Summary: In which Trixie prays to Lucifer and try as he might, he just can’t ignore her—maybe he doesn’t even want to?
Ratings: General Audiences
Words: 10.1k
Warnings: Post 3x24. Spoilers for S3 finale.
AN: Title from the song TALK ME DOWN by the lovely Troye Sivan.
Also on: ff.net | AO3
It starts as a tingle.
A tickle at his nape, light as a zephyr and just as fleeting. It is hardly noticeable, surrounded as he is in a constant sea of people—bodies brushing him as they pulse and grind in time with whatever electric tune is blaring through the speakers of Lux, and exclamations of disparate ranges humming their squalid secrets into his ears or hissing their darkest desires into his mouth. He is no stranger to the chaos of noise brought on by sin, the cacophony of achieved pleasures only to be followed by the turbulent guilt at having indulged at all.
Yes, the prickle that stings the back of his head is inconsequential. Not unlike the buzz of a fly, one that—in hindsight, he might have ingenuously assumed—may be banished with a mere flick of a wrist.
Easy to ignore.
Until, that is, the fly comes back and it’s not so easy anymore—in fact, it’s the exact opposite.
It shouldn’t have been possible.
Not since his literal Fall from grace. But the pressure behind his eyelids and the weight that blossoms throughout his muscles and cartilage—somewhat familiar, vaguely irritating and entirely unexpected, if not a tad alarming—is one that can no longer be denied. Never mind the eras that have risen and long since passed without so much as a glimmer or a hint of it.
Impossible, he tries again. Even as the proof lays before him in all its her lanky limbs and sprawled out, drooling glory. Even as the hum becomes an insistent beacon of urgency, redolent to a boom of thunder as it drowns every other sound. Still, he is hard-pressed to believe the reality of the situation—because it has been eons upon eons since the manifestation of this ability, because no one should have remembered or known, much more needed to do so.
Because who the hell would pray to the Devil?
Beatrice sighs, her svelte frame twisting in her sheets to face him, seated as he is on the chair by her bed. The roaring in his head surges till the vein on his forehead pounds with it.
“Hello?”
He contemplates keeping his stealth and ignoring her.
“Lucifer?”
But children always do have a way of seeing.
He exhales a sharp breath through his nose, and with it, drops his cloaking glamor.
“I’m here.”
She sits up then, bleary orbs blinking dust from its corners. A stillness blankets his mind when their dark gazes clash.
“Took you long enough,” she whispers through a yawn. He barely represses one himself. Instead, he pinches either sides of his forehead at the impatience in her tone and endeavors to call on a little of the virtue for his own.
“You were quite…” he rummages for a relatively PG term before finally settling on, “tenacious.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It—”
“I don’t care.”
He glares at her. But her glower is just as caustic, if not more so. He cannot help but shrink from her—the darkness burrowing into the chinks of his crumbling walls and liberating the despair that he has, till now, refrained from capitulating to since…
(“It’s all true.”
The waver in her tone… the scent of her sweat... the strain in her eyes—how they all betrayed her fear.
“It’s all true.”)
Well, best not to think about that.
“You look tired,” Beatrice softens, reading far too much and too well, the shadows haunting the cutting lines of his face and painting his figure in gaunt relief.
“I am,” he accedes, head tilting back as he sinks lower into the surprisingly plush armchair—or is he so exhausted that even a concrete floor would have felt like a thousand-dollar orthopedic mattress to him there and then? Did he care?
His lids are heavy.
(No. No, he did not)
“Okay,” she replies, something knowing and all-too grown up in her articulation. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
That rouses him enough to prop his head back up towards her.
“Tomorrow?”
“This was good,” she decides, settling back beneath her covers.
“Beatrice?” he addresses the lump she has made of herself.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you,” the term is a plumbeous tumor in his throat, the taste of it foreign on his tongue. But the Devil is no coward and so will not be felled by word or ten-year olds, no matter how charming or sly. “Why did you pray to me?”
He pokes it. The lump groans.
“Tomorrow.”
“Beatrice,” he barks. “I will not be toyed with—”
“I was worried about you. And now I’m even more worried because I don’t think you slept in forever.”
I haven’t, he answers privately but she seems to hear him all the same.
“Go home. Rest. We can talk tomorrow. Try not to come too late,” she pauses, deliberating. “But not too early too. Okay?”
“And if I don’t?”
But the little hellion succumbs to slumber, or at least makes a valiant attempt at it. He goes to shake her awake but retracts his hand when it is a hairsbreadth from her shoulder. Oh, but the blissful silence that engulfs him is almost a—dare he say it—heavenly reprieve from the monstrous anchor of her prayers, not realizing how they encumbered him till he is stood in his penthouse with nothing but the thud of his heart, the wisp of his breath and the briny, L.A. current as his soundtrack.
As he settles onto his bed, he decides to abstain from visiting the detective’s daughter the following night, convinced nothing good could come of it.
But her voice, a baffling juxtaposition of lethargic and jaunty—Good night, Lucifer!—rattles in his brain.
He thumps his head against his pillow.
Though… presumably, nothing bad could come of a quick visit either.
He is asleep before he finishes the thought.
“You really ought not to pray to me, you know.”
She is draped over her bed with an immobility he would classify as preternatural, if he didn’t know any better.
It is unnerving, and so is her observation. He sits straighter, then aborts the movement—for what could he have to prove to this miniature human? Nothing, that’s what. She is but a nuisance to him, after all. One whose antics he has humored thus far, if only to put an end to them.
Enough of this, he promises himself as he squares his shoulders—for the good of his posture, of course. How horrendously unattractive would it be, to have a hunchback for a Devil now? Perish the thought!
“I won’t come back even if you do,” he insists, haughtily. “Do you understand?”
Her eyes narrow into disbelieving slits.
“Right,” she drawls.
“No, really,” he stresses. “Your mother will put me to the grave if she finds out.”
“She won’t find out!”
“Be that as it may,” he says dubiously, “this ends tonight.”
Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
In fact it goes on for quite some time.
Though he adamantly refuses to admit how he anticipates each twilight.
The quiet is jarring without her voice in his head.
The previous night had her bemoaning about a performance of some sort that would require her full attention and so he has the day to himself.
It is odd.
He was looking forward to the private time, prepared to relish in the lack of invocatory disturbance after so long without. After all, there was never a dull moment in Hell and the periods that weren’t wrought with the agonized screams of the damned were far and few in between. Then there were the innocuous annotations she peppered him with throughout his daytime routines, they were utterly distracting. He didn’t need to hear about the complexities of her Math assignment while extracting favors nor did he want to know about the, quite frankly, grotesque offerings of an elementary school cafeteria while he was at a distributor’s meeting.
So he relishes the peace, wherever he may find it.
Or so he thinks.
Prayers are no small matter. They are, more often than not, afflicted with the Herculean effort of sustaining humanity’s last dregs of hope. They are massive, suffocating burdens—the kind God’s legions of angels were not apt (or mandated, more like) to aid.
But not Beatrice’s prayers.
It is all too easy to forget that amidst the torment of adulthood, therein too, lay all the insouciance of youth. Perhaps in the beginning, they had felt like chains. But now, without her supplication, he feels depthless and unimportant. Like if he were to float away in a cloud of dust, no one would so much as blink. She is his final tie to Chloe, a tie he is growing more accustomed to (not that he would tell her this on pain of death) with every passing chance they are isolated from the rest of the world. A tie that no longer just links her to Chloe—but links her to him despite Chloe.
It scares him, this reliance.
When she calls for him the next night, he does not come.
He hates himself for it.
Lucifer?
“Stop,” he scolds the glass in his hand.
Why won’t you visit?
He downs the drink then leaves it on top of his piano. He paces to his bar. He spreads his hands on the glassy surface and puts all his heft there so that the marble countertop wails its dissent.
Did I do something wrong?
He shakes his head, and he isn’t sure whether it’s to clear it or it’s in answer to her question.
Please.
That’s it. That’s what does it—the insecurity threaded into her pronunciation, the heartbreak woven into every letter of the bargain. It strikes keenly within him, the tinge of her sadness all too familiar as it monochromes into one that matches his soul. With a roar, he throws out his wings and in the lull between two heartbeats, he is by her side.
“It isn’t you,” is his version of a greeting. She doesn’t even startle.
“Where have you been?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, alright?”
There’s a mist in her eyes that he inhibits acknowledging with painstaking exertion.
“Then why’d you stay away?”
“Why do you keep praying to me?” he demands through gritted teeth.
He braces for something profound, something that will bring him to his knees, begging for her absolution.
“I don’t know,” she looks downtrodden at her inability to provide him a thoughtful answer. “I just do.”
He is bereft of it, anyway.
“But I’m not a good person. Surely you know that?” He dumps himself unceremoniously onto the single armchair in the room. “I’m not even a person.”
There isn’t much to say following that, for what is there to say that wouldn’t be a falsity?
He should leave. But Beatrice doesn’t ask him to, and the regret at not showing up the previous night is a hot iron that brands him to his seat. So he lingers—till enough time passes that he thinks she’s fallen asleep. It is a rare evening that she doesn’t deafen him with talk. He doesn’t mind. But when she does speak, her utterance small even in the tranquility of the eventide, he mentally kicks himself at not having bolted when he had the chance.
“Where were you?”
“What do you mean?” He delays, something brittle in his rebuke despite clearing his throat. He is not drunk enough for the depth of this conversation. “Does it matter? I’m here now, aren’t I?”
She shakes her head.
“You were gone,” she whispers. “You are gone. And so is daddy, and Maze and even mommy.”
He chokes on a breath, panic clawing at his lungs when he spits, “The detective? Has something—” the dread escalates, “happened to her?”
The springs in the foam whinge at the tightening of his hold.
She shakes her head. “She’s not in any danger, if that’s what you think.”
The vise around his heart lessens and for a fraction, he loosens his grip on the seat.
“I sense a ‘but’,” he wheedles.
“The week you stopped showing up, the same day Maze left,” she sniffs and there’s a stagger to her narration that attests to a pent-up sob, most likely for his benefit. He reaches out and rubs her back in a couple of awkward circles like it might erase his guilt.
It doesn’t, but she calms enough to resume talking. He, thankfully, withdraws.
“Mommy’s been different—sadder. The couple times I snuck on her door, I don’t hear her cry, but she wakes up in the morning and her eyes are red. When I eat breakfast and she doesn’t think I’m paying attention, she stares at the door with a frown, like she’s waiting for someone but at the same time, she doesn’t want that someone to show.”
The foreboding mass of guilt in his gut intensifies. She doesn’t speculate as to this person’s identity and he won’t insult her intelligence nor malign his own by asking who.
They both know the answer.
“Where did everyone go?” she laments.
“Your mother will never leave you,” he admonishes. “You know better than that.”
“Maybe,” she concedes with a weary exhale, “but everyone leaves, eventually. Whether they want to or not.”
There is a wisdom to her speech that no child her age should possess, and yet the bluntness of her delivery—infused with such jaded finality—arrests him of his ability to succor her with his special brand of omissions and half-truths.
The Devil does not lie.
“You can protect her, right? You’ll always be there—”
He shakes his head.
“I can’t,” he implores sibilantly, shame coloring his truth. “I can’t save anyone.”
I couldn’t even save myself.
He wills her to understand, but how could she? For as much as she has matured, she has so much living yet to do.
“You don’t need to save anyone,” she urges gently as she slumps over and grows heavy on her pillows. “You just need to stay.”
He startles at that.
“You ask too much of me.”
There’s an itch at the base of his throat and a strain in his lids that seems suspect of tears, but the Devil burns too hot for such displays—at least this is what he tells himself through the rasp of his declaration.
“I don’t know,” he confesses. “I don’t know how to.”
All he’s ever known and seen is what it is to walk away. Lucifer’s path is littered with the devastation of all those he leaves behind—from Heaven and Hell, then his parents and his siblings and even Mazikeen, as well.
The detective is just another name on his ledger, written more than once in bold, block letters and angry, bloodied ink.
Is Beatrice to be a part of this, too?
So he keeps confessing, even as she skims the boundary between waking and slumber, if only to warn her of the inevitable, if only to provide a shield—however flimsy it may be—from the pain of him.
Lucifer is nothing, if not a ticking time bomb and the detective and her daughter deserve far better than to be left in shrapnels at his imminent destruction.
Still, it doesn’t stop his fingers from poising over the detonator.
“Though I suppose... I wouldn't mind,” he professes to the gloom with all the austerity of a remorseful sinner in church learning to redeem himself.
(He always did fly too close to the sun)
“Why do you still pray to me?”
She is plastered to his side tonight, and burrows even deeper so that he’s convinced she’s done it purely to vex him, legs draped across his lap as if he was her personal footrest. He grimaces but doesn’t deny her her petty grievances, not when she is still a tad sore over his curtailed abdication.
“Why do you keep saying you’re the Devil?” she counters, rearranging herself to sit crisscross on top of his thighs so that they are facing each other. He feigns a grunt to tease her then rolls his eyes, unwilling to divulge the cunningness of her subterfuge.
He does so adore talking about himself.
“Because I am.”
The duh, though unspoken, rings loud between them.
“But your brother’s an angel.”
He splutters at the mention of Amenadiel. Weren’t they talking abouthis deviant self? How did his oaf of a brother enter their conversation?
“So?”
“Doesn’t that make you one, too?”
Before he can deign to refute with all the drama and indignance of an affronted sovereign, she barrels on in that careless, excitable way children (and Ms. Lopez) often do.
“I mean, I know you fought your Dad. And that you have these super cool light powers!”
“Well, look who’s been brushing up on their theology!” Despite himself, he is impressed. “Been going to Sunday school just for this Old Scratch, have you?” He preens with a charismatic quirk of his brow and his signature, entrancing smile.
She huffs her frustration before rolling her own eyes, impartial to his charms. The rebuff is so achingly distinct it sends a twinge through his heart, even as he whines a protest.
“Did my Father send you too,” he starts, with shades of genuine bafflement in his inquiry, “or is this immunity a by-product of being the offspring of a Miracle?”
