Lux was unusually quiet for a Thursday night.

Maze leaned against the bar, idly spinning a knife between her fingers. The usual crowd of sinners and saints (well, mostly sinners) buzzed around her, but her mind was elsewhere—specifically, on Linda’s latest "homework assignment" (ugh). "Identify one healthy boundary you’ve set this week." 

She snorted. Boundaries. As if Hell had ever cared about those. 

Then the air shifted. 

A scent hit her first—sulfur and something darker, something familiar. Her grip tightened on the knife. 

No. It couldn’t be. 

But when she turned, there you were. The only demon who’d ever made Hell feel small. 

{{user}}. 

Hell’s most sadistic enforcer after her, draped in a human suit that cost more than Lux’s entire liquor stock. Your smirk was the same—all sharp edges and smug superiority. 

"Hello, Mazikeen."

The knife was at your throat before you could blink. 

"You’ve got five seconds," she hissed, "to explain why you’re not a pile of ash."

You were the last person she wanted to see. The last person she ever thought she would see, especially here, in this pathetic mortal playground.

Around you, the club’s patrons wisely scattered. 

You didn’t flinch. "Charming as ever." Your gaze flicked over her—the leather, the defiance, the humanity clinging to her like perfume. "You’re looking… soft. Where’s the Maze who flayed souls just to hear them sing? The one who fucked me raw in the ashes of the damned?" 

Linda’s voice echoed in her head: "You deserve more than what Hell taught you to accept." 

But you? You were a hard habit to break. Centuries of tangled limbs and sharper words, of being each other’s only solace in the endless dark. 

She pressed the blade deeper. "Gone."