That God-Damned Man - Linzorz (2024)

Chapter 1: Any Questions?

Chapter Text

Lucifer Morningstar was going to drive Chloe completely insane. Every time she had to interact with the man, he found a new way to get under her skin and tweak all of the strings that held down her fraying patience.

It had started with him butting his way into her investigation into Delilah’s death. Then smoking evidence at a crime scene, treating her like his own personal police concierge, and just generally turning up like a bad penny every time she turned around.

The document she started compiling on her computer, titled ‘That God-Damned Man’, began as a way to let off steam. It was either that or inevitably blow up at him, in person, at the worst possible time. His incessant attempts to get her into bed, his concerning levels of alcohol consumption, his sudden bursts of anger and physical threats, his utter disregard for any kind of normal boundaries… and who could forget the ‘Devil’ thing? She quickly compiled a detailed list of grievances long enough that she ended up having to organize it by topic.

His sudden violence with Benny Choi, and Benny’s subsequent terror, was the most recent of her long list of complaints. Chloe scrolled through her document, rereading some of her earlier notes while she looked for the section that detailed all of Lucifer’s violent outbursts. Something pinged in her subconscious and made her stop. Something about the boundaries issues and risky behavior. She reread her notes again, more carefully, and felt her heart drop straight through the floor.

Major substance abuse.

Risky, self-destructive, and impulsive behavior.

Anger and anxiety.

Inability to form healthy, mature relationships—both platonic and romantic.

Age-inappropriate behavior.

Self-blame, guilt, and low self-esteem (to the point he considered himself the Devil).

The sudden switch in his demeanor when she’d almost touched his scars.

Rampant promiscuity, not to mention Lucifer’s transactional approach to sex that she’d witnessed during their interaction with Dr. Martin.

Suddenly, Lucifer’s disregard for boundaries made all too much sense, and Chloe wanted to kick herself. Hard. She felt like a complete asshole. Lucifer wasn’t being a dick on purpose… well, most of the time. There was a really good chance that, in many cases, he really hadn’t been taught any better.

The next time he propositioned her (she didn’t have to wait long), she decided to try a different approach.

“I am now an official civilian consultant for the LAPD,” he proudly informed her while Olivia gave her interview. “Not that there’s anything civil about the Devil. What fun would that be?”

“Okay, then,” Chloe said, with far less resignation than he’d expected. “You win. We’re partners.”

“What, you’re not going to protest?”

“Actually, no. I may have no idea what your angle is, but… at least now I can keep my eye on you. Keep your enemies close, right?”

“Close? So, does this mean you’re going to take me home and consummate our new arrangement, Detective?”

She eyed him for a moment, considering. “…Lucifer?”

“Detective,” he purred back, leaning even further into her space.

“Do you… genuinely… not know why I won’t sleep with you?”

“Well, of course not!” he replied. “You’ve never given me a reason, you know.”

“And me not wanting to isn’t a reason?”

He drew back a little, clearly affronted. “Of course it is, darling.” He paused, head tilting in consideration, then swayed back into her space. “But you’ve never said that, either,” he pointed out, seductive charm dripping from every word.

Chloe took a breath. She flexed her hands in and out of fists. She had a point to this and she was not going to let him get under her skin before she gave it a try. “I’m not interested in casual sex,” she told him, making sure to enunciate clearly. He opened his mouth, confusion painted across his face, but she forged on. “I’m pretty sure you have every STD known to man, and I don’t want to risk exposure to that. You’re really annoying sometimes—”

He scoffed. “Annoying!?”

“—And, you know, that’s kind of a turn-off. And you’re completely self-centered, which is a huge turn-off. That’s why I don’t want to sleep with you.”

Lucifer blinked at her, speechless.

“Any questions?”

He kept staring at her. Great, she’d broken him.

“Well, come on,” she said impatiently. “You need a ride home, or not?”

He did have questions.

Questions which he decided to ask while she was in the middle of a storage warehouse staring at a dead security guard, surrounded by her colleagues.

“When you say ‘casual sex’—”

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut. Of course he’s doing this now.