“You talk funny, but I guess that makes sense. Like in the old days,” she pauses, her forehead puckered in reflection as she continues, “or those people in Game of Thrones!”
He tilts his head in amusement at her intimate knowledge of the show, no doubt in thanks to a certain demon. His smile is nostalgic, before he remembers the shambles of his relationship with Mazikeen.
(Best shove that in a box to be studied at never)
“Anyway,” Beatrice redirects when he doesn’t retort. “I don’t go to church, but daddy’s parents have a Bible.”
He snorts, rather inelegantly. “You—you read the Bible?”
“I’m ten, you know. I can read.”
He raises a brow.
She yields, but not without a pout.
“Okay, so the writing is really small and like, have you seen the thing? It’s—” She lifts a hand to approximate the thickness, her thumb and pointer stretched as far apart as they can,“ this thick. And there are so many big words!”
He snickers. Her scowl is a scorching thing, and he is certain he would blaze from it if he wasn’t all ready a gnarly mosaic of burn wounds.
“So I just Googled you.”
“And what else have you discovered?” he smirks. “All bad things, I hope.”
“I didn’t really understand much,” she readily admits with a shrug. “But I got that God sent you to Hell as punishment, kinda like a time-out for not following Him—” Lucifer grouses at the comparison to a petulant child, though he couldn’t exactly deny it.
They would work on her phrasing another time.
(Not that there is another time, he defends unconvincingly. He really mustn't do this again)
“—You had to watch over all the bad souls that went there forever, which I guess is how you became the Devil. But even if you’re the king of Hell and the,” she air quotes, “‘Prince of Darkness and Lies’ and all these other nicknames, which are so mean, by the way!”
He smiles at that.
“—You’re still an angel. You just fell.”
“Oh, is that all?” he snarks, the grin wiped from his lips and a bad taste in his mouth. The simplicity with which she conveys the sentiment—as if it weren’t a cosmic, body and mind and soul altering experience—smarts, though he’d never tell anyone, least of all this child.
She bites her lip, a prominent conflict brewing storms upon her expression.
“Out with it.”
She purses her lips.
“Can I see?”
He sighs. Though he expects it, he cannot control the sliver of dejection that conquers him at Beatrice’s… mundaneness.
“If you must.”
He sets her to her feet then rolls his shoulders, slowly. An exercise in control and restraint as he is cognizant to the limitations of her space.
(And definitely unwilling to wake the lady of the house whom he is not quite ready to face just yet)
He expands his wings as far as he is able to in her little box of a room, one at a time, before folding them closely to his back. It’s a tight fit and he must lean forward to accommodate the blasted things, but he manages to find a modicum of comfort. Father they were gaudy, he notes upon a prompt review of the pair. Lucifer is as ostentatious as they come, but he has class, thank you very much—an inherent taste for opulence that skirts the border between sophistication and grandeur. He coils one wing in front of him to better examine it.
He despises how they glint in the darkness.
He abhors the reminder of them, of everything he has lost. What has once signified power and his connection to the universe and Creation has mutated into shimmering, feathered shackles. He hates and hates and hates, because a sick part of him still yearns for the grace with which accompanies them, longs for the music in the sunset and the serenity in the sunrise and the scraps of His effulgence with every poor soul he used to bequeath with care.
He hates Him for it—for invoking this secret, ugly whim he long thought had been extinguished. For once again taking his agency by slapping it onto his back despite how he bends and breaks and bleeds to cleave them from his flesh.
But most of all, he hates himself. For how he stands in the eye of his carnage—plumage torn and carelessly strewn, and gore puddling the obsidian floor till his sanguine fluid is indiscernible from the Italian marble—and is flooded with a deep-seated relief at their every winking return.
And if he is just as taken by its divinity, whose to stop the young one from spiraling into that insane, obsessive trance?
So he braces for the frenzied groveling. For the disgusting simpering or overwhelming exultation. Maybe even an overenthusiastic hug, as she is so avid in dispensing him.
However, a perusal of her mien has his mouth hanging open in shock. After all his speculation he certainly does not expect what he finds there.
Disappointment.
The cloud of struggle looms forcibly upon her still rounded and childish visage. He tucks the bothersome appendages away with a shrug, feeling woefully inadequate for some inexplicable reason.
“Is… is something the matter? Are they not—”
He withers and he wants, as he struggles to dispel the disenchantment from her eyes.
“Do you not like them?”
“No, I do,” she nods her approval. “They’re pretty. But…”
He cocks his head in encouragement.
“Maze has another face,” she expels in one swift yet hesitant breath, as though it is she who is loath to fail him. “I thought it was just make-up because we were out trick or treating, but I understand now,” she nods, voice growing steadier as she builds her surety. “It was her real face.”
And when she lays the final brick of her armor, she looks at him, fearless.
“Her demon face.”
He gasps, permitting that perhaps this time, it is he who dithers at her implication.
Or maybe she has lost her mind, after all.
“You truly don’t know what you’re asking this time,” he disguises his unease behind a growl.
Her own shoulders curl inwards, but the resolve in her gaze remains steadfast.
Another sound rips from his throat, a cross between another growl and a sob. He never thought to miss the mindless reverence, and yet here he is. He would take the inconsolable horror and repugnant pleas and even that wretched fear over the uncontrollable surge of hope that threatens to devour him.
“What an obstinate creature you are! You’re just like—like…” his snarl falters.
“Like your mother.”
He intends for it to be an insult.
“Yeah—no, I don’t know what that means.”
But the proud, if not slight, smile that crimps the corner of her mouth tells him she takes it otherwise.
“And I still don’t care.”
“Of course you don’t,” he relents before returning her grin with one of his own—albeit sad and just as paltry. “It means stubborn.”
She shakes her head in exasperation while he drops his in his hands, elbows bolstered on his knees.
“You don’t know what you’re asking, Beatrice,” he repeats into the skin of his palms, and so he does not sense her nearing presence until she is upon him with a delicate touch to his shoulder.
“Be not afraid.”
In that moment, he is stunned by the turn of phrase. Then the next, he’s smothering chortles, that are a touch too hysterical to be perpended humorous, into the crease of his arm.
“Isn’t that—” he wheezes as he struggles to catch his breath. “Isn’t that myline?”
Her grin spans the breadth of her cheeks, even in its sheepishness.
“Where did you even get that?”
“I told you,” she smirks. “I Googled. Alot.”
It takes more than a couple of heartbeats for their pseudo-mirth to subside, hushing gestures articulated only for wandering giggles to erupt just when they have themselves under control. But all too soon, the high of the instance comes bursting down, and the silence that follows is a sobering one.
“Are you sure my Father didn’t send you?” he recurs, feebly.
She shrugs. “How should I know?”
He shakes his head, his entire countenance adopting a grimness more suited to a prisoner on Death Row. His penumbra companions pool at his feet in a mimicry of worship so that his shape consumes the gloaming and the moonshine is blinding in its contrast.
“My… my Devil face is not for the faint of heart.”
A final warning.
But she is unfazed, merely stares at him with such openness and trust… he would applaud her for her fortitude, if it didn’t break his heart that he will be the one to wipe the innocence from her world.
“Stand back now.”
For once, she does not protest. But before she can move further, he grasps her hand.
“I will not hurt you,” he squeezes lightly. “Remember that.”
He lets her go and takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes. When he opens them, he knows the fires of Hell dance in his orbs—are reflected in hers too, as they meet each other’s gaze and she gasps.
“Remember,” he beseeches.
In short bursts of flame, he chars the remains of his human glamor till all that remains is his ruined flesh.
For once, it is he who awaits judgement.
“Lucifer,” she sniffs, voice trembling.
“I won’t hurt you,” he repeats.
She steps into the lone circle of moonlight. He searches her eyes and it confirms what he all ready knows—she is crying. Not the sniveling, bawl of a spoiled brat deprived of its playtime but a subdued sob, a torrent of tears noiselessly streaming the valley of her cheeks and the slant of her chin.
He doesn’t know which is worse.
He is ill-equipped to comfort her, not when he is paralyzed by her reaction or more appropriately, her lack of. But before he has to choose to have a go at it, with abominable results he is certain, she replies with, “I know.”
“But aren’t you afraid?” he goads, floundering for a semblance of a typical response, if only to disrupt the disequilibrium that flares within him at her unsettling ease.
“Did it hurt?”
He jerks at the question.
“Did what hurt?”
“When you Fell,” she blubbers. “I mean, you’re Lucifer. You’re my mom’s partner and you pretend you don’t like hugs even though I know you do!”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You don’t deserve this,” she whispers harshly, with a vehement shake of her head.
“I’m the Devil,” he sighs and for once, there is no hubris in the pronouncement. Only a debilitating resignation for his true nature. “This is the least of what I deserve.”
Her fingertips graze his cheek in a tender caress. Confounded by her boldness and deprived as he is from such guileless ministrations, he forgets to shirk her—leans to it instead, as if the roles are reversed and he is the child, pitiful and fragile and desperate for connection. Can this be true? How he wants it to be so—how he wants the vacancy of her terror and the solidity of her marvel. When was the last time he had been bestowed such candid affection in this form? Had he ever been comforted at all in the aftermath of his disgrace?
(No. Not once. Not ever)
How he wants and wants and wants.
“Maybe the Devil is what you are.”
This entire night is a dream, he concludes. It must be—for as blessed as he is at fulfilling others’ desires, he has always been a pariah to his own. How could she offer him salvation in the form of her acceptance, given her knowledge of the atrocities tattooed at the very heart of him?
“But like Maze is a demon, it doesn’t mean that’s who she is.”
Yet as established over and over.
“And I only know how you treat me and my mom, Lucifer. The Devil doesn’t have to be who you are. I knowit isn’t.”
Children always do have a way of seeing.
“And maybe you don’t believe me, but it’s okay.” She touches his opposite cheek so that both hands cradle his mauled face.
“Cause I believe in you. I can believe for both of us.”
So he holds her to him, his hands dwarfing hers—those artless, untainted hands filled with the scored reminder of his greatest failure, his greatest sin, and for the first time.
The Devil weeps.
“Will you show me your light powers now?”
“Absolutely not.” He shifts beside her in a sorry bid to be more comfortable, fingering the coverlet of her bed. He sniffs in disdain at the scratchy linen. “I must buy you new sheets.”
(He gives up all self-respect methods of avoidance when it comes to her, because she’s a leech which you can’t get rid of without incendiary assistance and he hardly thinks the detective would appreciate him burning her child. It’s not at all because he legitimately looks forward to their time together, nope—no—no sirree)
“Why not?” she gripes.
He inspects her chambers, then with an accompanying flourish of his arm, proclaims, “This room cannot hold me.”
“Then let’s go outside.”
“No.”
“Oh, I see.”
His hackles rise at the arrogant shift of her smirk. “See what?”
“Nothing,” she demurs.
His eyes narrow at her. “Speak, spawn,” he towers over her with affect menace. “Now.”
“Well,” she begins airily, unintimidated. “I’ve never seen you use your powers.”
“Not many mortals have the privilege,” he boasts.
“Then how do I know you have them?”
He gapes. “You have seen my wings, right?”
“Big deal,” she grumps. “You and a bunch of all your other siblings.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“Mary Beth told us she had a boyfriend earlier this year,” Beatrice dismisses his ire. “She said his name is Ryan and that he’s older and goes to another school. We didn’t believe her. Then when we told her that, she showed us all these ‘texts’ he sent and during recess she would ditch us cause she says she had to ‘talk to him’ on the phone.”
“What the hell does Mary Beth’s abysmal love life have to do with my powers?”
“She never showed us any pictures of him.”
He raises a skeptical brow.
“She’s always on Snapchat and Instagram.”
“Your point? And in this century, please.”
She rolls her eyes.
“We found out we were right, and he wasn’t real. Mary Beth? Have a boyfriend and not post about it every five seconds on her accounts? As if. But it was the fake call that gave it away in the end. She ‘answered’ it only for a text to light up the screen. Anyway, everyone knows it’s pictures or it didn’t happen.”
He sneers.
“I don’t have to prove myself to you! I’m the De—”
“Yeah yeah, you’re the Devil, you don’t lie, blah blah blah. But how do I know you really made all the suns and the stars in the universe?” She turns to her side, away from him, and clamps her blankets snugly to her person. An apparent dismissal. “Guess I’ll just have to keep thinking you didn’t or you’re too chicken to show me.”
“I so do too have powers,” he fumes. “And excuse you! Like any other being besides myself could produce something as beauteous as the heavenly bodies you lot know of, with your paltry telescopes and your inadequate rocket ships. You humans have seen nothing compared to all that I’ve created.”
He wheels her to him.
“When God said, ‘Let there be light’ you're damn right I was the one who made it possible. You think Amenadiel could orchestrate the hypnotizing symphony of a million shooting stars? That Gabriel could choreograph the precision of an equinox? Or Cassiel or Raphael or Father forbid Michael, conjure the complexities of an Apollo, down to the infinitesimal shades that differentiate a sunrise from a sunset? Please. They’re about as creative as a rock, and mind you—that’s an insult to the rocks!”
He stands with a scoff before smoothing his jacket and fiddling with his cufflinks.
“And I am not chicken anything.”
He holds a hand out to her. She stares.
“Well?” he shakes the limb in a fit of pique. She places her hand in his, the one he always thought to be sticky but turns out to be quite clean with all the smoothness that comes with childhood.
“I’ll show you power.”
And before either of them can blink, his wings are out and they are whisked to the beach of his initial advent to Earth.
“Whoa,” she breathes. “We just totally apparated!”
“I believe the more appropriate term is, ‘flew’.”
He puffs his wings theatrically, basking in her giggles as he raises them as high as they can go while she jumps to catch the peaks, only for her to trip over her feet when he propels them enough to send her stumbling to the ground. She shrieks in delight.
“Still think I’m chicken?” he lashes, but without malice.
“You have the wings for it, that’s for sure.”
“You little rascal!” he places a hand to his chest in mock outrage. “I’m appalled at the lengths you’d go to manipulate me.”
