entrancelogs | It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you!

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It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you! | OPEN MINGLE

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Friday October 27th - Tuesday October 31st
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch all for the Horrible Memory Truth Event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, everyone's entire room will be replaced with a memory playing on loop. They will likely recognize the moment as soon as they see it – it is a moment they remember as the worst moment of their entire lives. It could be a memory from home or something that happened in Wonderland. Lengths of the memories will vary, but they will find that these are not memories they can merely watch – they can step into these memories and attempt to make changes to them, and the memories will be long enough that they have time to make changes (though no more than 24 hours). However, anyone who tries will find that it is futile. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the outcome is always exactly the same somehow. No changes you make will prevent that horrible outcome. It just happens over and over and over again no matter what you do.

On top of that, perhaps complicating any attempts to make changes, everyone will be forced to be honest for the duration of the event. No lies or half-truths are allowed, and filters will be gone for the entire five days. If something bothers someone then they will blurt it out, regardless of whether or not it hurts someone's feelings, and no one will be able to simply keep quiet when they have something to say. They must be truthful and honest with every word they say.

This is a catch-all log for all of your Worst Memory needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and Room Number + Floor for character rooms, or just location if you're making a top level for a public place in the mansion (like the tea rooms or the kitchen) so people can see if there's already a thread available. And here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Chloe is still watching Graham and Lucifer interact, the rest of the memory playing out when Lucifer's voice breaks her concentration. ]

She'll come out, just... Just give me a minute. We can go, I just want to see her one more time.

[ As if on cue Trixie appears, coming out from her hiding place and running towards her mother. Chloe gathers her daughter into her arms and holds her close, breathing her in one last time because she knows once they leave, she isn't coming back. The memory doesn't give her very long with her daughter before it restarts, and Chloe hangs onto every moment before it fades away and loops back to the start. It's only then that she turns back to Lucifer, holding back her tears, unable to even look to where Graham is holding Trixie because if she looks at her, she won't be able to leave.

She moves past him quickly towards the door he came into, avoiding his eyes even as they move out of the room and into the hallway. ]

[He watches her for a moment before he simply nods, turning to head towards the exit to wait for her.

He barely watches the rest of the scene unfold, lost in his thoughts. Eventually, though, he can tell that everything is starting over, and Chloe is moving toward the door. He follows after her without a word into the hallway.

Finally, once they're a decent distance away from the room, he speaks.]

There was something similar happening in my room. [A beat.] I had to close Lux down for the time being.

[He's not saying it because he's upset about it. It's the only way he can think of to commiserate with her.]

Perhaps we should find an unoccupied place to sit down for awhile.

[ Chloe is still lost in thought by the time he speaks, still playing the memory out in her mind. It feels bizarre to keep thinking of it, after reliving it as they just had. Chloe knows, somehow, that it's the worst thing that's ever happened to her. Losing her father and dying herself, while terrifying and heartbreaking, wasn't the same as spending those long moments absolutely sure that her daughter was going to die and it would be all her fault.

It doesn't occur to her what happened to Lucifer until he speaks and she raises her eyes, finally looking at him. She wipes away what is left of her tears. ]

Another memory? [ She wants to ask him what it is, but it's hard to push it right now. ] Yeah, let's just sit down and regroup. I'd like to get an idea of what is going on. [ Chloe gestures down the hallway. ] I don't know if we should risk going into any of the rooms. Do you think the unoccupied ones are safe?

A very, very old one.

[He leaves it at that for now.]

It's hard to say. It's possible that any bedroom we step into will simply become another memory just by being present in it. Maybe unoccupied isn't the best route to go.

[He starts heading down the stairs.]

Why don't we go find a chair or two in the front foyer?

[ She narrows her eyes, because he doesn't have to say much past that for her to get it. Now that she knows who he is and scope of his experience, she can only imagine how old the memory might be, although she wouldn't dare guess what it would be about.

