs underneath herself as she watches Penny continue to pick an outfit in the mirror.

"Come on, I seriously need your help. The Dior," and Penny holds up a black silk collared blouse, "Or this one, I think I got at H&M," and she shows her a heather grey cable knit that is similar in colour to the wool skirt she's got on.

"Why should I help you get dressed for a fancy dinner that you get to go to, for free, when you won't even take me?"

"I take you for dinner on work ONE TIME."

"It was not one time."

"I can't take you on every case."

"You're going to a fancier place?"

"No."

"Possibility you're coming home will blood all over you again?"

"... Hopefully not?"

"The black silk. It's from B.C.H."

And that's how Penny and Vaeh begin to categorize much of their life. There is now, and B.C.H. (Before CoHabitation), and as two people who don't have much or many, B.C.H. stuff doesn't work its way into everyday conversation frequently. Vaeh doesn't know what Penny used to do before they met, but now she spends her free nights walking Vaeh back from the corner market down the street from their loft.

Vae's shift is over, she and Penny both with their free coffee in hand. They tend to talk about Vae's day more than Penny's, as Vae learned early into their friendship that Penny does not usually discuss much about her work as a private investigator.

.

JULY

.

Tears are running down their faces as credits roll. They are lying in Penny's bed, where one of the two household televisions is located.

"Okay, breathe."

"Prometheus School of Running, oh my God," Vae chokes out, and Penny immediately shudders and rolls her eyes, the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

"You okay?" Vae giggles, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, it's just, I have a weird reaction to hearing people take the lord's name in vain."

"Are you serious right now? You swear like a drunken sailor, on shore leave..."

"I don't think it's that bad." Penny counters.

"... In a brothel."

"Now you're just exaggerating."

"We are banned from that Macdonald's on 11th."

"Okay, but that eleven-year-old was a bully."

"You once used the word 'fuck' for every word in a sentence."

"Well that's my point exactly. Monty Python was not that far off in their assessment in the versatility of the word fuck."

"So is it that you believe in God?"

And Penny begins to laugh hysterically, bitterly almost. "You could, you could say that."

"Alright." Vaeh sighs her head, resting in her hand, taking in her weird, eccentric friend who has now established another parameter to their relationship.

"Alright?" Penny questions.

"Alright."

.

AUGUST

.

Vaeh climbs the stairs to their fourth-floor loft, meeting with a delivery person leaving a note.

Penny's shouting can be heard on the other side of the door.

"She not answering?" She asks.

"I knocked miss, and it's only her voice in there. I think she's on the phone."

Vae offers an apologetic smile. As she turns the keys and enters, she catches Penny's eyes, her shoulder pressed into her phone, giving her the ability to play with a knife, bright and silver (a personal favourite) in erratic short bursts.

"I don't give a flying fuck Linda, which, is rather apropos in this case, don't you think? He knows where I live; it's not like his name isn't on the deed."

Vae creates a peace sign towards Penny before turning the aforementioned fingers towards her eyes, then motioning across the room at Penny to force her attention.

"What?" And there is petulance in Penny's tone as she uses her free hand to hold her phone and give Vae her attention.

"You have registered mail." Vae whispers as if to try and give the caller and Penny privacy that has already been broken.

"Just sign for me." Penny huffs, and then she's back on the phone. "What are you even talking about? "

Vae wants to tell her that this isn't how these things work. That the delivery person isn't going to allow Vae to sign for mail just that easily, but Penny is deeply invested in an argument once more, and the stranger at the door interrupts with a "Miss, can you can just sign x and type her name in."

"What?! " Penny clips out so pithy it sounds odd and catches Vae off guard.

"How? WHY?" And Vaeh is now REALLY intrigued as she signs the package. Not many things can get Penny to use that many investigative words that closely in order, that she's now playing 'wh' word bingo in her mind.

"How long?"

DOUBLE HOW!

"I've been gone two years— "

Booo, you broke the chain after a double how? Boooooo...  Vae giggles internally as she closes the loft door, dumps the package on Penny's desk and slips her headphones on at her workstation.

Sometime later, after Vae has slipped her focus into the design she's creating, her head and shoulders bouncing as she plays with colour palettes, Penny crosses her field of vision.

Vae slips the headphones off, "Hey roomie," she greets in a sing-song voice, "Who was that?"

She watches as Penny absent-mindedly fiddles with her ring. "My thera—  Linda."