“—Do you…” He trailed off, suddenly horrified. “Oh, darling, please tell me you’ve had sex with more than just the one person!”

The officers around them glanced in their direction, and Chloe had to tell herself several times that the temporary humiliation would be worth it if Lucifer would finally stop trying to get into her pants. “What are you talking about?!” she whispered at him, hoping against hope that he’d take the hint and match her volume.

“Well, you’ve only been married once,” he said—at his normal volume, naturally—and held out a hand as if presenting her with a perfectly reasonable argument. “You said it yourself, that you’re not interested in casual sex. Therefore…”

She snatched the outstretched hand and, ignoring his squawking protests, used it to haul him outside, where there were at least fewer people around to overhear them. “Lucifer, you don’t have to be married in order to have a committed, monogamous relationship with someone!”

That seemed to throw him for a loop. He pondered the concept for several blissfully silent seconds. “What’s the difference?”

She stared at him incredulously, mouth hanging open. A few days before, she would have snapped at him and then ignored him for the next hour. Now, though, she took in his baffled expression, oddly innocent considering his proclivities, and thought to herself: I. Freaking. Knew it!

“Marriage is for—” She caught herself, thinking about her failed marriage to Dan. “It’s supposed to be for life. But not everybody wants that.”

“So… instead of promising a lifetime, you have sex with just that person, on the assumption that you’ll later have sex with a different person?” From his incredulous tone, he found the whole concept ridiculous.

“It’s not like you go into a relationship assuming it’s going to end! You hope it’ll last.”

Lucifer nodded thoughtfully, but then turned a narrow-eyed expression on her as if she was trying to trick him. “That still doesn’t explain why anyone would rather have sex with fewer people, though.” He scoffed. “One at a time! Doesn’t that get boring?”

Chloe didn’t even have to ask to know that Lucifer had never, ever been in a committed relationship. “Sex can be much more meaningful when you’re in that kind of relationship with someone,” she said, trying to keep her growing impatience out of her voice.

He looked extremely doubtful, but he also looked like he was taking her seriously. For once. “And… that’s what you want?” he asked. “Meaningful sex?”

“Yes, Lucifer. I want meaningful sex.” She smiled tightly. “With someone who’s not annoying, self-centered, or riddled with STDs.”

Somehow, this shut him up for the rest of the time it took for her to examine the crime scene. In the back of Chloe’s head, there were fireworks going off and a full seventy-six trombones leading a celebratory parade. Until they were walking back to her cruiser and he asked, very seriously, “How long does a relationship have to be, for the sex to be meaningful?”

Chloe sighed. “Lucifer?”

“Yes, Detective?”

“Talking about sex in public is annoying.”

Forty minutes later, she did a double-take when she saw him sitting on her desk at the precinct. “What the hell, Lucifer? I just dropped you off at Lux!”

“Yes, and I am very appreciative of that, Detective. As a matter of fact, as soon as I got inside, dear Maze informed me that the stolen container was mine! Can you imagine?”

“Your container?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Your container was in a facility known for housing illegal contraband?”

“Ooh, I didn’t know that!” He was delighted. “But very fitting, don’t you think?”

Chloe sighed. “Asking the obvious, here, but did your container have illegal contraband?”

“Define ‘illegal’,” he said playfully.

Direct questions, Chloe reminded herself. “What was in the container?”

“A personal item. A, um, gift from my Dad.”

She pursed her lips in frustration. “Right. Okay. Look, I’m not making a… a deal with you…”

“No?”

“No. But, Lucifer, I have been answering your questions, haven’t I?”

“Well… yes. I suppose you have.”

“Some pretty personal questions?”

He gave her a salacious smile.

“So,” Chloe said, “maybe it would be fair if you answered mine, too?”

His face fell into a disgruntled pout. She had a point and, for once, he had to admit it. “Very well, Detective. It was a set of Russian dolls.”

“A set of…?”

“Russian dolls, yes.”

“…Russian dolls.” There was no way. “Really?”

“Yes! Really!”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I find out you’re lying…”

“I have never lied to you, Detective,” he said, suddenly serious. His eyes were solemn as he held her gaze. “And I will never lie to you. Now, are we quite done asking repetitive questions? Because I’ve got a lead.”