After all, he was the ruler of Hell. Wonderland probably had plenty of memories to choose from. ]

That sounds safest.

[ She follows him down the stairs, lost in her own thoughts until they find a quiet area in the foyer. Other people in the mansion have started escaping their own rooms, it seems, and Chloe is more than happy to tuck herself away in a corner with Lucifer. Once they've sat down, she leans onto her knees, pushing her hair out of her face with her palms. ]

Uh, thanks. For getting me out of that. I don't even know how long I was in there.

I frankly didn't realize you were stuck. Did you really think you couldn't leave?

[Maybe he'd been so desperate to get away from his that he figured it out sooner. At least the Detective's ended with something that wasn't completely horrible, no matter how terrifying it might have been for her.

He's sitting near her, though not quite touching, knees bent toward his chest, arms loosely folded against them.]

I didn't think I would be quite so integral to the worst day of your life.

[ She shrugs, a little embarrassed. It should have occurred to her that she had a way out, but maybe she wasn't passionately looking for an escape. At first she felt like Wonderland might be giving her a chance to change the events of what happened that night, but when she found out that wasn't the case, it became some kind of messed up challenge. A balance between proving something to herself and feeling like she was home for a few minutes, no matter how traumatizing it had been. ]

I wasn't thinking about, I guess.

[ Chloe glances up at him. Being close to him helps, knowing he's safe and alive. It makes that memory feel further away than it was just moments before. ] I mean... I thought you were dead. I thought Trixie was dead. And it was my fault.

[He isn't being particularly judgemental. After all, there have been many occasions where escape hadn't been nearly so simple.

He can feel the warmth radiating off of her in their close proximity, a quiet comfort he hadn't particularly noticed before.]

None of that was your fault, Detective. I do believe the vile murderer is the only person to blame, in this case. [He pauses, before adding in an almost lost tone:] You thought correctly, though, at least in part. I was dead, however briefly.

[He'd checked it himself.]

Yeah, I guess I figured out by now it wasn't a bulletproof vest and fake blood.

[ If Amenadiel ever shows up in Wonderland, there will be words.

She shifts a little closer, tilting her head to look up at him. She's not entirely sure she wants to know; until this point, she has been so worried about what will happen if he dies in Wonderland, it hasn't quite registered what it means if he dies at home. Does he go straight back to Hell? Would he be able to come back if he wanted to, or would he be trapped there? Chloe finds herself with a growing list of questions, expecting that at least half of them are ones even Lucifer wouldn't know how to answer.

Chloe has to know, though. He clearly parted with her in the memory to find out what happened, and he obviously had his answer. ]

What happened?

[That's just it. He didn't entirely have his answer, because he doesn't know what happened in Hell after he inevitably went there. What he does know is what he was doing while he was dying, and what he did after he woke back up.

From there, he can make an educated guess.]

I can't be entirely certain, but--

[While he wouldn't lie to her, not even if he were capable, details spring out that he might otherwise censor.]

--while I was lying there, I was...asking my Father for a favor.

[He looks over at her, expression somber.]

I told him I would be the son he wanted if he protected you. [He pauses, brows furrowing as he realizes exactly what that could entail, and affected by the fact that he still asked for it, knows that he would do it again.] Then, I assume I went to Hell. For whatever reason, Dad brought me back. I can't think of anyone else who could have, just like that.

[ What he's saying doesn't make any sense to her. Not about going back to Hell, or even coming back to life but what he did. What it means.

He asked his father to protect her. The person - well, God - that he despised more than anyone else in the universe, probably. His father, who he had defended never speaking to again, who had caused him so much pain for so long, and yet, he'd done it for her. He hadn't asked for his own life to be spared - he had been willing to give in to whatever his father wanted for her.

Chloe isn't even sure what to say to that. ]

Wow. [ She lets out a breath, speechless for a long moment. 'Thank you' isn't exactly going to cover it. What he's done for her... It goes beyond anything she would have ever asked of him, and certainly far beyond anything she would have expected.

