He hadn't been expecting it. Not from Tank, of all people. At first, Lucifer went deathly, unnaturally still, his entire body frozen in time for a moment while he processed what she had just asked.

Did he want her?

Did he want her?

The question tumbled down the corridors of his mind and upended every other thought it came across, rendering him quite and irrecoverably speechless for a full ten seconds.

Then came the machinations, the thoughts of how he could use this, how he could build up off of this moment, this declaration of a paradigm shift he was all too used to toying with and exploiting. A flash of Mazikeen as a child, holding her brother's knife, her face cast in a snarl, came to him then, unbidden, and left just as quickly as it came.

This was a moment like none other. A time to either harness what was given to him, or let it fall by the wayside. She could have been -- he could have made her into a tool, a thing to be used and adored and feared.

But.

The Morningstar cleared his throat.

"Say that again?" he asked, his countenance hardening to become a sandblasted mask of unaffected stoicism.

She reminded him too much of Mazikeen.

Too much.