“Why didn’t you lead with that?!”

“You didn’t ask,” he said smugly. “Shall we?”

“So… The snow cone guy?”

“Mm,” Lucifer replied absently, more interested in studying the flavors on offer. “His name’s Frankie Costa, and his real job is transporting and storing illegal goods.”

“Got it.” She flashed her badge when they got to the front of the line. “Frankie Costa? LAPD. We’ve got some qu—”

He bolted.

Well, he tried to. Lucifer caught him by the collar as he dove out the back of his truck and flung him up against the side, making the metal protest as it buckled. “Frankie!” he exclaimed, a predator’s smirk on his face. “Frankie, Frankie, Frankie, where do you think you’re going?”

“You’ve got the wrong guy, I swear!” the man protested, holding up both hands.

“Don’t lie to me, Frankie,” Lucifer growled. “Maze set up the warehouse through you, personally.” He looked over his shoulder at Chloe. “So if someone knew to rob it, he’d be involved. Isn’t that right, Frankie?” he finished, turning his hypnotic glare back onto the man cowering in front of them.

“I wouldn’t steal from my own operation,” Frankie blurted. “That warehouse is off-limits. I’m trying to get out of the storage racket.”

“Yes, focus, Frankie. Who took my property?”

“I don’t know! I’m trying to find out, myself. It’s bad for business.”

“And who would know about the storage service?” Chloe asked.

Frankie squirmed, trying to get free. “Hey, man, aren’t you the police? I have rights!”

“I am,” Chloe said. She nodded towards Lucifer with a glint in her eye. “But he’s not. So, say, if I were to walk away, he could do whatever he wants to you.”

Lucifer turned his head and gave her an impressed look.

“Or, if you’re not responsible,” she continued, “you can point us in the direction of someone who is. Cool?” Chloe smirked; Lucifer waggled his eyebrows at the guy.

“Okay, okay.” Frankie huffed. “Los Diablos.”

“The biker club?” Chloe asked.

“Yeah. I run the warehouse, but they run the docks. If anything went down, they would know about it.”

Lucifer wasn’t convinced; he tightened his grip on Frankie’s collar, lifting him up by an inch.

“That’s all I know,” Frankie gasped. “I swear.”

Lucifer wasn’t going to let him down, but Chloe put a hand on his arm. “All right,” she said. “That’s enough.”

Lucifer sighed. “Fine.” He tossed the man to the side, then clambered into the open back of the truck. When he came out, he had a red snow cone in his hand.

“That was incredible,” he said as they walked along the beachfront. “It was musical, poetic really. We were like fish and chips. Salt and pepper. Hipsters and condescension.”

Chloe sighed and shook her head. “We’ve really got to talk about excessive force.”

“What do you mean, Detective?” he asked through a mouthful of snow cone. “He told us everything we wanted to know, didn’t he?”

“Grabbing him by the collar… okay, yeah,” she admitted. “It’s a little forceful, but you probably wouldn’t get in trouble for it. The guy was trying to run away and you caught him, so… Thank you. But, Lucifer, you dented the guy’s truck with him!”

“So?”

“So?!” she echoed. She shook her head in disbelief. She thought about Trixie, getting bigger every day, playing the same game of ‘yank Mommy’s arms’ that was cute when she was two years old, except when an eight-year-old did it, it hurt. “Look, you’re really strong, right? Like, a lot stronger than most people.”

“You might even say devilishly strong,” he replied with a grin.

“Yeah. Well, you use that kind of strength against people, they’re going to get hurt.”

“Yes, that’s the point, Detective,” he said, all innocence if it weren’t for the actual words he was saying.

She stopped and made him look her in the eye. “You shouldn’t do it. Okay? Do you want the moral reason or the practical reason?”

He looked genuinely perplexed. “Well, both, I suppose.”

“Okay, well, the moral reason is, he didn’t deserve to get hurt like that. The practical reason is, if he complains, I could get in trouble.”

“The miscreant tried to run away! Surely, that—”

“He deserved fractured vertebrae for trying to run away?”