Reaching out, she rests her hand gently over his, curling her fingers around him. She can feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears and the enormity of this sets in; the realization of what this means for her, for him, for the both of them. Chloe thought things had changed during her father's trial, but they hadn't. What is happening between them started far earlier than that. ]

Are you okay?

[Normally, he would tell her that, of course, he was fine. He wanted to believe he was fine, that nothing could shake his core as deeply as things could, that he could stand up to anything Earth, his siblings, or his Father threw at him.

But, instead, something else comes out.]

I don't know.

[His voice sounds small, distant. His hand turns over so that he can thread his fingers through hers, the action unconscious.]

I loved you even then, didn't I?

[It may be his future, but it's her past, and he's rather certain that she's been here long enough that that point in time would be closer together to when he left than they are now.]

Had I told you? Did I know?

[ The bluntness of his words almost knock the breath out of her, and Chloe's eyes drop from his to their joined hands. She wants to brush it off, to try to steer the conversation elsewhere, for both of their sake... But she can't. Words she doesn't mean to say come tumbling out without a second thought. ]

I don't think either of us knew, really.

[ They didn't know but it had been there. Things with Dan had ended far before Lucifer walked into the picture, and what happened after was just them trying to shove something that was irreparably damaged back together. The more Chloe thought about it, the more she starts to remember things she has almost forgotten since she came to Wonderland; her jealousy towards Ella, when she thought she was sleeping with Lucifer. Dan's knowing comments that somehow translated to subtle support. All of the time they spent together.

Something had changed in the garage that night and it took reliving from a distance to see what she has been missing. ]

I don't think you knew what love was, Lucifer. I think... we both were trying to figure things out. Every time I tried to open up to you, you pushed me away. There's no way I could have known. I think it took me a while to realize how I felt, but what this is between us, I think it started around that time.

You were the first person to be immune to everything I am. It confused and intrigued me, but it made it difficult for me to understand anything about our friendship. I started feeling things that I didn't necessarily want to because they frightened me.

[He seems vaguely confused as he speaks, as if he's saying things he hadn't understood himself until they were out of his mouth and in the air, the truth finding a way to be set free.]

I very rarely truly cared about the humans I knew after I left Hell. I'd spent so much time hurting them that I don't think I really knew how to see them as anything real.

And then I met you.

[He'd wanted to be around her all the time for reasons he didn't understand but couldn't fight.]

You were always special.

You've been through so much. And being in Hell I'm sure isn't exactly conducive to loving relationships.

[ She raises her eyes again, her own truth tugging out of her. She's not sure where this coming from, how Lucifer can be saying these things so freely, as if everything that happened between them hadn't happened at all and this is a first chance all over again.

In a way it is. Maybe neither of them know what they are doing, but it doesn't make this any less real. ]

I know you had a hard time adjusting. At first I thought you were just a self-centered jerk but I started to realize that you were just... hurting all of the time. You didn't have anyone, so of course you didn't care about anyone. Everyone you ever cared about except Maze abandoned you and I guess I thought I could help make things easier somehow. I didn't think it would turn into this. And knowing what I know now about you, I'm not even sure how it's possible.

[ She doesn't know how it could be, how she could possibly be special enough to be what he would want. She wasn't special. She was a mess. ]

The only thing special about me is that I fell in love with the Devil.

[It's true, he didn't have anyone, outside of a demonic bodyguard that had made an oath to him. Maze was his friend, yes, but she didn't love him. He's not sure she could love anyone.

Then again, he'd said the same thing about himself.

Regardless, it was an easy thing to get someone in his bed. All he'd ever had to do was make eyes at them and they'd fall over themselves trying to get out of their clothes most of the time.

That wasn't what he actually wanted, though. It was a distraction, something to occupy his mind from all the terrible things that flowed through it, to indulge in the debauchery he was known for, to be what he thought he was supposed to be.