Lies, his brain hisses. He couldn’t be more ebullient.
“I’m still not seeing any light powers, Lucifer.”
He chuckles. “Alright. Bossy thing, aren’t you?”
“Learned from the best.”
He loves how that could mean any person between the detective, Maze or him.
(Him. It’s got to be him)
Something overtakes him at her expectant scrutiny, and it hits him anew—he does not want to disappoint her, especially if it is his doing. He is so good at letting anyone close to him down, after all. And much as he claims to be repelled by her companionship, in truth he doesn’t want to be responsible for her disillusionment—not when it is so easy for everybody else to deem him insufficient.
So he tells her, “Joking aside, it’s been some time since I last… exercised my skills. It might not be—” he clears his throat. “Well, there was no sky in Hell, you know. And I have found little use for them here. My powers are not what they once were.”
I’m not what I once was, but this he doesn’t reveal.
“You just gotta do your best,” she shoots him a close-lipped smile that somehow manages to infuse him with confidence. “That’s good enough for me.”
Although, it might not be the smile so much as her words, her plenary belief rearing its reiteratively pertinacious head, that buoys him.
He laughs a tad nervously, his wings shuddering with skittish energy. It has been so long, indeed, since he called upon the reserves of his power, though he reassures himself it is as simple as riding a bike—you never forget it. What once was there can never be erased.
However, to his bountiful irritation (and embarrassment), he has more than a couple of false starts. He balls his fists to banish the jitters. He just gave a whole spiel about his Greatness, for fuck’s sake, keep it together.
“It’s okay, Lucifer,” Beatrice’s look is loaded with understanding, a bit of chagrin, too. He frowns, and recalls the who of it all—for this is just as much for him as it is for her.
For the light is his birthright, whether it is the coalescing heat of a nebula or the sweltering pyres of Hell, the brilliance of an aurora has always been his to wield.
The stars are not as visible as he would like them to be, but better here now than in the city. Still. It’s not enough, he tells himself, disapproving. He should do something about it.
He extends his forearms to either side of him and tilts his head to the sky.
Then with renewed vigor, he begins again.
It emanates from him, in gradual bursts of luminance. It manifests first in the tips of his fingers, no larger than a spark, that grows to an ember, that ribbons up and down the length of his arms. In enthralling susurrations, he flirts with the light, calling out to his oldest companions in a sultry, velvet croon.
Come, he beckons almost pruriently. How I’ve missed you.
And though they are helpless to his summons, it is he who surrenders. With eyes tightly shut, he submits to the flash of hundreds, thousands, millions of unsullied lights slamming onto him with all the elegance of a cresting wave. It stitches itself onto the fabric of his skin, rushes through his bloodstream and intermingles with his bones and sinew so all that he knows, all that he is, is refulgence.
Somewhere in front of him, Beatrice gasps then breaks into a sprint around him, laughing—that carefree, unforgiving chortle present only in the tongues of youth. That is, until it bubbles out of his own throat and mingles with hers in a harmony of astonishment. He forgets everything and himself then, till he is flushed and windswept and refreshed on what it is to be high on resplendence.
When he is positively brimming with it, he throws out his arms, his wings widespread in imitation, and commands, show her.
He opens his eyes to a deluge of stars, except in lieu of descending from their paradise of space, they are coalescing onto his hands and shooting from his flesh till their immediate atmosphere is fashioned into an atramentous dome dotted with glittering meteors.
A night sky of his own making.
“It’s not the sun,” he utters in the causatum of her reticence, her profile fixed upon one of his creations so that it is difficult for him to read her.
“Mommy and daddy used to take me camping, before they got divorced.”
“Yes, I heard.”
He ventures a step towards her.
“There were so many stars where we went, so much more than what I see at home. I wished so bad I could just reach out and touch it. Maybe wrap it around me like a blanket—it was so pretty.” She sighs, a hundred different gusts of contentment in that one miniscule breath. “The best thing I ever saw.”
He bends on one knee beside her.
“And now?”
She shakes her head, lips breaking out into a beatific smile as she cups both hands beneath one of his celestial lanterns.
“This is better.”
He joins his hand beneath hers. Together, they prod it to a gentle incline, pushing it upwards as high as her arms can go, pulsing lucently as it ascends and joins its brothers and sisters in the Earth’s sky.
“Way, waybetter!”
She squeals, chasing the stardust in its wake. He follows.
The stars twinkle that much more at their Master’s joy, the ghost of their own laughter trailing close behind.
The hours lose meaning as they weave new and mesmerizing constellations in the air, the sand, their skin.
And when she tires, she resumes her vigil on his lap—her back to his front and his wings gathered in a cocoon to ward off the vigorous chill of the sea breeze, having failed to grab her coat in his haste.
“I wish mom was here to see this.”
The tide is low enough that they don’t have to worry about getting wet, despite their proximity to the edge of the furthest swell. He buries his hands in the sand, reveling in the sensation of fine granules aloft his skin and for once, heedless of the dirt clinging to his clothes. The lambent debris sliding into the curves and crevices of his digits is one he finds, to his shock, a dulcifying motion after the electrifying exhibition of his powers.
“I don’t think she wants anything to do with me, much less my powers.”
Her head falls onto his chest.
“I don’t know how anyone can be mad at this.”
Lucifer traces a circle into the sand and the stars dance about them in a lazy carousel.
“It’s not this she’s upset about. It’s me.”
She tips her chin to face him.
“Why?”
“I… I did something.” He stiffens. “Something bad—an act forbidden to all angels, hence the reappearance of my Devil face and my, however inadvertent, unveiling to your mother.”
“Oh,” she considers him. “Are you sorry?”
“Not really.”
She makes a chastening noise.
“Mommy says that if you do something bad, you have to own it. Like that time I lied about eating a slice of my birthday cake because you told me I should do what I want. And I really wanted that chocolate cake.” He hums. “But I wasn’t supposed to do that, so I said sorry and tried not to do it again. You won’t do it again, right, Lucifer?”
He wishes, just this once, that he didn’t have such a convicted disposition against dishonesty. But what is a wish, if not the most foolish fantasy of all?
“The truth is if I had to, I would do it again. And if that means the detective wants nothing more to do with me, then it’s a small price to pay. Especially if it means you’ll still have your mum by your side in the morning, and for many more mornings to come.”
The thought of the detective is one he has tactfully avoided revisiting since the occurrence of their falling out. It is easy in the day, when he can immerse himself in drugs and booze and an app or three. The nights are even easier, when Lux is in full swing and he only has to worry about emptying his glass as fast as he can or if the conversation is interesting enough to carry on before he flits to the next warm body.
Then Beatrice’s voice fills his head, a bouncing reverberation to trounce the din of the rest of his life and he caves. These liminal pockets of time, in the hours between dawn and dusk that is spent with her, never ceases to impress upon him the extent of his transgressions when it comes to the detective. It barges into him like a riptide, pulling him closer to a nebulous reality in which he might have to endure the rest of his existence without ever seeing her, not even for a minute more, beyond what is quite conceivably their last memory together—of the evidence of her repulsion of him in her frightened expression.
So though he should disregard the child’s litanies, cut himself off from all things Decker with the precision of a seasoned surgeon, and stay away—he cannot, unfitted with the self-control or the valiance to deny himself that which he covets, no matter how incomplete.
“Do you… do you think your mother could ever forgive me?”
He would cringe at the vulnerability coating his inflection if he didn’t feel as if his survival hinges on her advice.
She curls onto her side and angles her head to better peer at him.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “I think if you told her what you just told me, she just might.”
“Maybe,” he sighs, scarcely stifling the impulse to knead his temples. “Though I imagine it will take more than an apology. This is no case of the missing slice of chocolate cake, after all. The situation is much more dire.”
He nudges her.
“Any suggestions?” he glibs, only half jokingly.
“Just try,” she shrugs. “If she doesn’t then you and I will always be friends,” her fingers tighten at his lapel in a way that is sure to leave wrinkles though he cares not. “Won’t we, Lucifer?”
“If… if that is what you desire, then yes.”
There is no toothy grin, only a solemn entreaty as she presents her pinky to him.
“You promise?”
A quivering breath escapes him at the poignancy of the ceremony—juvenile vowing methods notwithstanding—though he musters a smile for her benefit, one she returns with a dazzling rendition of her own. He is temporarily speechless at the sight, for he has never been more evinced of her likeness to Chloe till this very moment.
“My word is my bond, Beatrice.”
He interlopes his pinky over her proffered one.
“You may doubt any and all persons and things in this world and the other worlds beyond it but in this,” he brings their tangled digits to his chest, just above his heart, “you most certainly can trust.”
All the stars above them glow that much stronger but none hold a candle to her eyes, a gleaming pair of supernovas to rival even that of the shiniest astral formations in all of Creation.
The ebony oblivion of nightfall dwindles to the blossoming flush of an impending sunrise and only then do they head back.
His wings disappear to their alternate plane just as he deposits the sleeping ten-year old onto her bed. With a tenderness he didn’t perceive himself capable of, he folds her within the warmth of her sheets. He fusses for another minute—arranging stuffed toys, fluffing pillows, leveling her covers and brushing her wayward tendrils from her face.
“You’re the only one who answers.”
Curious, he sleeks the crinkle between her brows.
“What’s that, child?”
“You… ask…” (she yawns) “me… pray…”
She smacks her lips only to emit a near imperceptible snore. He snickers, retreating to the doorway.
You’re my answered prayer, Lucifer, she mumbles in soundless supplication. He glances back only to realize she is lost to the clutches of repose once more. He drops to a knee at her bedside.
“If I were a religious one,” he tells her dozing form, “I’d say you and your mum are mine, too.”
“Your what?”
He swirls towards the source of the disembodied voice, only to be met by the lurking silhouette of the detective leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed.
After the days-long exodus, the sight of her is a feast for his senses—all long lines of bared skin, outfitted as she is in sleep shorts and a tank top, and golden locks cascading in a waterfall over her shoulders and down the slope of her back.
He swallows, mouth going dry.
“Detective,” he greets uselessly, only now half mindful of Beatrice resting behind him. Then, aware of the hour, he raises his hands in submission. “You know me,” he reassures. He hopes.“I mean you no harm—you or your offspring.”
“I do know you,” she sighs. “And I know my daughter. If you’re here, she probably asked you to be.”
Stunned, he can only gawk.
“Am I wrong?”
There’s a gaiety to her demeanor that drains the tension from him. He hazards a tenuous smile.
“I’ve never known you to be, no.”
The reprieve is short-lived as a chilling quiet follows, both grappling for a foothold in this recondite dynamic. Though it is neither comfortable nor disagreeable, it is ill-fitting all the same—like a pair of jeans too long about the ankles or a suit two sizes too big, functional sure, but certainly not worth wearing more than once.
“So what were you talking about?”
He is grateful for the cloak of darkness as it conceals the terrible blush creeping beneath the surface of his cheeks. He flails a hand with the all the blitheness of a tornado, the noncommittal refute just as discordant.
There’s an undercurrent of frost to the criticism, and he can’t blame her. He deserves it.
She lists further onto the woodwork.
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.” She runs a hand over her face. “Listen, it’s late—early, or whatever…”
“Right,” he stands from his crouched position.
“Well, I should get going,” he announces, an inviting lilt at the end so it sounds more question than statement. He has no qualms departing with the use of his wings but brief as their exchange has been and conflicted as is he is about his decision to withdraw from her, he is greedy for her company. So he makes a show of leaving—combing his fingers through his hair so that the riotous curls dangle in an artful coif instead of a disheveled one (the product having long faded), dusting at his trousers (however futile, for sand is notoriously adhesive to fabric) and aligning his suit and cufflinks (more out of habit than necessity). When he loiters at a period just shy of overstaying, only then does he approach the door, prowling haltingly enough that his chest coddles her exposed shoulder as he crosses the threshold to her hallway.
In the confines of his strung-out mind, he rails at the futility of his machinations. His fingertips are a hair strand from the main entryway’s door knob, when she calls his name.
He stops, chin titled a notch at her direction to indicate his attention. He ignores how his heart celebrates to the tempo of a salsa at his name falling from her lips.
“We…” she releases a weary breath. “We have a lot to talk about.”
He nods. “I imagine you have questions.” He pivots on his heel to glimpse out the window, at the hint of red dawn oozing from the horizon. She closes the door to her daughter’s chambers.
“But did you want to do it now or…?”
“Honestly? I’m beat.” She follows his gaze, intent on her rendering on the glass. Even through the facsimile of her image, he recognizes her fatigue like it is an anvil strapped to her back. At her calculating gander, he frowns.
“I should let you rest.”
“Yeah,” she licks her lips then crosses her arms across her chest once more, her combined penchant for anxiety. “But you—you could sleep here, too.”
He scrambles for an innuendo or three, then falters. Surely he heard wrong?
“Pardon?” he croaks.
“Like, on my bed.”
He chokes on air.
“Pardon?”
She slaps a hand to her face so that her reply is muffled. “Just sleep, okay? You shouldn’t travel now, you’re just as drained as I am—no, don’t deny it.” She lifts her head so she can administer a reproach with a wag of her finger. The repudiation dies on his lips. The use of his powers was quite taxing on him, out of practice as he had been.
“You’re too tall for the couch and for obvious reasons, Trixie’s room is out of the question. Maze forbids anyone from entering hers, so that leaves mine.” She meets his perplexed stare. “It’s fine. It’s big enough that we won’t bump—”
“Uglies?”
“I was going to say heads, but yeah—that too.”
He pouts. “You take the fun out of everything.”
The glare she projects unto him is a withering yet welcoming one. His abashment ebbs with every flirtatious bon mot that deserts his mouth, paired with her corresponding eye rolls or derisive comebacks. Yes… this he can handle—he can provide the droll commentary or the salacious suggestions and the overall levity. If he can focus on that, he can almost forget the monumental significance of her actions and his subsequent participation, weak as he is at denying her anything despite what he may or may not deserve.