"You have a thera-Linda too? Where do you keep yours?" Vae pantomimes looking around the apartment leerily before leaning in and whispering, "I keep mine in a drawer by my bed."

"What?" Penny asks, caught off-guard.

"Exactly." Vae says and goes back to her monitor. Her shoulder-dance slowly begins once more even though she respects Penny enough to keep her headset off until she's done.

"Linda was a family therapist and friend. She's like an aunt to me."

"Ah, family problems." She murmurs as she watches Penny slip into the chair at her desk.

"It's my stepdad. He's gone missing."

Vae's attention is peaked now as she looks over at Penny, who is staring off into the middle distance. "Wow, are you okay?"

"Yes," Penny's eyes go wide in realization. "Sorry, I should have explained. He does this from time to time. When my mom and he—   this one time." She looks at Vae with jaded eyes, seemingly confused as to what is holding her back.

"When I was little, he was known to bail when things got rough. When he and mom finally figured their literal prophetic shit out, he got better. He had his moments, but he genuinely tried. Now that my mom is gone. Well," Penny says, her eyes drifting down to the package that Vae had signed for.

"I didn't know your mom was gone." Vae murmurs reaching over the desks and placing her hand on Penny's.

"She is and she isn't. That's the worst part. She is and she isn't." Vae looks down at their hands and sees her thumb rubbing Penny's wrist.

"So Lu— Dad, Linda says he's not handling it well. Which, newsflash, no one is taking it well. But that's no reason to treat my stepmom and dad the way he has been, regardless of their previous problems. SPEAKING OF WHICH," Penny pivots, pulling her hand out and opening the package.

"Let's see what the big-bad-momma-bear sent me this time." She takes one of the knives she uses as a letter opener, the sparkly handle painted bright.

No joy or recognition lights up Penny's face as she places the package down on her desk.

"What?" Vaeh asks, more interested than she ever has been with Penny's details about her life before their cohabitation.

Vae stands to look in the box and sees white, radiant feathers reflecting the light from the room back at them. There aren't many, only three, and they are covered in bright red dots of blood.

"Say what you want about my parents," Vaeh finally speaks, her voice concerned, "but yours sound like the worst. "

 .

NOVEMBER

.

Vae hears a clinking sound in the sink before she sees it, and her heart stops briefly as it casually rolls towards the garburator drain. Quickly, she snatches it out of the slow-motion moment she foresees it falling down towards a black abyss.

Frustrated, she takes the ring and seeks vengeance on the woman who almost gave her a heart attack.

She finds Penny in her room, a file named DROMOS, in her hand, GAUDIUM, MISC. LILLIM, CONSTANTINE on the bed. She's smoking and drinking, listening to piano-heavy dance music so loud that she couldn't hear Vae knocking on the door.

"Penelope, I swear if I find this thing one more time—"

" I knew where it was." She tells her as she turns down the volume.

"It's no use to you down the drain!"

"It's no use to me period." Penny murmurs, and Vae feels a shriek almost bubbling within her, "just, take it, will you?!"

"I promise, no more hand washing."

~***~

"Are you not visiting anyone for Thanksgiving?" Vae enquires from the kitchen, the date looming closer and closer.

"No. Are you?" Penny asks, looking up from a case file she has sprawled out on her desk. Vaeh had answered the door at 7:30 a.m. this morning to receive it for her, forcing her signature since Penny was still fast asleep. As she has noticed before, it comes from Los Angeles. She had tossed it on her best friend's desk before hitting the button to the coffee machine and passing out on the couch while it brews, only to be woke by Penny a few hours after that.

"Canadian Thanksgiving is in October," Vaeh reminds her.

"Right. So you didn't, sorry." Penny murmurs, Vae dressed in pajama pants and a hoodie, shuffles over to her drafting table/computer desk hybrid that they set up on the opposite side of Penny's dark mahogany antique. She hands Penny a cup of coffee before flopping down into her chair.

"Kind of hard when they all live back west," Vae adds, reaching for her drawing tablet.

"Mmmm... mine too, at least those left." Penny adds as she opens her laptop.

Vae nods softly, files this extra information in the THINGS THAT EXPLAIN PENNY compartment of her mind.

.

DECEMBER

.

The snow falls around them in puffy white clouds, a wind sending them sideways, enough of a nip to the air to have them be hustling back to their loft after dinner with some of Vae's classmates. Penny is still going on about the impending holidays.

"If neither of us see no point— "

"Can't afford." Vae interjects.

