II #2
Hands in his pockets, Lucky leaned over so he was on the same level as Charlie, snapping the priest from his trance in the process.
The devil stared holes in him, his red-tinted sunglasses hung on his long nose and his golden eyes sparkled.
It took everything in his power to keep from laughing at the poor mortal.
Not out of cruelty—at least, it didn’t feel like cruelty.
He’d rarely spent more than a handful of minutes with a human at any given time, they weren’t his cup of tea, so he was learning quite a lot and was unsure of how to process it all.
Laughing was a way to cope with his unease, but it was probably rude.
“It can’t kill you if you’re inside it… It also can’t kill you a second time,” Lucky reminded.
The comment didn’t seem to soothe Charlie’s worries.
Lucky pulled his sunglasses down. Charlie’s eyes were honed in on the sleek, low-sitting car, completely ignoring the handsome devil even though they were only a few inches away.
Lucky didn’t like it. He wasn’t used to being ignored, especially not over something as silly as a trauma. The audacity of this priest!
Lucky exhaled a plume of smoke and pouted. He could tell something was wrong, he just couldn’t wrap his head around what that something was. Once again, tears started to form in Charlie’s eyes, and Lucky tensed.
“Okay, okay, we’ll walk,” Lucky said with a sigh. “You’re killing me, Chuck.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie whimpered.
Lucky didn’t know how to respond. He wasn’t sure what his little priest needed, but he was desperate to figure it out, and he loathed himself for—
Wait… His? Since when? Damn it all to here, he was so confused.
Lucky remotely turned off his car. “Let’s start walking. Don’t cry… You cry baby. You weirdo.”
Charlie bit his lip and sniffled. He looked at the monster of a man in front of him with confusion, rubbing his hands together nervously.
“Well?” Lucky asked with depleting levels of patience as he gestured to the sidewalk.
“I was following you, so…” Charlie replied innocently.
“Oh,” Lucky scoffed as he pushed his glasses back up. “I knew that, obviously.”
They headed down the street. The office building wasn’t too far of a walk, but Lucky rarely needed to head there on foot, so it felt like it was taking an eternity even though they hadn’t even hit the corner yet.
It wouldn’t have surprised him if that rotten sedan was still beside his parking spot, so bringing his ride would be pointless.
His staff would keep an eye on it for him at the high-rise.
It would be safe that way. And he needed the exercise.
It was fine. Anything to rationalize the tediousness of this walk.
He noticed that Charlie’s eyes kept drifting up to the fiery skies, to the tall buildings, and the rolling, beautifully placed fountains of lava that lined the street.
The prince racked his brain for a moment as he tried to remember where he had accidentally murdered the poor priest. It had been a busy week for him.
When he’d gone to claim the soul of that serial killer, he was pretty sure it had sent him to the middle of nowhere Kansas.
Perhaps the overwhelming nature of the big city-like corner of Hell Charlie now called home was what drew his eye away from him.
Lucky wasn’t particularly happy about how little Charlie was looking at him.
Truth be told, he wasn’t particularly happy about how little Charlie was looking at anything.
He’d caught the priest as he stumbled, tripped, and nearly ran into something four times before they’d even hit the streetlight on the corner.
The lack of coordination was astonishing.
He was half tempted to scoop him up and carry him.
Once that thought entered his head, it wouldn't leave, so he wrapped his arm around Charlie’s body and hoisted him up like a duffle bag.
Charlie blinked with confusion as he dangled like a puppy in its owner’s arm.
In a way, that wasn’t an inaccurate description.
“Mr. Lucky, sir?” Charlie questioned.
“Your tiny human legs are both uncoordinated and too short,” Lucky replied.
Charlie tried to argue but it seemed he’d realized he had no ground to stand on, literally and figuratively.
He was indeed uncoordinated and quite petite, and keeping up with the seven-foot-five giant of a devil was nearly impossible for most demons, let alone a mortal.
It was safer to let Lucky whisk him away to wherever they were headed so he didn’t wind up in an alley or standing face-to-face with a hungry demon. Lucky shuddered at the thought.
The priest tried to keep his head up as best he could to take in the sights.
