Another little ficlit for this time-stream.

The four of them had just returned to Lux after an unfruitful morning of hunting for clues as to who the vampire/murderer might be. Chloe had of course wanted to go back to the precinct, but since no one at the LAPD knew Sam and Ruby, or that they were working on the case, Lucifer's suggestion that they go back to Lux had won out. As was usual during the middle of the day, Maze was the only one there.

"Fun day?" she asked them rhetorically as they walked in, her back turned to them as she restocked the liquor against the wall behind the bar, not actually giving a crap about Lucifer's pet hobby (the job, or the girl).

"It's like the suspect can just disappear into shadows —" began Chloe in frustration, before being cut off by Lucifer so that Maze didn't actually cut something off the Detective to make her shut up.

"How about a friendly drinking competition?" he suggested.

"Right, because two demons and the Lord of hell can get drunk," replied Sam sarcastically.

"How about a half-demon? Half of infinity is still infinity," asked Lucifer.

"I've been trying to get an answer to that question for a long time," interjected Ruby. "But I can't ever get him to drink more than a couple beers at the bar, so I still don't know how well the demon blood's worked for that."

Ignoring the demon/devil nonsense they were all still going on about, Chloe focused instead on the 'alcohol in the middle of the afternoon' part of the conversation.

"A drinking competition at two in the afternoon?" she asked in disbelief.

"What? Can't handle a little alcohol during the day?" ridiculed Maze; she still wasn't a big fan of Lucifer spending so much time with a pathetic human.

"Please. I can drink with anyone," boasted Chloe, never one to back down from a challenge.

"Don't embarrass yourself, Detective," waved off Lucifer, before telling Maze, "Round each for the four of us."

Chloe was about to indignantly demand a round for herself as well, remaining sober on the job be damned, when Maze pulled out four large, unopened bottles of vodka and plopped them down on the counter, picking one back up for herself. Lucifer and Ruby eagerly reached forward to grab a bottle each, while Sam, at a sharp look from Ruby, somewhat more grudgingly picked up the fourth bottle, and unscrewed the top. As the four of them clinked their bottles together, Chloe decided maybe it was for the best that she not get involved; after all, someone staying sober really wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Bottoms up," said Lucifer, before they all tilted their bottles back and started to drain them. Not many seconds later, they all slammed their empty containers back down on the counter.

"Anyone feeling a buzz yet?" asked Maze, already knowing the answer.

Everyone shook their head in the negative; it was going take more than a single bottle of vodka to do any damage.

"Good. Because we're stepping it up to this next."

She pulled four more bottles out from under the counter; 192-proof Polish Spirytus.

Before they could start drinking, in order to make sure they weren't just drinking water as a trick on her, Chloe took Lucifer's bottle off the counter before he could pick it up and sniffed the liquid inside, immediately coughing, choking out, "Ugh! I'm feeling a buzz just from smelling it! You guys are going to die if you try to drink an entire bottle of that stuff!"

"Good thing none of us can die, then," replied Maze before lifting her bottle to her lips.

Everyone else quickly followed suit, and soon everyone had set their empty bottles back down on the counter.

"Everyone still alive?" smirked Ruby, looking around at her perfectly healthy fellow drinkers.

"Another round?" asked Maze, pulling out four more bottles.

Now, Chloe still didn't believe any of their demon/devil nonsense that they kept going on about, but she couldn't deny that there was certainly something different about these four. Regular people didn't drink an entire bottle of vodka like it was water, and absolutely no one then followed it with a single shot of 192-proof spirit, let alone an entire bottle, without looking much more dead.

Several minutes later, at the end of their fifth bottle each, Lucifer said, "This is pointless; clearly none of us are getting drunk, and that stuff isn't the easiest to get into the States. So unless someone's got a stash of something from either hell or the Silver City, I think we're going to have to call this a draw."

Everyone voiced or nodded their agreement, none of them having any divine spirits to offer for a real drinking competition. As Lucifer started talking to Maze about seeing if they could convince Amenadiel to bring down some Heavenly liquor the next time he visited bugging Lucifer about returning to hell, Ruby turned to Sam.

"Looks like someone can hold their liquor," she said with a smirk, nudging Sam in the side.

"I've been able to for a long time," replied Sam quietly. "A demon I was chasing once proposed a drink-off. I make it until closing time, he would leave his host body and return to hell; I couldn't make it, and he got to stay in his host. Apparently he wasn't aware of who I was, or I doubt he would have made that offer. Of course, even after I won, I still had to exorcise him to send him back to hell."

"Demons lie," smirked Ruby. "Not me to you, of course, but, you know, other demons to other people."

"Of course," replied Sam, rolling his eyes at his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Chloe was staring in disbelief at the bottles littering the bar counter, and in greater disbelief at the four drinkers, who didn't even look like they were slightly buzzed; in fact, she felt like she might be more buzzed just from taking a whiff of Lucifer's drink and from the alcohol fumes in the air, than they were from drinking six bottles of poison apiece.

She still couldn't believe that they could actually be who they claimed to be, that was just ridiculous, but there was certainly something strange about these four. And she was going to get to the bottom of it by the end of this case.