"Oh so you're saying that if I paid for you, you would head back for the holidays then?"

"With your family, sure." Vae replies illusively.

"No... that wasn't part of the question."

"Then what is our actual plan," Penny begins again, "because I cannot have dinner with your friends Rose and David twice in one month."

"They have been the worst since they started listening to that new podcast. Sometimes they play it so loud when we are in the studios at school, I can't hear the instructor. I'm not," and Vae makes an awkward motion with her arms, "built to receive that much stimuli."

"Do you even hear yourself sometimes?" Penny turns to Vae, her breath coming out in steam as they try to fight the cold.

"Please, coming from the one with a sex swing in her room."

"It's not used for sex!" Penny huffs, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets.

"Are you telling me you actually swing in it... just because?"

"Are you telling me you wouldn't?"

"Pffft... I dunno." Vae begins, looking over at a heavily bundled up Penny, dark eyes peering out, "Christmas movie Marathon? But I mean, entertaining Christmas movies. Die Hard, Krampus, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Nightmare Before Christmas— "

"Gremlins?" Penny asks, hopefully.

"Do you even have to ask?" Vae retorts. "Do you want to watch Zuzu's Petals?"

"Is that the remake of It's a Wonderful Life?" Penny hesitantly asks.

"I don't know, I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life." They continue their trek towards their loft, the snow gently falling above them before Penny clears her throat.

"Look, I've been meaning to talk to you about something important— "

"Oh Pen, I thought I told you friends don't ask friends to come to their improve shows. "

"No! That's not what this is about, although it really hurts you won't even try. "

"What is this about then?"

"A couple of months ago when we had our Alien marathon— "

"— and I said oh my God and you got hella weird?"

"I did not get hella weird."

"You got sooooo weird. It was visceral! I watched you shudder."

"Do you believe in God?" Penny plows ahead; they're almost to their building.

"What?" Vae is surprised by the line of questioning, "Why?"

"I don't know, it just struck me. I never thought about your feelings or thought to ask. I just did kind of what I watched mostly everyone around me my entire life do and focus on my own feelings before realizing I should consider yours." She holds open the door for Vae, and they begin the climb up the stairs.

"No. Sort of? As an artist I've dabbled with the lore of Judeo-Christian theology but like, it's all stories to me. I think I'm agnostic."

"I think it's reasonable to want proof." Penny mutters.

"Well if I was one for needing proof, I would have given up believing you were a P.I. months ago."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Nothing..." and Vae rolls her eyes towards the heavens before smirking a carefree grin at her. "I mean all those files you could just be a very thorough stalker."

"Stalking is essential to the job yes." Penny agrees before unlocking their front door and letting Vae through before walking through herself.

"And I imagine so are the arts, but that doesn't seem to inspire you to invite me along."

"The Arts?"

"Yeah like, sketching a suspect, or taking photographs. You know I covet your camera, and when I asked you about ISO and aperture, I could have sworn I saw you drool."

"Maybe I could use help with the camera."

"Maybe I could help you with the camera."

Hours later, when they are both in sleep clothes and are sitting on the couch, finishing their tasks for the night before heading to bed, Penny signals to Vae she wants to talk to her. Vae puts her pencil down and pulls her headphones off.

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a job."

"Saywhat?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to come with me on a j—"

"Okay, so you said what I thought I heard you say. When? Why?"

"Or forget it, you can stay here."

Vaeh throws a pillow at Penny's head, which Penny spears with her knife reflexively. She pulls the knife out and puts the pillow behind her back as though it were entirely natural behaviour.

"Just a few questions, how good are you at drawing someone from memory?"

~***~

The P.I. and the Artist are at a frat party, scoping the crowd. Vae has her arm looped through Penny's, sipping from a solo cup that Penny had procured for her when they entered. They tend to stay tethered together in situations like this, but Vae is barely focusing on Penny's conversation, and some frat dudes are having. If she must draw any of these faces later, she knows she needs to study their features, read their eyes, soak up the details.

"I'm a private investigator," Penny yells above the music's obnoxious noise to the guy in front of her, her leather jacket groaning with her movements.

Vae's is in the backpack that she brought, containing her pencils and sketchbook; their winter-wear is also stored there. Vae imagines she must look like a hunchback currently, and two men have offered to take it for her, but she'd like to be able to leave at a moments notice and get home without freezing to death, so instead, she continues to look like a clinging humped sidekick to her attractive best friend.