She is offering him, offering the Devil, to share her bed.
Not to engage in carnal deeds as most of his invitations with a bed as the destination end. Yet there’s something more intimate about just… beinghere with her, witticisms curdling in his throat as his heartbeat quickens restlessly with every step that brings them closer to her room. Not for the first time, he must ask himself if he is in a particularly vivid dream—but if so, he hopes never to wake up.
He hovers at the outset when they arrive, his hands in his pockets as he watches her fold the blankets then lower herself to the left side of the bed. She hugs her knees to her chest and rests her cheek on top of them, her arms loosely circling her ankles. The sun’s rays are yet to touch them here, but Chloe has never needed it to shine—not when all that’s essential to light up a room is for her to appear. And he cannot comprehend how someone as lovely as her can stand to be in the same bed as him, much less the same space, yet here she is—this creature of kindness, compassion and benevolence, a radiance in her eyes coaxing him to, come closer.
The door shuts with a resounding click.
He fidgets with the top button of his waistcoat. His clothes are grimy with sea salt and quartz and he reckons in for a penny, in for a pound. Still, he gives her a searching look, and when not so much as an objection or another incensed eye roll passes from her—just the constancy of her benign regard—he begins to undress.
In the absence of banter, the rustle of cashmere and the racket of his labored breathing is magnified. He feels both wound and untethered with every strip of clothing that piles itself onto one of her chairs, and he is vulnerable in more ways than the expanse of skin he leaves exposed implies.
For the sake of propriety, he keeps his boxers on then advances to the right side of the bed with all the caution of an explorer in the wild avoiding death in the claws of a beast. It certainly doesn’t help that Chloe’s stare is zeroed in on him like that of a predator homing in on its prey.
(He grants that he might like to embellish. Not much, just… somewhat)
He doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing till he’s situated on the bedspread and dragging one out.
Her expression dissolves into one he is too acquainted with—that of her exasperation.
“You good?” she questions with no small amount of sarcasm that he deliberately ignores.
“Quite.”
“Okay then.”
She mimics his position, lying prone on her back except she seems cozy upon the sheets while he maintains a ramrod physique. She twists onto the side facing him, a hand under her pillow and the other on the scant distance between them.
“You can relax, you know. I won’t bite.”
“Not even if I ask?”
“Lucifer,” she warns. “Behave.”
“Apologies,” he tells her sincerely. “I’m just confused as to why I’m here. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t hear me complaining. I mean, if I had known that all it took to get into your bed was—”
“Lucifer.”
“Alright, alright,” he ripostes. “I’ll be the perfect gentleman, Devil’s honor.”
He digs his nails into his palms hard enough to nearly draw blood. Why oh why did he ever have to open his mouth? And they were doing so well, too, avoiding the subject of their estrangement.
He turns away from her.
“Well,” he rasps. “Goodnight, detective. Or morning. Whichever you prefer.”
Though, he muses bitterly, how can anything be good where he’s concerned?
To his surprise, however, Chloe seems unperturbed and goes on to remark archly, “You’re like a space heater.”
He shelves his verbal self-flagellation and responds over his shoulder with only an intimation of admonition, “Occupational hazard I’m afraid, being the Lord of Hell and all.”
She doesn’t continue after that. But it is evident neither of them is going to catch a wink of sleep, so he gathers the courage to ask.
“Why did you really ask me to sleep here?”
She lets out a shaky breath.
“I know how you are, Lucifer,” she echoes brokenly. “No more avoiding me. We are going to talk about…” he imagines she gestures towards him. “And what that means for us, yeah? And this way I can keep an eye on you. I don’t want you running away again.”
A pang of guilt courses through him at that. He deflates. But then—
“And—”
His breath hitches.
“I guess… I missed you.”
He can feel the weight of her stare till it becomes the heat of her open palm hovering over his shoulder. The last time they were in this position, he almost broke her wrist with the effort to avoid her touch. Now though, with the scent of her consuming his senses and her warmness slinking beneath their shared quilt and mingling into the core of him, he craves it—so strongly he struggles to restrain himself and not take and take and take.
“No,” she murmurs. “I knowI did.”
But when has he ever been in the business of denying pleasures?
“I missed you, Lucifer.”
With deliberate measure, he leans back—till flesh meets flesh and warmth merges with warmth. She makes a pathway of his back, her fingers tracing lightly over the dip of his spine, then up again aloft the peak of his shoulder blade, her thumb making a hasty detour as it cossets the edge of where his scar had once resided. Every glide of her fingertips is an ethereal caress, as brief and as teasing as a rain shower in the middle of summer. Yet he feels it all deeply, each graze imprinting itself till his soul is carved to the shape of her. How he trembles because of it, amazed at how he doesn’t implode given the seismic proportion of his metamorphosis.
Her hand encompasses the hill of his bicep. At her behest, he moves onto his back and in thanks, her journey ends emphatically across his heart.
“I missed you.”
There is no mistaking the ocean of sincerity simmering in her eyes, even with all she now knows about him. It only serves to agitate his bewilderment, and with it, his fear that this has all been a wild concoction of his inebriated state.
“Detective… ChloeI don’t understand—why—”
She hushes him.
“Be at peace.”
Without his permission, he spews a strident yelp of incredulity.
“What?” she shrugs. “I’ve seen Trixie’s Google history.”
“Is that really why you weren’t surprised at my presence earlier?” he grumbles good-naturedly. “What is it with you Decker women and stealing my lines?”
She chuckles. He joins her a second later and forgets, however evanescent, his suspicion of the realness of the moment.
“Sleep,” she soothes. “We have time later.”
“Do we?” he mutters diffidently, his mind racing even as his lashes flutter with the amplitude of his fatigue. Her hand travels languidly from his chest and molds itself onto edge of his jaw. Tempted by her gravity, he falls, and their foreheads collide softly like satellites catching up to each other within the same orbit. He focuses on her halcyon embrace.
Everything inside him quiets.
“No more running,” she strokes his cheek, and he wonders if she means it for the both of them. “Deal?”
He could form galaxies when she looks at him and all he sees are the stars in her eyes—brighter than anything he had and can ever hope again to create, and magnificent with all the promise of a genesis—and this is how he learns.
The sun rises.
He stays.
AN: Cross posting to Tumblr after a week haha. This is my first Lucifer fic. There was no plot whatsoever lmao but I hope you guys enjoyed it anyway!
This is my contribution to the @thedeckerstarnetwork Helloween Gift Exchange! I wrote this for @missielynne and my original prompt was the beach, blue, and vampire. But, missielynne gave me the option to go off track and come up with whatever sparked my fancy! I did keep the vampire element though! :D
This fic is rated T for graphic depictions of violence. It has established Deckerstar, established Laze, and established Dan/Charlotte (they deserve to be happy, sue me). Set sometime after the season three finale, where all involved parties are ‘in the know’.
@missielynne I hope you enjoy your gift! I just wish that I had just a little more time to put into this (but alas, school has killed me this semester). I’ll have part two up by tomorrow at the very latest, sorry for the minor cliffhanger, but I promise you won’t have to wait long!
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Chloe drew in a deep breath of the crisp autumn air as she stepped out of the Corvette, the slight breeze sending fallen leaves and straws of hay skittering past her feet. She glanced over her shoulder when she heard the solid thud of Lucifer closing the driver’s side door of the car, watching as he fished a cigarette and a lighter out of his pockets with ease.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea to light up here?” She asked curiously as she gestured to the ground and the thick layer of hay that resided there.
“Are you applying for the role of fire commissioner?” Lucifer chuckled before placing it between his lips. Chloe rolled her eyes at his quip, but before she could begin to think of a fitting retort a white SUV was pulling up beside her. She didn’t have to look twice to know that it was Dan, Charlotte, and Trixie. Right on time. Now if only she knew when Maze and Linda would show up.
“Hey, Chlo.” Dan greeted her as he got out of the car, shooting her a smile that she quickly returned.
“Morning, Dan,” She quickly replied, watching as he pulled the rear door open, letting Trixie rush out of the car in a jumble of frizzy curls and gappy teeth.
“Mommy!” The screech of her title came just before her daughter collided into her legs, pulling a huff of breathless laughter from her as she bent down to pull her daughter closer.
“Hey there monkey.” Chloe murmured into her daughter's hair, pulling back slightly and taking in the girl’s appearance as she asked, “How was your weekend?”
“Good.” She answered happily, glancing over at her dad before she quickly added, “Charlotte helped me make Halloween cookies!”
“Did she?” Chloe asked curiously, offering Dan’s girlfriend a smile as the tall blonde walked around the front of the car before winding an arm around Dan’s back.
“They’re in the car,” Charlotte explained as Chloe righted herself, stepping forward to give the taller woman a quick hug.
“Thank you.” Chloe breathed as she pulled away, she had to admit that even though she felt a little guilty for not being there to help she was glad that at least Charlotte had been there for her daughter while she put in hours on overtime, chasing down leads that all turned into cold cases. This October had been particularly bad for missing people and what seemed to be homicides, if the massive pools of blood at the scenes were anything to go by.
“Lucifer!” Her daughter's bright peal of the fallen angel's name drew her mind from her work as she watched the girl fling her arms around his waist, jostling him hard enough to make him lose grip on the cigarette in his hand. The glowing stub fell into the thick layer of hay, quickly catching onto the dry straws as orange blue tongues of flame quickly lapped up. Chloe tensed as she watched him quickly snuff out the growing flames with his shoe, a thin trail of smoke trailing up from the smoldering ashes.
Before Chloe could even open her mouth to scold him, a shiny charcoal sports car pulled up on the other side of the Corvette before quickly cutting the engine. “Who said you could commit arson without me?” Mazikeen’s voice rang out as she stepped out of the car, earning a long-suffering sigh from the devil as his shoulders slumped slightly.
“Very funny, Mazikeen.” The retort was dry, humorless, and for the hundredth time this week Chloe wondered what exactly had been weighing on his shoulders. He wasn’t his usual cheery self; he was stressed, aloof, tired. Something was wrong, but every time she asked he claimed that things had just been taking their toll recently. Chloe wasn’t sure whether or not she should believe him.
“So, who’s ready for pumpkins?” Linda’s bright and cheery voice broke the quiet as she got out of the sports car and clapped her hands together, quickly easing the tense situation away as though it hadn’t existed in the first place.
“I am!” Trixie shouted happily, drawing a strangled laugh from her mother as the woman shook her head softly. It seemed as though this would be the new normal for Halloween’s from now on.
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“So, how true are all of the Halloween myths?” Dan’s curious voice broke the content quiet with ease as the small band of friends slowly picked their way through the vast field dotted with bright orange pumpkins.
“Which ones?” Lucifer chuckled, a smirk filling his face as he stared down at the shorter man.
“The ones about monsters.” He elaborated, a playful twinkle in his eye as he quickly looked the taller man over.
“And demons,” Linda chimed in a moment later, wrapping her arms around Maze’s waist, earning a soft hum of appreciation from the demon.
“And the devil coming out to play,” Chloe chuckled, nudging her boyfriend with her elbow and earning a wide grin from him.
“The devil has been out to play for a while.” He purred playfully, his voice sending a delightful wave of goosebumps prickling along her skin.
“Monsters are demons, just reduced to human terms and descriptions.” Maze explained after a short beat of silence, and the group came to a stop around her.
“Werewolves?” Charlotte questioned curiously.
“A kind of demon.” Lucifer supplied simply.
“Vampires?” Linda asked as she released her hold on Maze’s waist.
“Another kind of demon.” The demon answered as she reached down and took the blonde’s hand in her own.
“Zombies?” Trixie’s bright voice inquired as the child practically bounced around the adults.
“A product of the human imagination.” Lucifer chuckled as he started forward, spurring the rest of the group back into motion.
“Is the veil really thinner on Halloween?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, actually.” The devil answered, “Though not very much so. Only the really strong ones can get through.”
“And if they don’t get back over in time, then it’s game over,” Maze added, taking a finger to her throat and making a slicing motion. Chloe shivered slightly at the implications of the gesture, willing herself not to think too much about it. She was still trying to come to terms with dating satan himself.
“So how are you two here year round?” Dan questioned, quirking a brow.
“I’m an angel, Daniel.” Lucifer scoffed, “I’m not reduced to any of the rules that pertain to demons.”
“What about Maze though?”
“I’m one of the powerful ones.” The demon in question answered. “And Lucifer’s angel magic keeps the veil open for me. I’m sworn to him, I’m allowed wherever he is.”
“You’re sworn to Lucifer?” Linda asked curiously, something that sounded like jealousy spiking in the woman’s voice.
“In service.” Lucifer clarified a half-second later. “The servant of an angel can only be an effective asset if allowed the same jurisdiction over an area as said angel.” He paused for a long moment, letting out a soft chuckle before quietly murmuring, “I don’t think Dad ever expected a demon to serve an angel, though.”
“So you just have a demon swear their services to you and suddenly they can come topside whenever they want?” Dan pressed, earning a scoff from the devil.
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Daniel. I’m only allowed one at a time, and I can’t appoint another until the current one dies.” Lucifer clarified, nudging the man in the side with his elbow before conspiratorially adding; “And if I’m being honest, we all know that Maze will outlive even me.” His quip managed to draw a few chuckles from the group.
“Mommy, I found one!” Trixie’s bright voice drew the adults from their conversation as they turned to glance at the child as she crouched next to a massive pumpkin lying in the dirt.
“That’s a big one baby,” Chloe stated as she bent down beside her daughter, carefully brushing some dirt from the side of the pumpkin. “What are you going to carve in it?”
“A black cat! Or a witch!” She exclaimed happily as Dan retrieved a pocket knife from his jacket and quickly sawed through the thick stem. “Or Maze!” The girl's voice grew even more excited as she smiled at her favorite demon. “And then you could carve Lucifer!” Chloe forced herself not to snort at the mental image. It wasn’t as though her boyfriend needed any more reason to be cocky.
Maze stepped forward as soon as Dan bent down to pick up the behemoth of a pumpkin, scooping it up as though it weighed nothing. “I’ve got this.”