Chloe made him want to be better. She made him not want to shut off the things that made him closer to human.

The hand not entwined with hers lifts to brush strands of blonde hair away from her face and behind one ear.]

That's not exactly something anyone has ever done before. Or vice versa.

[She made the Devil love. What could be more special than that?]

[ Eventually, Chloe has begun to understand that about him. His flippant attitude, the women he slept with, the extravagant life he led... It made sense. He was trying fit things into an emptiness that couldn't be filled.

It wasn't his fault. He is a result of an infinite tragedy of the universe. It is also why she struggles to find how she fits in.

At home, it's more complicated, but here... Here, they are both far away from what they've left behind. Far away from the people they care for, but far away from the pain, too.

She leans closer to him, her breath catching at the feel of his fingers brushing against her skin. ]

I guess that's something. We kind of made such a good team because we didn't always follow the rules, so it makes sense.

[In some ways, it was his fault. He led an uprising and he failed. He is not innocent here, not really.

But his Father did things that no parent should, that is also true.

As always, it was complicated, and Lucifer felt plenty of guilt that he liked to hide away within the deepest parts of himself.

He watches her as she leans in closer, his eyes dropping to her lips briefly.]

Rules were made to be broken, if you ask me.

You're definitely an expert at that.

[ She watches his eyes, her heart speeding in her chest as his gaze flicks down. Chloe feels her cheeks flush, her grip on his hand tightening at she leans even closer.

Funny, isn't it, that the one thing she wanted to avoid when she arrived here is the only thing in the world she wants now.

She knows they both have a history, and she knows - better than him - that love isn't always enough. She learned that with Dan. But what they have is different, and it makes her think, maybe, somehow, as much as she hates this place sometimes, it's where she supposed to be.

Chloe pauses only inches from him, catching her breath for a moment, her eyes locked on his. She's excited, but she's still scared of what this is, how it could all turn out. Lucifer understands better how things happen at home, but it hasn't done anything to change their feelings for each other. ]

Lucifer, are you sure about this?

[It may not be enough, but it's worth fighting for, isn't it? That's what he's learned, what he's been taught. Nothing will change for him if he doesn't try and he doesn't want to go back.

Especially not when she's looking at him like that, when he can feel the warmth of her breath on his face.]

I wouldn't be able to say any of this if I weren't.

[But that's not what's most important right now. She was the one who wanted time, who needed to figure things out. He has no idea if she's been able to do that.]

I think that might be a question that you should ask yourself.

[ Chloe's not sure.

She hasn't been sure about anything in a long time. She'd broken up with Seth because she wanted to figure out what her place was here. Dying had screwed her up in ways she didn't know she was capable of being broken, and the anger she felt towards herself was a self-loathing she never experienced before. She's not sure if she's there yet; she's not sure if she's fixed. But she's also not sure that's even possible.

But she's better. Because of Seth and Lucifer, because of friends like Elena and Klaus. Chloe has more lows than highs in Wonderland, and most days she still feels helpless.

But she doesn't feel hopeless anymore, and maybe that's worth something. ]

No, I'm not. [ She has to admit it, unable to force out any words that might make this easier. Telling Lucifer the truth has always been important to her, but right now it feels more important than it ever has before. ] I'm not sure about a lot of stuff. You're an angel. I'm a human. We're trapped in some kind of acid trip nightmare, and I don't think I'm ever going to totally pull myself together here. I keep thinking I'm broken because I'm not the person I was at home anymore, but I'm never going to be I was before knowing everything I know now.

[ It's all tumbling out now; the truths, the realizations. Chloe's tried to be strong, tried to keep herself together for Trixie's sake. But Trixie isn't in Wonderland. Chloe's life is this place, now, for better or for worse.

She tilts her head, her eyes never leaving Lucifer's. ]

The only thing I'm sure about is that I love you. Maybe... Maybe we can figure out everything else as we go.