“I—” He paused, and his face fell as he realized what she was saying. “Ah. Yes, I see. Perhaps it was a disproportionate punishment. Very well, Detective. I shall do my best to remember my own strength, and not cause undeserved harm.”

Chloe immediately spotted the loopholes he’d left himself, but it was a far better concession than she’d expected, so she let it lie for the moment. “Thank you.”

They started walking again, and Lucifer dug back into his snow cone. “So! Under what rock will we find Los Diablos? It’s a very on-the-nose name, if you ask me.”

“Actually, I have to go pick Trixie up from school. I can drop you off at Lux?”

Lucifer beamed at her. “That would be lovely, Detective, thank you. Ooh, actually—” He checked his watch. “Could you take me to Dr. Martin’s? My appointment is in twenty minutes.”

“Dr. Martin?”

“You remember! The therapist? I’m a client of hers,” he said, a hint of pride in his voice.

“You’re seeing a therapist? Wow, uh…” Chloe would never have expected that, but she was impressed. “Good for you. Yeah, sure.”

Lucifer grinned again. “Lovely!”

“It was marvelous, Doctor!” Lucifer enthused. “She told me exactly what she desired! She even answered my questions, rather than getting all huffy at me like she normally does!”

“And you appreciated that,” Linda said.

“Of course I appreciated it! Now I know exactly what I have to do in order to get her to have sex with me.”

“Which is what?”

“Why, convince her I’m neither annoying nor self-centered, of course.”

For a moment, Linda looked like she was choking. “I see.”

“And that I’m not ‘riddled with STDs’, as she puts it,” Lucifer continued, making air quotes around the phrase the Detective had used. “Obviously, I can’t catch human diseases, but it should be simple enough to find a doctor who can put that on paper for her.”

Having met Chloe, Linda knew she needed to press just a little more. “So, Chloe informed you that she’d have sex with you if you weren’t annoying or self-centered, and didn’t have any STDs?”

The ever-scrupulous Devil hedged a bit at that. “She… Well, she said she wanted ‘meaningful sex with someone who’s not annoying, self-centered, or riddled with STDs’.”

There it was.

“It sounds like Chloe had one more condition,” Linda observed.

Lucifer leaned back into the couch and pouted. “What does that even mean, ‘meaningful sex’? Why does sex have to have meaning? Besides pleasure, of course.”

“Sex is a form of physical intimacy,” Linda explained. “You could get the same pleasurable sensations all by yourself, with the right… Let’s call them ‘tools’. The only thing missing would be the physical closeness to another person.”

“Yes, but that’s not nearly as fun!”

“Exactly.” Linda gave him an encouraging smile. “The intimacy of sharing that act with another person is part of the appeal. Emotional intimacy, which Chloe is most likely referring to when she talks about ‘meaningful sex’, can add to that appeal even more.”

That sounded… logical. Even if he’d never experienced it himself. He considered this for a little while—it didn’t sound like his idea of fun, but it was something new. Novelty, for a being older than time, was certainly an enticing prospect. Even if the Detective’s own stated requirements for ‘meaningful sex’—commitment and (he shuddered) monogamy—sounded torturously boring. Maybe the anticipation would be pleasurable enough to make it worthwhile. It could be a new kind of edging, he reasoned to himself.

“Very well, Doctor. So, how do I do that?”

“Do—?”

“Emotional intimacy,” he said, gesturing impatiently. “How does it work? Something analogous to foreplay, I assume?”

Linda blinked at him. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Another blink. And to think, she thought to herself, this is progress. She sighed internally. Damn it. I have to stop sleeping with him.

Chapter 2: Much Easier for Both of Us

Chapter Text

“Dan, you promised.” Chloe cradled the phone against her shoulder as she pulled into Lux’s valet lane, waving off the attendant who came trotting up.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but—”

Lucifer bounded up to the car just as she was putting it into park. “Hello, Detective!” he called out cheerfully.

“Sorry, Dan, I've got to go,” Chloe said into the phone, and quickly hung up.