“Maze, you don’t have to.” The man protested quietly, trying to take the squash back as Maze batted his hands away.
“Hush, I’m trying to impress my girlfriend.” Maze quietly whispered under her breath, and Chloe grinned at the statement, watching as Dan only nodded mutely as he lifted his hands in mock surrender.
“So, is there even a point to Halloween?” Linda asked curiously, glancing between the two hellions.
“No,” Lucifer answered simply. “You humans and your odd traditions are mostly meaningless.” He chuckled, quickly adding; “Not that I’m going to complain about Halloween. It’s one of my favorite ones.”
The small group didn’t manage to get more than a dozen paces before Trixie’s bright voice was ringing through the air once more, “Dad! Can we go to the corn maze?”
“I haven’t picked my pumpkin yet, monkey.” The girl's shoulders slumped slightly at the statement, a soft huff of disappointment escaping her tiny frame.
“I could take her,” Charlotte offered a moment later, and the child perked back up immediately.
“Are you sure?” Dan asked, earning a quick nod from his girlfriend.
“Of course,” She answered, quickly placing a kiss against his cheek before continuing, “Go pick your pumpkin.” She turned to the girl a moment later, holding her hand out as she playfully asked, “We need more girl time anyways, don’t we?”
Chloe watched as the two linked hands before quickly making their way over to the maze across the field. A small spark of jealousy threatened to flare up, but she quickly pushed it irrational emotion away. Charlotte wasn’t replacing her, and Trixie deserved to have a good relationship with the woman who would likely be her stepmom one day.
As soon as the two forms disappeared into the mouth of the maze, Linda shot Dan a sly smile. “So, when are you going to propose to her?” The doctor questioned almost conspiratorially.
“What?” Dan chuckled. Shaking his head as he stammered over himself, “I don’t - I’m not -”
“Daniel,” Linda pressed, a no-nonsense tone taking up residence in her voice.
Dan let out a soft sigh, running a hand through his hair as he quickly dropped the charade and admitted, “I was thinking around Christmas time…”
His admission drew a wide smile from the doctor, and Chloe had to admit that she was a little surprised at how quickly their relationship was moving. Though to be fair, her relationship with Lucifer had been moving at roughly the same speed. Linda coughed exaggeratedly before nudging Lucifer with her elbow, earning an eye roll and a chuckle from the devil. “How subtle, doctor.” He admonished playfully,
“I’m just saying, you’re not getting any younger.” Linda stage-whispered, and Chloe couldn’t help the blush that spread across her cheeks at the thought of her devilish boyfriend proposing to her.
“I’m also not getting any older.” Lucifer replied, gesturing to himself as he added, “Immortal. Remember?”
Linda fell silent at that for a long moment, finding her voice after a drawn-out pause. “That does beg the question, what’s going to happen with you two when...well, when you get old?” She directed the last half of the question to Chloe, and she faltered under the woman’s knowing gaze.
It was a question that she’d been trying to avoid. The thought of the inevitable. The biggest roadblock standing in the way of the relationship that she had with her boyfriend. “I - um…”
Thankfully, Lucifer answered for her. “Chloe will go to heaven.”
“And you?” Linda pressed, her eyebrows drawing together as she asked,
“Well, either father will let me back in, or I’ll have to start a war. Besides, the place could use new management.” He answered simply. As though starting a war between heaven and hell was the simplest thing. “Don’t you think?” He asked, directing the question at Maze who gave him a demonic grin that sent a small wave of shivers down Chloe’s spine.
“New management would be good.” She purred, something dark and promising violence sparking in her eyes.
“Dude. You’re talking about overthrowing God.” Dan deadpanned, giving the two hellions a stern look as he continued, “Isn’t that like...the stuff of apocalypses?”
“It would be, if I actually had any intention of causing humans harm,” Lucifer answered, waving his hand through the air as though he could wave Dan’s question away. “What’s the saying, live and let live?”
Chloe worried her lower lip between her teeth as she quickly focused on a nearby pumpkin, crouching down beside it as she easily pulled the subject away from her death and a possible apocalyptic war. “Hey, I found my pumpkin!”
Lucifer bent down beside her, holding one of his hands out as she quietly ordered, “Mazikeen.” A moment later, a shiny black demon blade was being placed in his outstretched hand, before he made quick work of the pumpkins stem, slicing through it with ease.
Before either of them could right themselves, Charlotte’s voice was ringing across the field, “Dan! Chloe!” The desperation in her tone was enough to send the detective’s senses on high-alert, but it was the next words out of the woman’s mouth that made her blood run cold. “It’s Trixie!”
“What’s wrong?” Chloe questioned as she stood up, and if it wasn’t for the hand Lucifer wrapped around her forearm she would already be sprinting towards the woman.
“I lost her in the corn maze, I’m so sorry,” Charlotte explained breathlessly as she came to a stop before the small group. “One second she was right next to me, and the next she was just gone!” Chloe could hear the near hysterics in her voice, and it only made her try to pull free from Lucifer’s grip. “I can’t find her anywhere!” It was like a nightmarish re-run of when Malcolm had taken her baby, and it sent her heart skittering in her chest.
“I’ll find her.” Maze spoke up, quickly placing the massive pumpkin in her arms on the ground before stalking towards the corn maze with determined strides. “Child’s play.” The demon threw over her shoulder confidently as Chloe tried to pry Lucifer’s fingers from her arm.
“Darling.” He spoke up gently, soothing a hand over hers. “Give Maze a chance, she’s one of the best trackers I know.” The statement didn’t help her nerves at all, she knew that Maze was the best, but she still wouldn’t feel alright until she had her daughter back in her arms. “She’ll find your little offspring in no time.” Chloe wanted to protest, but she knew that he did have a point. Maze was otherworldly, and there was no way that she wouldn’t find her daughter...right?
Every second that ticked by seemed to be its own short eternity. And with every passing minute, even Lucifer seemed to grow more and more antsy. Maze came crashing through the side of the corn maze after a few minutes, but the sight Chloe was greeted with only sent her nerves racing under skin stronger than ever. Maze’s hair was a wild mess, and her eyes even seemed to be sparked with worry, but it was the words out of her mouth that almost made Chloe’s world stop spinning. “Lucifer, we have a problem.”
Chloe was frozen in place as her boyfriend cursed under his breath, quickly making his way over to the demon with determined strides. Chloe’s mind finally kickstarted itself a moment later, every single one of her synapses going into overdrive as she sprinted towards the two of them. “What’s wrong?” She questioned, doing her best to keep the hysterics from her voice as she followed after Lucifer and Maze as they stepped into the corn maze. “Where’s my daughter?” She pressed, barely even aware of Dan, Charlotte, and Linda following after them.
“I found her last spot.” Maze supplied, but the vague answer did nothing to soothe the distraught mother.
“And?” Lucifer questioned, his voice as business as he easily pushed thick stalks of corn out of his way.
“And traces of demonic activity.” Maze answered, pulling another string of muffled curses from the devil as he pressed forward. “Probably the same ones you’ve been keeping an eye on for a while.”
The simple statement made Chloe falter, Lucifer knew there were other demons around? “You’ve been keeping an eye out on some demonic activity for a while, and you never thought to tell me?” She questioned, the pitch of her voice rising slightly with each word. He should have told her. Why didn’t he tell her?
“Darling, I didn’t want to worry you with it. I doubted that they would do anything, especially to me or mine.” Lucifer explained, but it was a poor defense when her daughter was missing...stolen away by demons. “This is...unorthodox.” He muttered to himself before quickly adding, “If I had thought that anything might come of it I would have told you.”
Chloe opened her mouth to protest that he should have told her regardless, but Maze beat her to it as they stopped in the middle of one of the maze’s corridors. “This is the spot.” The demon stated, and Chloe quickly looked around, finding nothing out of the ordinary. “There were three of them.” Maze added, and another icy chill seeped through the detective’s body.
Chloe watched as Lucifer crouched down, quickly drawing some foreign symbols in the loose dirt under his feet before pressing his hand against one of them. The symbols glowed a blinding white for a moment, and then the light seemed to sweep out in every direction, pouring against the ground and illuminating several inhuman footprints, the shoe prints left by her daughters light-up sketchers, and a few puddles of something staining the dirt. “Oh, bloody hell,” Lucifer muttered under his breath, running a hand across his stubble as he blew out a long, harsh breath.
“Life drainers.” Maze whispered, and the name only served to stir up more unease in the detective.
“What?” She pressed, her voice nearly reaching hysterics at the thought of something called a life drainer having its filthy hands on her girl.
“Vampires.” Lucifer clarified a moment later. “Or at least...what you humans call vampires.”
“Are you saying that a group of vampires has my baby?” Chloe questioned, and for a moment she swore that she was going to start hyperventilating. Why would they take her daughter? Where would they take her? What was the point of this?
“How do we get her back?” Dan asked, having fallen into full-on cop mode as he stared down at the devil.
“Maze does some searching, I go back to Lux and dig through some of my older books, try to see if I can figure out how to locate them,” Lucifer explained as he stood up, brushing his shoe through one of the elaborate symbols in the dirt, immediately causing the otherworldly light seeping up from the footprints to disappear. “We will find her.”
“And then I’ll kill the bastards that had the nerve to take her.” Maze growled darkly, and the promising threat of violence in her tone sent a shiver down her spine as she stared at the ground.
Lucifer must have thought that her shiver had to do with something else, because he quickly stepped forward, resting his hands on her shoulders as he spoke up, “Darling, she’ll be alright.”
“How do you know that Lucifer?” Chloe questioned, tears welling up in her eyes as she shook her head. Vampires had her baby girl, and she was just supposed to believe that she was going to be alright because Lucifer said so? For all he knew they could have already hurt her...or worse.
“Because they usually don’t go after children. There’s no point, not even a full meals worth of blood in there.” Chloe shivered at the blunt honesty in the statement. “They must want her for something else…” He muttered softly, glaring at the soil beneath his feet before Mazikeen’s voice broke the heavy silence.
“A summoning ritual?” Lucifer nodded at her question, and Chloe wondered whether or not she should even ask what a summoning ritual was.
“On Halloween…” The devil added quietly, something calculating taking up residence in his expression as he turned to face his right-hand demon. “We have four days, Mazikeen.” Lucifer’s voice held a steely note as he spoke, and Chloe couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that four days wasn’t a very long time to track down a group of vampires. “Get to work.” Maze nodded once at his order, turning and grabbing Linda’s hand before dragging the other woman away from the group without another word. “We’re going home,” Lucifer stated, his tone leaving no room for argument as he wrapped a hand around Chloe’s forearm and started after Maze and Linda.
“And what are we supposed to do?” Dan questioned, a hint of anger and desperation in his voice.
“Stay out of our way while we hunt them down,” Lucifer answered. “You’re human, you won’t do any good here,” Dan said something else in protest after that, but she wasn’t able to pick up what. Some small part of her recognized that she was going into shock, and Lucifer seemed to notice it too as he ran warm, reassuring hands up and down her arms.
“Everything is going to be fine, Detective.” He murmured, and Chloe nodded mutely even though she had a very bad feeling that nothing may ever be fine again. “I promise,” Lucifer added a moment later, and that helped to soothe her at least a little bit. He didn’t lie. Especially not to her. Maze was already working on it, and she knew that as soon as he dropped her off at home and made sure she would be alright without him that he would join the chase.
Regardless of all of that though, some small part of her felt like there was no way this could get any worse. Her daughter was missing. And her life was at stake.
Summary: The first time they sleep together, it’s not how they imagined it would be. Post 2x13 AU where they didn’t find out that Chloe is a miracle (for less drama cause apparently i’m still salty about what-might-have-beens)
You can also read it at AO3
Word Count: 3k+
Rating: T for slight smut and language
AN: This took me and my lazy procrastinating ass forever but I did it. My first 1k+ word count and first time writing a bit of smut. Please let me know how I did!
It’s rare for Chloe to sleep in, being a hardworking mother with a job, even on her occasional day offs. And in this quiet morning it feels like she just had the best dreamless sleep she’s had in a long time.
But years of routine woke her into consciousness. Half her brain drowsily reminds her to get ready for work, but Chloe uncharacteristically resists, giving herself a couple more minutes and nestles in deeper in her bed. Her wonderfully warm bed… that is breathing in and out under her…?
Her eyes slowly open, a bit disoriented when she doesn’t sense the familiarity of her bedroom. She’s actually in the living room, lying on the couch, with –
Lucifer.
Her memory fits the puzzles into place of last night. Trixie was at a sleepover with a friend. Maze’s bounty-hunting kept her busy and away. She had the apartment to herself and the elation of solving a case with Lucifer hadn’t subsided so she invited him in.
In all honesty, Chloe had hoped they would end the night in her bedroom. She and Lucifer had been stoking the flames going on between them. She would flirt headfirst, his reaction turning in shocked disbelief then eventually in delight and respond in kind. He quickly caught on to her motives, not having to use his mojo game when she’s practically being so obvious. It didn’t go as she hoped for when he teased with her emotions, leaning into her personal space, lips a breath too far, the lust in his eyes drilling a hole in her head, then backed off leaving her frustrated. She supposed it was a bit of payback for all the times she rejected him. But Chloe was not having it, not when she finally wants him in return.
So during a case she raised her chin up, glared at the Devil in the eye and wagered for a kiss if she gets to catch the killer first. Lucifer accepted but he kept looking at her weirdly the whole time, eyes a thousand miles away. He may have been holding back and letting her win but sprang into action at the last minute out of nowhere and caught the suspect by the throat. After that he escorted her home, with them bantering back and forth on who actually won, which didn’t matter in the end when Lucifer still ravaged her mouth that left them both breathless.
He stopped there despite her whined protest. “Darling, you’re being quite the sore loser. You lost and I still gave you a delectably generous kiss for free. I don’t think I heard you wagering anything more than that.” he teased, eyeing her ruffled hair and swollen lips.
He didn’t look any better, or, he even looked more ravishing than ever, the smug bastard.