He hadn’t really left the small row of buildings near The Radiant Reaper so Lucky surmised the sightseeing was quite intriguing.
Most of his places of brief employment were on the same stretch of road, and there were many magnificent and unholy things to discover in the shining metropolis.
“This is hurting my neck,” Charlie noted.
“Oh, the little priest is lying now, is he?” Lucky chided
“What do you mean?”
“You’re dead, Charlie, you can’t hurt. Souls can’t hurt unless it’s part of their regularly scheduled torture, but you’re exempt from that.”
“But… It does hurt, and it’s hot. You’re like a furnace.”
Lucky looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The unusual flare of discomfort that rolled across Charlie’s pale face was not the same kind of discomfort that usually coated the damned souls in Hell. This one was soft, as if it was more of a nag than a true pain. It was strange.
“You just have to be weird about everything, don’t you? Can’t even be dead in a normal way, gotta be dramatic. It’s too hot. It hurts. I’m lonely,” Lucky teased.
“All of which is your fault, mind you,” Charlie shot back.
“Touché.”
Lucky set him down on the corner beneath the crosswalk sign and let him reorient himself while traffic slowed.
The human could easily have walked out in front of the whipping cars and gotten sent flying across town, so he held onto Charlie’s collar to keep him still.
Vehicles would stop for him—he was in charge, after all—but he was worried about Charlie getting plowed into because he was gawking at the sky.
As they approached the headquarters, an audible gasp of awe and confusion left Charlie’s mouth.
It caused Lucky to snort-laugh before he pushed him along.
They hurried through the sparkling black marble and red carpeted lobby to the elevator reserved for the royal family.
Lucky cursed himself for not covering Charlie up with a cloak or coat before they left.
Too many curious eyes were drawn to the priest as they walked through the dimly lit space, and there was nothing Lucky hated more than people looking at his things.
They stepped into the lift that began ascending to the floor where Lucky housed all of his documents.
The duo was met with a tower of papers sliding loose from the rocking of the carriage opening.
The room seemed to stretch on forever. It was dark, but it was hard to tell if it was due to the stacks of documents, the bulbs struggling to turn on after years of being off, or the natural grimness of Hell’s aesthetics.
Lucky flicked the switch a few times, the overhead bulbs clicked on and the truth of the mess revealed itself.
The mountains of paperwork seemed tedious.
“Wow… what is this?” Charlie inquired, sidestepping as another small stack of files shifted.
“All of the contracts I’ve fulfilled since I started working, which is where you come in, my little angel,” Lucky said with a grin. He clapped his hands together. “I need to get these organized before the end of the month before an audit.”
“Um…”
“It’ll be easy, it needs to be organized by date. Nothing complicated, and it’s only the first of the month so you have plenty of time.”
“Oh! Yes, I can help with that! I did administrative work for the church, I don’t think I can mess this up too badly. Where do we start?”
Lucky grinned darkly. He set his hands on Charlie’s shoulders and leaned down to whisper in his ear. His golden eyes scanned the mounds of paperwork and, for a brief moment, a twinge of something rolled over him. Something that said, ‘this feels wrong,’ but he put it out of his mind.
“Anywhere your little heart desires,” Lucky said quietly.
Charlie looked at him with a smile. It was genuine, the joy on his face was almost blinding and that twinge turned into a sharp stab.
“This is… a lot. You’re quite busy! How far back does it go?” Charlie asked with an innocent curiosity.
“Oh… you know, as long as I’ve been around. The good news is, I did have things organized for a while, and there’s a desk somewhere around here,” Lucky replied, waving his hand.
“I’ll do my best. Thank you for trusting me.”
“A-awesome… Great. Thank you. Well,” Lucky cleared his throat and stepped back into the still-open elevator. “I appreciate you! Kick ass! You-you got this! Call me if you need me!”
The priest blinked a few times and turned to look back as the elevator closed. Charlie lifted a hand to protest but was cut off as the dark black panels slid shut.
Lucky sighed. He felt horrible, and not in a fun way. He needed to get a drink and be worshipped, that would fix his problems… he hoped.