[There are a lot of things he's not sure about. Whether or not he wants to be near her as much as possible is not one of them.

The rest, well, he's perfectly keen to ignore until it becomes an issue. That said, if the Detective is concerned about it, then it's an issue. Yes, he's an angel, but that's never particularly been a problem before, and certainly not when it comes to her. It isn't as if she's drawn in by all his magical glamour or any of that nonsense.

Wonderland is also something to think about, but Lucifer fails to see why it should really affect anything between them.]

You're not broken. If anyone's broken between the two of us, it's me.

[Considering it took him thousands of years to develop any emotion outside of amusement and anger, it makes sense that he would feel this way, but it's not something he would have ever admitted to himself, let alone anyone else.]

You saw what I did to my wings. I'm barely an angel anymore, anyway.

[He brushes his fingers through the wisps of hair framing her face, tucking them behind her ears, his eyes moving over her face with a strange reverence.]

That's how we've figured out everything else, isn't it?

[ Chloe knows he's hurting, but she doesn't think of him as broken. Struggling, maybe... But he's come so far. And if she has to admit it, so has she.

They both lost their fathers, in different ways. They had both fallen from grace; her after Palmetto, him in a more literal sense. They have far more in common than either of them may have realized, and for as different as Chloe had convinced herself they were, they are also very much the same.

She understands him in a way that she's never understood anyone else, even more here in Wonderland than she had before. And maybe he is the Devil, and maybe he has done things that she can never really grasp, maybe he hides his true self inside of him for fear of scaring people away. Maybe he is broken.

But to Chloe, right now, he's perfect. She raises her hand, brushing her palm over his cheek gently. ]

Neither of us are who we were before, I guess. But maybe that's okay.

[ She lets out a sigh, finally moving forward to him, her eyes fluttering shut as she presses her lips to his. ]

[Perhaps that's the core of it. Despite all the good that shined effortlessly out of her, she did understand him in small ways, the ways that really mattered. Because she didn't believe him at first, and because she wasn't affected by him, Chloe was always able to see beyond what everyone else looked at.

She tried to find the truth of him, and being The Devil hasn't exactly turned out to be his truth, now has it?

He's not who he was before he Fell. He's not who he was when he ruled Hell. He's not even who he was when he first stepped onto the scene in the City of Angels.

Maybe he's not even the person he was when he arrived in Wonderland. He's better, and he did all of it without the influence of his Father and his other children.

He almost doesn't expect it, the way she gently leans into him, her lips soft as they gently mold against his. It takes a moment for his eyes to flutter shut, for him to relax into something he's done so many times, but never felt it like this. There's no fire there, just an all-encompassing warmth, a comfort he isn't sure he's ever known. Love instead of simple lust.

The inside of his palm rests against her throat as it drifts down from her hair. He can feel her pulse beneath his skin, the result of her quickly beating heart that cared enough to want to know him. The press of his own mouth against hers is gentle and slow, as if he wants to draw the moment out, as if he's afraid it won't last.

Nothing good ever seems to.]

[ It feels so different, now. Not completely unlike last time, but different. She knows now that she loved him then, and he loved her, even if neither of them truly realized it. She understands why it hurt so much when he left; that it wasn't the sting of a brief entanglement gone wrong, but the searing burn of betrayal, the knowledge that she had allowed herself to love him only to be so hurt by watching him throw it all away.

Every one of those fears, any part of her still clinging to that hurt falls away with the brush of his lips. Everything they are is out there now, raw and bare, and yet neither of them ran away. She deepens the kiss, feeling that same warmth run through her body and she can't even imagine a time when she won't love him like she does right now.

To live without him from this moment feels impossible.

Chloe finally pulls away, just barely, enough to catch her breath. They are still in public, after all, and she's worried if she lets herself get too carried away, she won't be able to stop. Instead she rests her cheek against his, enjoying the comfort of his scent tickling her nose, the warmth radiating off his body and against her skin. ]

I forgot how much I missed that.

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