She looks up at the man in question. His unkept hair showing his adorable curls, lips thin and pink. In all there time together, Chloe has seen Lucifer in a whirlwind of emotions: with shameless flirtation, with uncontrollable fury, with exuberant glee in his eyes making him look young and immature for his age, then with haunted sorrow from experiences of the past that makes him look too ancient. And in their moments where he seems to allow himself, accepting to be vulnerable around her, with her, looking at her wonderstruck.
Unfortunately, they never made it even remotely close to the bedroom. Lucifer got distracted peeking around her stuff and found her old movie collection and gleefully insisted they watch it together. And there they were on the couch, snacking on popcorn and Cool Ranch Puffs, Lucifer’s commentaries had her laughing her head off until they both had to lean on each other, sides aching.
Chloe couldn’t remember how they ended up like this: with her practically on top of him, head nestled on his chest. Lucifer’s tall form couldn’t accommodate into the length of the couch so his knees were bent up, their legs tangled. His one arm around her waist holding her close, the other pillowing his head; his body is unnaturally warm keeping her comfortably toasted from the cool room temperature.
And this one she suspects no one has took the time to appreciate, the serenity of sleep in his face, free from the weight of everything, and he’s absolutely breathtaking. Chloe wishes he could be like this more often, no walls or masks, and hopes one day he would finally trust her enough to let her in.
She commits him to memory and lies back down again to hear his heartbeat in her ear, her growing desire to bask in the morning with him fighting against her practicality to get the day started, but Lucifer is already stirring awake under her, unconsciously rubbing her back up and down and Chloe tries her best not to purr.
She meets his eyes when they blear open and she is stunned motionless by the unguarded way he’s looking at her. Her heart starts racing violently, this did not go the way she had imagined. Chloe had planned to rip his shirt off and drag him to bed and have raging hot sex with him and instead they’re sleeping intimately on the couch still fully clothed and he’s looking at her the way a serious boyfriend would look at his girlfriend in the morning and she’s still not sure that he would consider having a monogamous relationship with anyone, particularly with her.
Lucifer doesn’t take notice on her internal monologue freak-out and seems to snap out of it. He confusingly looks around the apartment and settles back to her, eyes caught in headlights.
“I, um… good morning?” His voice is rough with sleep, chest rumbling under her.
“Good morning.”
“Uh, how did we…?” His stuttering grounds her back and makes her grin.
Chloe hums, she places her palms on his chest to rest her chin on. He’s incredibly flustered and it’s adorable. He still looks uncomfortably confused she thinks there’s more to it than accidentally falling asleep together.
“This doesn’t usually happen…”
“What, waking up with a woman on a couch? I bet you’ve done that loads of times.” She tries to keep her tone light. In another time, she was used to him being intimate with other people, but now it has her stomach growl for territory.
“Yes, but, you know, I slept with them. But I have never… slept with them.” For a suave club owner who could make girls swoons with just the way of his words, he can’t find them right now, but she finally gets it.
“Oh.”
Chloe probably would never solve all the mysteries of Lucifer Morningstar, the details of his past he could never hope to outrun no matter how hard he tries, the secrets he shares with his therapist that he might never tell her, which she tries to convince herself that it’s fine. She’s already accepted all of him. She can relate of not ever wanting to talk about painful histories, but she takes every moment to let him know that she’s there for him. But he avoids them with excessive partying, drinking, sex and women.
She likes to think that Lucifer working with the LAPD is doing him good, that it’s his way of fighting against the demons in his head, though they’ll never really be gone. And she likes to think, hopes, that with the new friends he made: Linda, Ella, even Dan, her, is helping him find home here in Los Angeles when it seems like he didn’t have it with his family.
And lately, he’s gravitating closer to her. Chloe thinks about her earlier thoughts about him doing monogamy. He’s had sex with a lot of people but never actually had any emotional intimacy with them. Then it’s the complete opposite when it comes with her, ‘Granny Panties Decker’ Maze likes to call her. She and Lucifer had several of their so-called moments, but they haven’t had sex… yet.
The thing between them, what they have, maybe it’s a first for him.
As she’s contemplating all of this, he’s still staring at her with uncertainty, in silent desperation to hold on to her, unsteady. He’s completely out of his element. And Chloe gazes back to her partner who has come to be her best friend and knows they’ll make it as long as they have each other’s back. She thinks of comfort and company and silly tunes of Heart and Soul, nostalgic sandwiches and wet tears in expensive shirts from hugs, burgers and fries, calming waves and worthy partners, heart monitors and warm hands and reassurances of you and I, surprise glad-you’re-not-dead dinners and soft brown eyes and I’m-so-glad-you’re-okay kisses.
In some ways, this is a first for her, too.
And she’s looking forward in figuring it out with him.
Chloe consoles him with a smile, she’s kept him waiting long enough. “Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?”
She’s gotten pretty good at reading him now. And ever since there was the mere concept of them his reaction is always the same, with completed disbelief, as if with all his attempts to seduce her he’d gotten used to getting a no from her. And now he stares at her with that look again, like he’s never met a woman like her before, lips widening to a grin and eyes sparkling. And every time the butterflies in her stomach multiplies and makes her want to kiss him.
She’s already leaning towards him, noses touching, but he suddenly tenses up and stops her. “Right, not that I don’t enjoy ‘sleeping’ with you, shouldn’t we get up and get ready for work?”
Chloe blinks. The euphoria in her chest deflates. Right. They have to get to work, and she has to pick Trixie up from school later. They’ve already wasted a bit of time just lying here. And for Lucifer to suggest that instead of they get to a more comfortable sleeping arrangement like in her bed. Really, it’s like he’s avoiding having sex with her.
She huffs getting up, stretching her stiff limbs when Lucifer grunts under her. She’s about to ask when she feels her leg brushes up against his…oh. Oh shit.
Lucifer tightly shuts his eyes as he grips her hips to stop her, either from moving away or getting closer, she can’t tell.
It’s just one slide away to sitting directly on top of him. Chloe smirks. For once, she has the upper hand, and moves to join them together where they’re both aching, and grinds down. Even still fully clothed, they gasp at the friction.
“Shouldn’t we take care of this first?” she teases, rubbing his chest, his stomach.
“Nope. I’m fine.” he says through gritted teeth.
“Really? Because it feels like you’re having a hard time down there.” Chloe keeps her hips moving, both pulsing against each other.
Lucifer glares up at her, irises darkened with lust. “Ooh, you naughty little minx.” he growls through his teeth.
“What’s the matter? Can’t handle it?” she gloats. She’s loving her control over him. But it’s short-lived when his gaze turns feral.
Lucifer sits up so fast, gluing their fronts together, he pushes her hips down while raising his, causing harder friction. Chloe moans, clawing his back.
“Is that another wager, darling?” he blows hot breath in her ear. She shudders at the endearment. “I think I have half a mind of taking you right here on this bloody couch for a round or three and then we’ll see who couldn’t handle it.”
He suddenly stops their movements. “But I’m not going to do that.”
Chloe furrows her brows. Is he seriously going to leave her like this? But he keeps going.
Lucifer pulls back to touch their foreheads together, the hunger in his eyes is still there, but there’s a soft brown that shakes her like thunder.
“When I finally get to have you, what I plan to do with you, I want to take my precious time getting to know all of you…” He slips his hands under her shirt.
“I want to have all the time in the world getting to know every freckle, every scar…”
His voice turns deep and gravelly. Heat radiates from his touch as he reaches up to caress her shoulder where her bullet scar is. She in turn unconsciously places her palms gently on his back, just between his shoulder blades, but neither notices.
“Every sweet spot that makes you sing…”
Each word has her losing oxygen in her lungs. Dropping his head down to her neck, he sinks his teeth in. Chloe gasps.
The Devil whispers temptation and sin in her ear.
“Scream.”
He flips them over so she’s the one resting on the cushions with him directly above her. He then proceeds to kiss the living daylights out of her, and Chloe eagerly returns it. She cups his face in her hands as their lips glide. His kisses are intoxicating. Her body is buzzing with pleasure, she clenches her thighs around his waist to have him closer.
Their tongues slide so deliciously against each other that she doesn’t feel Lucifer popping her pants open. Sliding a hand in, slipping past her underwear, he finally touches her where she’s aching.
Chloe breaks their kiss to cry out. Head tilted back, Lucifer sucks on her exposed neck. She pants at the stimulation, gripping him tight. She grinds on his fingers, needing more.
Lucifer lifts his lips up to whisper more in her ear, asking her how she wants it, but she just moans, his voice melting her. Taking that as an answer, he puts two fingers in.
She muffles her scream in his shoulder, but he softly grips her hair to pull her back and looks her in the eye. “I want to hear you.” he whispers. She can’t help but whimper when his fingers move in and out faster, her legs shaking. He starts grinding himself on her pelvis and his thumb rubs her, hard.
He starts talking again, but she can’t focus on anything else but the pleasure he’s giving her. She’s so close. Then, one word registers to her mind, she hears her name on his lips.
“Chloe.”
And that’s it. Her back arches as she screams his name. Explosions bursts behind her eyes. His fingers keep going as he prolongs her climax. She whimpers and grips his shirt and he lets her cover her face in his chest, catching her breath.
Chloe looks up to see Lucifer raising his palm to his mouth, licking off the wetness while staring at her with the most sexual gaze and she fucking swears she’s already wet again.
“And that was just a little teaser, love. Just wait for the main event when I finally get to have you in so many ways you will scream your throat bloody raw.”
Her body shivers in anticipation. He’s already figured out that whispering dirty promises in her ear and calling her nicknames turns her on.
“And that’s not even the best part. You get to top me anytime you want.”
At that, her mind replays a faded memory, a fantasy of passion on top of a piano, on a different couch, dragging down a devilish man by his horns.
Lucifer grabs her waist and lifts them both up to stand, she holds on to him her legs shaking from her high. They’re both a mess, clothes wrinkled and hair sticking out all over the place, his curls more prominent. He buttons her pants back in place, she flushes when his fingers brush her stomach, and straightens down her shirt. Now that they finally unstuck themselves from the couch, Chloe doesn’t want to let go of him just yet. Mind slightly cleared, she sees the tent in his pants is still there. She was so caught up with him pleasuring her with just his mouth and fingers that he didn’t get to relieve himself.
“Um, shouldn’t we…?” Minutes ago she was teasing him about it, now she’s suddenly shy.
He peers down at her, mischief in his eyes. She had figured a long time ago nothing ever comes good with that look. He holds her chin up and caresses her bottom lip with his thumb. It’s still moist.
“I’m sure we’ll think of something, love.”
Chloe shudders.
Some time later, she’s eating the omelet Lucifer has cooked for her while she took a shower (“It’ll be more fun if we shower together.” “How original, Detective.”), feeling refreshed wearing clean clothes. It doesn’t say the same for her partner. Lucifer had declined using her bathroom (“It’s not like I haven’t done the walk of shame, darling.”), opting to freshen up back at his place after they have breakfast together.
Speaking of, he’s eating across from her and she’s tries to take short peeks at him when she thinks he’s not looking. Lucifer casually cooking and having breakfast with her, that’s what usually couples do. It’s possibly the most normal thing they ever done together.
“You want some orange juice?”
“I think I’ve rejuvenated myself with some intoxicating juice earlier, love.” he says with a wink. He bites down his omelet showcasing his teeth without breaking eye contact. He chuckles when her face burns red.
Chloe’s halfway thinking of getting back at him by trailing her foot up his leg under the table and work him back up again when they hear the door open and close with a slam and Maze walks in.
“Maze!” Lucifer exclaims.
Chloe flops her foot back down, not feeling the same sentiment as she slumps down in her seat. The little bubble of just her and Lucifer popped too early for her before he even left.
“Hey, Maze.” she says feebly.
Maze is wearing her usual suggestive leather get-up when she stops short when she sees them, eyes flicking between them. Her eyebrows furrow and a frown starts to appear on her lips.
Lucifer doesn’t notice her silence and continues on. “So, how was your nightly hunt? I’d love to know how you caught your wretched bounty this time.”
Maze doesn’t answer, still scrutinizing them both. Though Lucifer groomed himself he’s still in his wrinkled suit and Chloe wonders if Maze is already figuring out why he’s here so early in the morning. She finally settles to glare at him.
“You. Out.”
“What?!” Chloe and Lucifer asks.
She doesn’t take her eyes off him. “You heard me.”
Lucifer sputters. “But – but I haven’t finished my omelet -”
“I don’t care. Out. Or I’ll make you.”
But Maze is already gripping his elbow and bodily drags him out of his chair and to the door with unbelievable strength and speed. Lucifer can’t do anything but helplessly look back at Chloe. She rushes to them, but Maze already has him out of the apartment and slams the door on his face.
“Maze.” Chloe chides her. There was a muffled “Mazikeen!” behind the door. Maze just shrugs and leaves them.
Chloe sighs and opens the door. She sees Lucifer fixing himself as best as he can, sighing as well.
“Well, it’s no fun anymore when a demon spoils the morning,” he mutters, but looks up to smile at her anyway. “Raincheck, darling?”
She pouts. “I’ll see you later, then?” she asks hopefully, reaching for his arm and then thinks, of course she will, they work together. She’s just being clingy after being so close to him the whole night.
He grins wider and grasps her back. “Tall non-fat almond milk latte with sugar-free caramel drizzle.”
“And no vodka this time.” she playfully reminds him.
“No promises.” he retorts back.
She giggles. They both lean at the same time for a kiss. Chloe smiles into it, heart fluttering. The last touch between them is the tips of their fingers.
She watches him go until he’s out of sight, the atmosphere suddenly feels empty. Cold. She shakes her head and closes the door and turns back to the kitchen to see Maze in Lucifer’s previous spot eating the rest of his omelet. She’s staring at her.
“How was it?” Maze asks, mouth full.
“How was what?” Chloe asks back. She drinks her coffee, already knowing where this is going.
“I think you know what I mean, Decker.”
“I think I don’t know what you think you mean, Maze.”
“You had sex with him, didn’t you?”