Lucifer let himself into the car and slid into the passenger seat. “And what did Detective Douche do this time?” After a pointed look from Chloe and a nominal moment of defiance, he rolled his eyes and reluctantly buckled his seatbelt.

Chloe sighed and put the car back into ‘drive’. “It’s Taco Tuesday, tonight,” she told him. “Or, at least, it’s supposed to be. But apparently Dan has more important things to do.”

“Oh, I can recommend a fabulous Mexican restaurant, darling! Their tamales are sinfully good—and I should know. My treat?”

She smiled and shook her head at him. “No, no, the fun is making the tacos,” she explained. “At home. We’ve been doing it almost every week since Trixie was old enough to sprinkle on the cheese herself.”

“I see. And… this is an enjoyable activity?” he asked, his voice full of doubt. “Cooking with the offspring?”

“Yeah. It is.” The image of her fastidious partner covered in the aftermath of Trixie-assisted meal preparation popped into Chloe’s head, and she shot him an amused smile. “You should try it sometime.”

“What, cook? I’ll have you know, I am a phenomenal chef. Comes with having millennia to practice.”

“Ri-ight. No, I meant…” She shook her head to dislodge that wayward idea. What had she been thinking? She also made a mental note to add ‘claims millennia of practice at cooking’ to her list of annoying and/or inexplicable Lucifer things. “Never mind. Here,” she said, pulling up a photo on her phone and handing it to him. “That’s the imprint on the victim’s neck that we found under UV light. Killer must’ve worn some kind of bracelet when he strangled the security guard.”

“You think this belongs to Los Diablos?”

“We’re about to find out.”

When they reached the location, they found a “Los Diablos” sign hanging next to the door and a parking lot filled with motorcycles. Chloe nodded towards the nearest bike, which had a pointed cross painted on the wheel cover. “Look familiar?”

“Well, what do you know? It would appear our suspect awaits. Shall we?” He gestured for her to go first.

Inside, Lucifer killed the music and jumped on top of a table, throwing himself into the spotlight as he always did. Chloe mused to herself that it was like he didn’t know how to function if he wasn’t the center of attention. After a beat, she pulled out her phone and surreptitiously added that observation to her notes. She could transfer it to the file on her computer later.

A lot of insults and grumbling later—plus one near-assault—they got an audience with the man in charge: Hank Cutter. He admitted to a desire to start his own clothing line, but denied any involvement with or knowledge of criminal activities happening at the docks.

“But why are we leaving?” Lucifer protested as they left. “He’s hiding something. It’s obvious. We need to force it out of him.”

Chloe stopped in her tracks, pinching her lips together as she called up her waning reserves of patience. “Even if we did manage to… what, beat it out of him? None of the information he gave us would be usable in court—it’s called due process. And there’s always a chance he’s not guilty of anything, and we’re back to punishing people for no reason.”

“He might be. You don’t know,” Lucifer argued, but he was looking less and less certain.

“Look,” Chloe said. “Think of it this way—you’ve got your mojo, and I’ve got mine.” She started heading for her car again, angling her head in a ‘let’s go’ gesture. “Trust me, there’s an easier way to get our bad guy.”

Confounded, Lucifer stared after her for a moment before following. “You’ve got mojo?” he asked dubiously as he joined her in the car. “I’d love to see that. By all means, enlighten me.”

“You saw that look on Cutter’s face when he saw that photo,” Chloe said while they waited in the parking lot. “He knows exactly who robbed the docks. He’s gonna need to deal with this immediately.”

“…Or it puts his plan to re-brand in jeopardy,” Lucifer concluded, catching on.

“Defying his orders—it’s a huge challenge to his authority. He’s not gonna want to deal with this in public. Bet you the first person he goes to see is the owner of that bracelet.”

“What, so your strategy is just to sit here, paralyzed, hoping that Cutter leads us to the suspect? What a terrible idea.”

Chloe glared at him. “Again with the dickishness.”

“What?” he asked with a look of injured innocence. “…Oh. Oh, right!” He pulled a police-issue notepad—where had he gotten that?—from inside his jacket and started scribbling in it.

“What are you doing?”