"Oh yeah, so like… do you catch people cheating and shit?" the guys all laugh nervously. Two dude’s high-five as Vae rolls her eyes and continues to nurse her drink. One of the frat bro's winks at her. The party has a strict rule on no phones and even had checked the two of them at the door. Vae's been to parties with no phones before done to encourage people to mingle, but this must be one of her the most boring places she's ever endured it.

"Cheating and shit is below my paygrade." Penny informs him. Vaeh hyper focuses on this part of the conversation while pretending to be caught in the song. She doesn't know much about many of Penny's cases, but she can agree that seems to be out of Penny's wheelhouse.

"So, what then?"

"Bounty reconnaissance, sometimes enforcement." Penny adds an eerie smile on her face, her eyes flash darkly, and she looks the most intimidating she has since Vae first met her.

Vaeh is confused at her sudden mood shift until—

"So, if you don't remove your hand," Penny's voice drips cold, "you'll see what kind of enforcement I'm capable of."

~***~

"How much longer?"

Penny narrows her eyes as she continues to look for her target. The bros and the dudes are all high fiving each other loudly while a bunch of partnered sorority girls giggle in a corner.

"Trust me, this is not how I want us to spend our Friday night." Penny smiles at her briefly.

"As long as we don't get assaulted—"

"— again."

"— assaulted again. Or roofied. Or both in that unfortunate order." Vae murmurs.

"I figured we would do some reconnaissance for an hour top. If the bounty appears you get a good look, treat you to free drinks, then we can do whatever you want. If you want to go home and get drunk off box wine and binge watch horror films, you just say the word and I'll spend a whole twenty on the booze."

"Penny Espinoza we don't need four boxes of cheap wine."

"Two each?"

"You do you, but I'll stick to one. My final assignments are due in a week."

They both fall silent for a few minutes, each getting lost in their thoughts.

"You said you enforce bounties." Vaeh starts, "Is that what all the knives are for?"

"Not always," Penny answers illusively.  

Penny's eyes fall on the stairs as a frat-bro begins a drunken stagger down the stairwell, and she notices his pallor colour and blood flowing from his left ear.  

"Wait here."  

Vaeh scrunches her face at her roommate, and "What, wait? Why would I wait, I have to see his face if I'm going to draw him."  

Penny continues to follow the possible dead frat-dude as he makes his way to the frat house door and slips out into the night. As she slips between the partygoers, Penny's one hand reaches for the door handle as the other slides behind her back for her blade.  

There are still too many people around in the front yard, but the drunken dead dude (triple D?) is down the sidewalk and heading into the park.  

"Go home, Vaeh." Penny calls out, "The scope of this assignment has changed entirely."  

"You can't just ask me to come with you on a job then tell me to go home, essentially leaving me stranded forty blocks away from it in this Den of Rohypnol." Vaeh catches her and grabs her arm.  

"I doubt that you're at risk." Penny scoffs.  

Vaeh winces, her feelings hurt as she takes a step backwards from her friend. "Wow. Nice Penelope. Real nice."  Vaeh had already removed the winter attire from her backpack and throws Penny her gloves watching as Penny catches them gracefully. She drops the bag as she slips on her peacoat.  

"I don't have time for this!" Penny finds herself begging.  

"Then let's go." Vae holds out her hand in a gesture that indicates that Penny should lead the way.    

Penny growls in frustration and stomps off ahead of Nevaeh, shoving her hands deep into her leather jacket. Vaeh exhales shakily and picks up the bag, placing it on her back before doing the same with her own hands.  

The shorter of the two watches her friend speed walk ahead, trying to make up the difference, but the triple D hasn't managed to get very far away from them.  

She shakes her head and looks down at her feet, leaving imprints in the snow.  

Vae hears it before seeing it; it sounds like a strong wind whooshing around her head, her curls getting caught behind her glasses. When she manages to pull them out of her face and looks up, she stops in her tracks.

[jbcaptioncontest]

I knew if i screamed loud enough she'd come back and post a caption-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

'We're excited to tell you, that you're won a backstage pass for the James Blunt concert!'-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

‘I'm sorry but you've all been denied access to the VIP lounge.'-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

'Take a look, Ben's up swinging on the chandelier again!' - TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

James finds the monastery is not quite his cup of tea.-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

'Can I borrow your shirt? I'm off to Canada again.'-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

When I said I could use some padding they gave me this jacket, I only wanted a rolled sock.-TrixieF

[jbcaptioncontest]

There must be a full moon outside -TrixieF