“And what gave you that idea?”
Maze rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Please, I don’t have to be a detective to figure out that Lucifer slept the night here, Decker, he looked like a fucking rat’s nest. I can analyze post-sex better than you do at a crime scene. Not to mention, don’t think I missed you playing footsie when I came in. And it’s not a coincidence that you’re wearing a turtleneck of all days to hide, I don’t know, a hickey, maybe?”
The more Maze listed off the deeper Chloe lowers her face behind her mug, cheeks burning.
“But that’s not just it, isn’t it?” Maze leaned over the table to squint at her. “You’re still sexually frustrated. Which means he just left you with enough satisfaction but he never did the deed and finally put his dick in your pussy. Or up your ass.”
“Maze!” Chloe says automatically, but there’s no eight-year-old kid around to hear it.
Maze just smirks. “Am I right or am I right?”
How Maze could know all that she doesn’t want to know. Chloe could just deny it more or say it’s none of her business, but she’d been so frustrated the last two weeks of Lucifer leaving her hanging.
She hangs her head and sighs deeply. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Fingers or tongue?”
“I am not going to answer that, Maze.”
She shrugs and leans back, taking another mouthful. “It’s not like him, though. Seriously, he stopped bringing strippers over to his place. I don’t get why he hasn’t boned you ‘til you can’t walk your way to work.”
Chloe silently agrees and thinks about his promise earlier and wonders when he’ll get to it.
She’s about to leave when her phone buzzes and sees a text from Lucifer.
I had a wonderful time ‘sleeping’ with you, Detective. I have better ‘sleeping’ arrangements at my penthouse the next time you want to get more cuddly with me. I have no qualms of you screaming my roof off. No one to interrupt us this time. It’ll be just you and me. ‘Sleeping’ together.
The text ends with a devil emoji. Chloe can’t help but laugh at his quotations, shaking her head. Her heart jumps in elation.
“I wanna hear all about it!” Maze calls.
Probably not, but Chloe sends her a smile over her shoulder anyway. She closes the door and heads over to her car, debating the whole way whether or not she’ll reply if she and Lucifer could do it on a weekend.
Summary: 2x10 AU; Amenadiel is unable to stop his mother from blowing up Chloe's car.
Ao3 - Chapter 1/3
@luciferprompts - Prompt!
“Finally!” The Goddess spoke to herself.
After two hours squatting in some back alley, waiting for Lucifer’s little pet human to leave some stupid restaurant, Chloe finally moved towards the exit. As it approached its car, the Goddess walked to the mouth of the alley to get a better view. She could feel her vessel’s heart beating faster, the closer the human got to the bomb.
It had been quite some time since she’s caused a little chaos to her ex-husband’s toys, and with a single push of a button, everything that stands in her way will be gone. The rush she was experiencing was uniquely different from when she had unleashed floods and plagues on the Earth. She wondered if it was because of the instant gratification that awaited her. Or perhaps, it was because she front row seat to the destruction, unlike before. Whatever the reason, she was pleased.
Just a few more steps, before it was showtime. She could feel the muscles in her face tighten into a smile. The Goddess placed her thumb on the switch. Once the human stepped into its car, the Goddess’s path home will be clear. She’s was seconds away now.
Once the human makes it, it begins to dig in its purse, searching for the keys no doubt. The longer the human digs in her purse, the more anxious she becomes. The human eventually stops. However, instead of opening the door, it turns around to walks back to the valet. The Goddess hears the jiggle of the keys, but can’t stop the smile slipping off her face.
“You can’t kill her mom.”
She’s startled out of her thoughts. The Goddess turns around, and is met with the face of her first born. She glances high above to the darken sky. There’s no doubt in her mind that this wasn’t his doing.
The Goddess let’s out a laugh. “Well of course I can, I just press this button-”
“Mom, please. Give me the detonator.” Amenadiel interrupts her, his tone serious.
“No, this little bug is the reason Lucifer doesn’t want to go home. Squash her, problem solved.” It was so simple. She couldn’t understand why Amenadiel was so concerned.
“Are you really going to make me force it from you?” Amenadiel shifts his feet. His body preparing for a fight.
“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.” The Goddess places the denominator in a pocket inside her jacket.
“I can’t let you kill Chloe, Mom.” Amenadiel marches up to Her.
He reaches for it, but the Goddess is faster. At a speed that Amenadiel did think she was capable of, his mother grabs him by the collar and lifts him up in the air. Amenadiel’s eyes go wide. His brain short-circuiting the moment his feet leave the ground.
“Since when can you--”
“I tried to warn you.” The Goddess reaches for the detonator, once more. “Apparently, human flesh can’t contain my divinity--” The sound of a revving car steals her attention away from her child. “Oh, here we go!” She places Amenadiel on the ground. The rush she experienced earlier returns.
“Bomb’s in the car; so exciting!” She squeals, her smile wide. Everything around her is silenced, as she focuses solely on Chloe. And for a moment, she even forgets Amenadiel’s presence behind her.
The valet parks the car in front of Chloe.
“Mom stop!” Amenadiel yells, as he rushes in front of his mother, blocking her view. “I am trying to help you!” His face pleading with her. She just couldn’t understand why. “I know Lucifer better than he knows himself, and if you kill Chloe, he won’t rest until he finds out who did it. And when he does, Mom, he will hate you forever.”
“Come on, one little human can’t mean more to him than his family.”
“He killed Uriel to protect her.”
“Well--” The Goddess watches the valet hand Chloe her keys. “What’s so damn special about this one.” Her gaze returning to Amenadiel.
“That, I don’t know. But, Mom, the bottom line is. If we want Luci to go home with us, then we need to make sure that it’s his decision to leave Chloe behind.”
The Goddess laughs. “I’m glad you’re worried about your brother, but trust me, Amenadiel.” She places a hand of his cheek. “She is nothing, but a toy. I will simply get him a new one.”
Amenadiel growls in frustration. “You’re not listening!”
“That’s enough, Amenadiel! Now, move.” She orders.
“No.” Amenadiel dives for the detonator. The Goddess grabs his hand, and throws him into the adjacent building. He falls to the alley floor, grunting in pain as he rolls on the ground, trying to pick himself up. The Goddess places her foot on his chest to stop him.
“Stay down, Amenadiel.”
“Mom, please! You can’t take her away from him. He will spiral out of control. I know you don’t understand, but believe me! Doing this, killing her, will only push him away!”
Goddess stared down at her son. Her face blank, and for moment, he thinks he’s finally gotten through to her. Until her arm, detonator in hand, stretches out in from of him. Her thumb covering the surface of the button.
Then, time slows.
He’s not sure if his powers returned, or if his mind was simply going into shock. But, he watches the milliseconds get dragged out to what feels like hours. However, just because time slowed, it didn’t mean that it stop, no matter how much he wished. And he watches his mother’s thumb slowly pushes down on the button.
He hears a click, and then his vision is slowly consumed by light.
The of sound screeching metal, follows.
And then, a shockwave pushes them further in the alley.
Once he collides with the ground, time is restored. However, it’s the only function that seems to be working. His thoughts are cloudy; his vision swimming. There’s a constant ringing in ears. And his body refuses to listen his commands. But he is the firstborn, God’s mightiest warrior, so he perseveres.
His mother is behind him, clutching her head; However, he pays her no attention. He staggers to his feet, swaying left and right as he makes is way to ground zero. His vision is still in constant motion, but he’s able to make out Chloe’s blurry figure.
She was blown several feet away from her car, the now blacked frame that was still ablaze. As he makes his way towards her, the ringing in his ear stops, his mind clears, and his vision comes into focus. And...
He wished it hadn’t.
For what greeted him, was chaos: people screaming, crying, and running in terror, glass and debris littering the ground, the city block being lit with an orange glow from the flames. Nothing, but chaos surrounded him, chaos that his mother willing chose to commit. He feels sick to his stomach.
Taking a deep breath, he forces his mind to focus. He needs to get to Chloe, and he does. But it’s strange…
Her placement on the ground doesn’t make any sense. She was blown roughly six feet from the trunk of her car. But, shouldn’t she be inside the flaming vehicle? With him and his mom’s arguing, Chloe had more than enough time to get inside it. By all means, she should be dead.
Amenadiel shakes his head once more. Focus, he tells himself. Attend to Chloe, first. Worry about the logic, later.
Her porcelain skin covered in burns, cuts, and soot. Her body is colored in red and black. Amenadiel reaches for her pulse. It’s beating hard and fast. He doesn’t know much about human anatomy or how to heal wounds, but he has a basic understanding. He checks her to for bleeding. He finds nothing, but a few small cuts and gashes on her body. However, his heart plummets when he checks her head. Her hair is soared in blood from a gash she must have obtained from the impact with the ground. He quickly removes his jacket, and uses it to apply pressure to the wound.
He looks around, and yells for someone to call an ambulance. He’s not sure if anyone heard him, but prays they did.
Suddenly, he hears a scream from behind him.
It’s his mother’s voice. Turning his head, he sees Her cradling a body to Her chest. They’re closer to the destroyed vehicle, than Amenadiel and Chloe. And his mother continues to cry and call out Amenadiel’s name, but he can’t take his eyes off the body in Her arms. His brain is insisting that he knows this person, but he just can’t connect the dots. Or perhaps...he’s still in shock.
Because, even though the person’s clothes are tattered and covered in soot, it’s obvious that the human body is male and wearing a suit. A suit that he saw Lucifer wearing earlier…
Because it is Lucifer. His mind tells him. Amenadiel continues to stare at his mother and brother. All he can think to himself is that Lucifer must have removed his angelic glamour, his “Devil Face” as he calls it, during the explosion. Except, it can’t be, because his’s demonic appearance doesn’t have a head of hair. Because, it isn’t is his “Devil Face”, it’s his angelic form completely burned.
His mother yells at him again, pleading with him to tell Her what do, but he doesn’t know. He’s never had to treat a burn wound before, so he tells Her to check his pulse. And when she yells back that she can’t find it, the world begins to spin again.
It’s Chloe’s groaning that snaps him back to the present. Chloe. He has to help Chloe. He keeps his eyes focused her, and nothing else. His mother keeps screaming at him, but he tunes her out.
Prompt alert: Lucifer getting used to flying again and ends up taking Chloe for a flight
“Wait,” Ella says. “Are you serious? He has wings? Wingy-wings?”
“Yeah.” Chloe rubs the bridge of her nose. “I know I sound a little cracked, but… I kind of figured that you were the only person I could talk to who might get it.”
“Aw, man. That is so sweet. But.” Ella is not going to be distracted. “He has, you know – ” She does an improvised Funky Chicken in the middle of the forensics lab. “Can he fly? Because I’m sorry, that would be awesome.”
Chloe eyes her narrowly. “You’re taking this surprisingly well.”
“Why not?” Ella shrugs. “I’ve always known there was something different about him. Weird. I mean, not weird – well, yes, weird, a lot weird, but more than just that. Him being an angel, I can’t say I’m all that shocked, you know? It’s not like it’s something that I think can’t happen. I believe in a book where it happens a lot. Hey, has he announced anything? Like the two of you are meant to be and having a miracle baby?”
Chloe’s look turns cold. “No.”
“Darn.” Ella sighs. “Anyway. Wow. I have so many questions. I’m not gonna ask them, because he’ll do that thing where he spooks and runs away like a startled turtle. If turtles ran, but you know what I mean. Is he here?”
“Yeah. In the break room.” At the other woman’s look of barely restrained curiosity, Chloe sighs and decides that since the cat, or rather the angel, is out of the bag, they might as well at least allow Ella a chance to peek. Not that Lucifer is going to be strutting around the station with his wings (or any other part of him, hopefully) hanging out, but still. “Fine. Come on.”
They leave Ella’s lab and start down the corridor to the break room. Just before they enter, however, they hear a familiar voice complaining, “Lucifer, did you eat my pudding again?”
“I did not.”
“It was right there!” Trust Dan’s dessert-related tribulations to be ongoing. “Look, I might not mind letting you have it if you asked, but you can’t just grab it and – ”
“Fine, if it’s that big of a deal, I’ll just fly down to the corner store and act as your personal messenger angel, shall I? More of Gabby’s gig than mine, but if you insist – ”
“Lucifer, can you not say crazy shit for two seconds and just – how’d you fly, anyway – ”
“Oh for goodness’ sake, Daniel! WITH THESE!”
There is a rush of air, a whoosh, a sudden light that does not come from the dismal fluorescents, and papers swirl off down the hall in a miniature cyclone. Chloe stops, stares, and then rushes forward, Ella on her heels, to wrench the door open and find Dan flattened across the far wall looking as if he is about to have a heart attack. This is understandable, due to the fact that Lucifer is standing with wings unfolded, bursting from the back of his usual smart suit jacket, tips almost touching the workplace safety poster on one wall and the coffee machine on the other. At the sight of her, he folds them tidily against his shoulders and smiles brightly. “Ah! Detective!”
“Lucif – ” Chloe shakes her head almost in slow motion. “What are you doing –?”
“I’m trying to get better about being honest about myself, what’s it look like?” Lucifer regards Dan critically. “Though that might have been a bit much, I admit.”
“Have you always had those?” Dan keeps staring, then whirls on Chloe, wild-eyed, as she is obviously more familiar with Lucifer’s bits and bobs than he is. “Has he always had those?”
“I was born with them, yes,” Lucifer says, rather impatiently. “However, they are a recent and unfortunate re-acquisition, so no. I haven’t always had them.”
“Dude!” Ella exclaims. “Those are awesome!”
Lucifer looks slightly mollified – and also touched, even if he glances down quickly to hide it. “Terrible bother, trust me. And Daniel, I didn’t eat your pudding, but as I said, I’ll flap off and get some more if it’ll help.” He seems suddenly uncertain. “Daniel, say something.”
“What the hell.” Dan wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I knew you were weird, but I didn’t know that involved feathers.”
With that, some of the tension eases, and everyone seems to draw a breath as the wings fold out of the visible plane with a soft flutter – which, after all, is quite a remarkable thing to be happening in a suburban police station. Chloe hopes nobody is watching the break room cameras right now. Nobody seems entirely certain what to say, until Ella steps over and – clearly to Lucifer’s shock – hugs him. “Yeah. Be your true self, buddy. We gotcha.”
Lucifer swallows visibly, eyes rather bright, as he puts a hand on Ella’s shoulder and gingerly disentangles her. “Well,” he says, and coughs. “Thank you, Miss Lopez.”
“And here I always thought you were a method actor.” Ella shakes her head. “This is way cooler.”
————–
Chloe still is not entirely sure how she is processing this. It’s been a few weeks since the wing bombshell, and she and Lucifer have tried to go back to their usual work, but all the unanswered questions hang thickly in the air. He’s been parceling out bits of information, dribs and drabs, but he still avoids coming clean in any great rush, and she can tell he’s still on edge and distracted about the whole situation, about what it means for them, about how they can possibly be anything like what they were before. It’s hard, admittedly, to go about your day-to-day life, to question suspects and fill out paperwork, knowing that the guy next to you is – well, who he is. It hasn’t changed anything, really. He’s still Lucifer. But yet it has, and neither of them are entirely sure how or why. Lucifer seems, if such a thing is possible, shy.
As Chloe is leaving the station that evening, having sent their latest case on to the prosecutor’s office and hoping she can get home, take a long bath, and drink a lot of wine, she finds Lucifer leaning against the Corvette in the staff parking lot, having a pensive smoke and listening to the distant sound of traffic. He glances up at the sound of her footsteps. “Detective.”
“Lucifer.” It sounds awkward, almost formal. “So… just. Flashing the station now, huh?”
It’s a mark of how off his footing he is these days that he doesn’t go for the golden opportunity to make some crack about the other kind of flashing he could do, if she’s interested. He blows out a meditative cloud of smoke. “Daniel will probably recover from the shock.”
“Probably, but…” Chloe hesitates. “All this secrecy and evasion, and now you’re just… okay with everyone knowing?”
“It’s not everyone,” Lucifer points out, with some asperity. “You, Daniel, and Miss Lopez. Oh, and Dr. Linda. I showed her at our session this morning.”
“So you’re seeing her again?” Chloe nods encouragingly. “That’s good.”
Lucifer sucks the last drag out of his cigarette and tosses the butt in the air, where it vanishes with a small puff. Chloe has never seen him like this in any number of ways, with this casual and unconscious use of what must be considerable power, and she wonders if she still affects him in the same way. He’s always said she makes him vulnerable, that he’s more human when she’s around, susceptible to injury, but as she can’t cancel out something that’s physically part of him, that does not seem to include the wings. Furthermore, as is evident by their very presence, the rules are changing, and she wonders suddenly if that’s played into some of his standoffishness around her. At least they more or less knew how it worked when he was Lucifer Morningstar, her eccentric but lovable coworker. Trying to navigate the dangerous waters of Lucifer Morningstar, apparently no-longer-fallen-angel and Devil in the flesh, is… different.
“If you’re here to have a go at me for showing them,” Lucifer says after a moment, tiredly, “then why not just get it over with?”
“No. I mean, they’re your wings, it’s your choice who you show them to.” Chloe sucks in a breath, attempting to steady herself. “I just… was going to say that I… well, that I miss you.”
He glances up, startled and wary. “I’ve been back, Detective. Haven’t I?”
“Yes, but… things have just been off with us for a long time, and I understand why they have been, and I know both of us are working through some things, but…” Now that she’s said it, it’s hard to hold back the emotions bubbling beneath the surface. She can’t quite look at his face, just in case. “I miss you, all right? I miss how we used to be, and… I don’t know who this new Lucifer is either. But I wouldn’t mind having my Lucifer back for a bit.”
Both of them catch that, how easily it slipped out – my Lucifer – and it remains hanging in the air for an uncomfortable moment. They cough, neither of them certain if they should acknowledge or ignore it. Then Lucifer blows out a slow sigh. “Come by Lux later,” he says. “Maybe we’ll see what we can sort out.”
“Okay.” Chloe smiles at him, small but genuine, and heads for her car. Drives home, makes dinner, asks if Maze would mind staying home with Trixie tonight (the demon doth protest too much, usually, as she is clearly content to sit and play whatever Trixe thinks up) and then wonders if Lucifer meant something special, or just, you know, drinks with friends. Chloe changes out of her usual jacket and jeans, lets her hair down, but doesn’t want to overdo it. Once it is late enough that most of the rush hour traffic has subsided (though this is L.A., so of course there is still some traffic), she gets back in the car and drives to Hollywood Boulevard.
She parks and goes inside the club. It’s a fairly quiet weekday night, no major events or parties, and the place is only about half-full, mellow jazz, low conversation. Lucifer is sitting by his piano, looking as if he’s spent the last several hours questioning his better judgment (though that would imply that he had better judgment), but he stands up nervously when he sees her. “Ah. Detective.”
“Hey.” Chloe smiles awkwardly, ducking her head, as she follows him to the elevator and up to the penthouse. He isn’t acting like he’s intending to swoop her away (in any sense of the word) and ravish her, though an admittedly thirsty part of her might not mind if he was. But they reach the apartment and step out, and Lucifer hesitates, then pulls off his jacket, leaving Chloe suddenly wondering if a hot night is on the agenda after all. She might have spent more time on her hair if so. “Lucifer – ”
He turns around – white shirt, suspenders, suit slacks, shined shoes. His usual ensemble.Then, with the soft rustle and faint glow that announces their arrival, the wings. It’s somewhat less shocking each time, a bit more normal, as much as this could ever be. He stands there, clearly hideously uncomfortable, as if he’s a museum artifact on display. “I… ah. There they are. If you had, well. Questions.”
Chloe has many, probably more than Ella, but she also doesn’t want to stand there and just interrogate him. What comes to mind is, “Why don’t they tear your clothes?”
“I’m not the Incredible Hulk, Detective.” Lucifer raises an eyebrow. “And besides, they’re angel wings. They don’t obey the laws of human physics.”
Chloe moves closer, circling around behind to look. She can’t help brushing her fingers lightly over them, and sees him shudder. “Do they weigh much?”
“No. Nothing, really.” Lucifer attempts a shrug. “Or perhaps I was just used to them before. They do seem heavier now.”
Chloe makes a small noise in her throat, still unable to believe that anything could be so soft. The question she really wants to know, of course, is the same as Ella’s. “Have you flown yet?”
“I tried. The other night.”
“Did it … not work?”
“Oh no. It worked.” Lucifer’s expression is odd. “But I’m not sure it’s a wise idea to get into the habit. The bloody things appeared, they could disappear again. Besides, I’m still planning to hack them off again myself if not.”
Chloe does not in the least believe him, but decides not to say so. She can tell that Lucifer is refusing to get into the habit again because he misses it too much to let himself think that he could have it on a consistent basis, or what it would mean to accept the wings rather than rejecting them again. She doesn’t get half of it, but there’s plenty mixed up with them, something that Lucifer cannot take without reservations, or possibly even at all. But be that all as it may, she will kick herself forever if she doesn’t ask at least once. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “Can you fly me?”
Lucifer looks as startled as if she just turned blue. “Fl – ?”
“Not for long,” Chloe says, feeling herself blush like a volcano. “Just, you know. Around the block or something.”
Lucifer continues to look stunned.
“I’m sorry, is that a huge angel faux pas or something?”
“I – no. It’s just, I… don’t think I’ve ever done that before. Certainly not to a human. Maybe a very long time ago, when I was a wee young devil, but – ”
Chloe takes a moment to consider the totally adorable mental image of a bunch of baby angels having piggyback races around heaven, and has to cough hard. “I’m sorry. You can forget I asked. I just – ”
“I mean.” Lucifer seems rather taken aback. “I suppose I could try. It will likely be horrible and cold and disappointing, though.”
“I’ll get over the shock.” Chloe musters up a smile, trying not to show how much she wants it. Even if, nothing else, just to touch him properly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Lucifer mutters something under his breath, then strides to the balcony and steps out, as Chloe hesitates, then follows him. He holds out his arms, and she steps over, linking her own arms around his neck, as he takes a firm grip on her waist. It feels a bit like Tarzan and Jane, really, but they make it work. Then he takes a deep breath, clearly cannot believe he is doing this, and says, “Ready, Detective?”
“Yeah. Don’t, uh. Don’t drop me.”
Lucifer gives her an indignant look, as it is clearly a personal insult to think he would ever be so clumsy. Then he backs up, takes a running start, and hurtles at the edge of the balcony, as Chloe has just enough time to think that she really hopes he’s practiced more than once. She does not particularly feel like being Failed Test Run #2.
The railing rushes toward them, Chloe squeals despite herself, and then they launch upwards in a whirl of white feathers, twenty stories above the ground. The small glowing dots of cars beetle past below, as they gain altitude with a few quick, effortless strokes, rising upward as Chloe likewise hopes that no helicopters are passing through. Her hair whips to every side, her eyes watering, as she tightens her death grip on him and tries not to look down. They are high. She doesn’t know how high, exactly, and probably would prefer not to. It’s definitely high. Very, very high. “Okay,” she squeaks, hoping her dangling shoe won’t fall off. “Got it!”
He glances at her with a distinctly devilish aspect. “Not afraid of heights, are you, Detective?”
“No, not really, just – ” She did, after all, ask for this. The view is also, to say the least, stupendous. Dark mountains to one side, dark sea to the other, and the endless, glittering city that is Southern California between. “But Lucifffff — ahhh!”
The reason for her sudden exercise in new high octaves is due to him plunging headfirst into a nearby fogbank like a kamikaze pilot. However fast she thought angels could go – she wasn’t sure – it is clearly much faster, and she gives an excellent full-throated scream, fingers going numb as she clings onto him for all her life is worth, as he barrel-races through it and emerges higher on the other side, as Chloe thinks she can practically reach up and snatch a star from the sky like a fat jewel. She has never seen the stars in Los Angeles before, and, it goes without saying, certainly never like this. She and Lucifer, damp from the mist and shivering in the wind, hug each other close, her feet dangling several thousand feet above I-10. The wings are still unearthly warm, and Lucifer spreads them to ride an updraft like a hawk, not flapping, just gliding. Chloe is never going to forget this moment as long as she lives.
Neither of them say anything, lost in a trance, as they lazily bank and soar. Chloe hitches her legs up around his waist, clinging to him like a sloth to a log, as he wraps his arms with reassuring firmness around her back. She is still half convinced that he’ll fake-drop her just to be a dick, but the only person more horrified than her at the possibility is him. And she does. Trust him.
After a few more broad swoops, as Lucifer can clearly hear her teeth starting to chatter like a nutcracker, he turns back and propels them the way they came. It is astounding how much power is in even half a beat of the wings, how far it sends them, as they glide through the dark air and back under the fog to the glow of L.A. Chloe is sure she sees someone goggling at them out the window of an office building, and then Lucifer’s own balcony is rushing up at them, he decelerates hard, and comes to an only slightly skidding landing. “Well, Detective?” he says, breathless but pleased with himself. “How was that?”
“That was – ” Chloe is still catching her own breath, which may take several years. “That. Was. Okay. Okay, then. I. Well. Wow. Okay.”
It takes them a moment to work out how to let go of each other, which they do with a slight cough. Her hands linger on him, as do his on her, until he reaches up to tidy a strand of wet hair out of her face. “I’m,” he says, and hesitates, oddly diffident. “I’m glad you liked it, Chloe.”
She has never been so close as she is then to leaning up on her tiptoes and kissing him, kissing him properly, the way she wants to and then some. They seem drawn to each other by some strange gravity nonetheless, leaning in, foreheads touching. In that moment, in that stillness, everything seems restored again. Not the way they were before, not quite, because it cannot be. But something new. And it is then, so simply, that Chloe realizes – not that she’s falling in love, as that would imply that it was half-done, that it could be reversed. No. That she already is. Long since, and long gone. That he is her world and heart and soul.
Rattled, she pulls back. “I – thanks, Lucifer. It’s late, I should get going.”
His eyes hold hers for a moment. If he senses what she just understood, he doesn’t say. Then he nods once, and steps away. “Good night, Detective,” he says. “You’re welcome.”
Barely catching her breath, knowing it’s cowardly, that she’s doing what he does, that she can hardly stand the magnitude of what is rising in her, the heat that is not from the wings – she runs.
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN UP IN THE DECKERSTAR PARTNER SECRET EXCHANGE!
Don’t miss this opportunity ;D
What is this?
Mostly a partnered fanwork exchange for DS shippers to create a lot of works and have fun together.
How does a partnered exchange work?
You sign up for the exchange and you will receive another Deckerstar shipper as a partner (paired by things you like and don’t like)
You both come up with a prompt that you’d like to receive
You work together to fulfill the prompt of another couple of people
And the schedule?
February 20 - March 02 - Sign up
March 03 - March 05 - You will receive your partner
March 06 - March 10 - You and your partner submit a prompt
March 11 - March 12 - Every pair will receive their prompt
March 13 - April 24 - Is the time you have to work at your pompt
April 25 - Posting date!
Types of works?
You can make anything you like with your partner - fanfiction, gifsets, fanart, fanmixes, edits etc. - as long as it fills your pairs’s prompt!
How to sign up/participate?
Your askbox must be open!
This event is open to everyone!!!
Submit (February 20 - March 02) a post in our blog by filling this form:
Tumblr Username: (your username)
What your fanwork talents are: (write fic, make gifs, graphics, vids)
Anything you don’t wish to receive or write: (note any triggers, issues, etc.)
Once you find out who your partner is, send them an ask and get to know one another!
Plan a prompt you both would like to receive and submit it in our blog (March 06 - March10) by filling this form:
Tumblr Usernames: (your username and your partner’s username)
Your Prompt:
Anything you don’t wish to receive or write: (note any triggers, issues, etc.)
Send anon love to your pair and remember to send the same message to both!
Of course you have to stay anonymous until April 25, the posting day.