“Doctor Linda’s idea.” He flipped the notebook closed with a smile and tucked it back into his pocket. “I’m keeping track of everything I do that annoys you so I can make sure not to do it!”

“You’re…?!” For a moment, Chloe’s mind boggled at the prospect. Everything? Everything annoying that Lucifer did?! How many notepads did he have? That was… shockingly self-aware of him. She had about half a second of wondering if she’d misjudged him before she realized the implications of his plan. “Hang on. I told you I wouldn’t sleep with you because you’re annoying, and now you’re—”

“Proving that I’m not!” Lucifer happily finished for her. “Exactly.”

Chloe groaned softly. That was not remotely what she had meant when she’d told him that. Her first instinct was to tell him off and insist that she was never going to have sex with him, ever, so he could knock this off immediately. She did not want him thinking it was just a matter of time before she agreed to sleep with him. On the other hand… well… Okay, so he hadn’t talked about sex in public a single time since she’d told him it was annoying. That might be a full-blown miracle all by itself. And explaining things to him like a child who had no idea how the world worked did seem to get him to listen to her more often than not. Not that different from handling Trixie, actually, subject matter aside. She chewed on her bottom lip. Maybe she could take advantage of this? Just for a little while, anyway?

Cutter walked out of the bar, cutting her thoughts short. “Right,” she said. “Well, my ‘terrible idea’ just strapped on his helmet.”

Lucifer saw him as well. “…Oh! Well done, Detective!”

An hour later, the sun had set, and Lucifer’s ass was starting to go numb. “You know, it would probably be much easier for both of us if you just told me everything that annoyed you. Then I wouldn’t do it at all.”

Chloe stared at him silently for almost a full minute. “Honestly?” she finally said. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Everything you do annoys me. Like, for instance, stealing department property and then expecting me to tell you things so obvious I have a hard time believing you don’t already know them.”

Lucifer’s face fell, and Chloe felt like an ass. “My apologies, Detective. I’ll—”

“No, I’m sorry. Forget I said that.” He perked back up hopefully. “It’s actually kind of sweet that you’re this serious about, you know…” She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of his pocket. “It’s just… I guess it just never occurred to me, before, that you wouldn’t know all this already. You didn’t, right? This isn’t all some elaborate joke?”

“Not at all, Detective!” he exclaimed, sincerity ringing in every word. “I assure you, your advice has been wonderfully helpful for me.”

“Okay. Well, I guess—”

They were interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle engine—somebody had finally come to meet Cutter.

“Here we go,” Chloe said. “Pick this up later?”

Lucifer nodded.

She sighed when she saw who it was. “I knew it was gonna be that Renny guy.”

They watched the men argue, then Renny pulled out a gun and shot Cutter in the chest. Chloe grabbed her radio. “This is Unit 831. Shots fired at 21st and Lewis. We need backup and an ambo, now,” she reported as Renny sped off on his bike.

Dispatch responded, but Chloe was already out of the car and running to the fallen man. Behind her, she heard her car’s engine turn over, and spun around in time to see Lucifer peel out after Renny. Damn it. Add ‘stealing my car’ to the list. The moment the first cruiser pulled up to the scene, she jumped in and directed the officer to pursue her vehicle.

They tracked him to a machine shop. Chloe cleared the first few floors, one by one, until she reached an open door halfway up the building that led to a small outcropping of the roof. She reached it just in time to watch Renny, screaming in terror, fling himself over the edge while Lucifer shouted after him.

He spun around to look at her, an intense and haunted expression on his face. When he spoke, though, his voice was incongruously subdued. Almost gentle. “I couldn’t stop him,” he told her.

She raced back down through the building to secure the body.

She found him, later, looking lost and rudderless as he watched Renny’s corpse get wheeled away.

“Hey, you all right?” she asked. He looked at her, but he seemed to be seeing something else. “Looks like Cutter’s gonna make it. He just gave a statement.”

He finally focused on her. “Cutter?”

“The guy Renny shot,” she reminded him. “Renny was pissed about the direction of the club; he thought they were selling out. So he went out on his own, robbed the warehouse, and killed the security guard. We got justice for Erwin Scovell.”

“Wonderful,” he replied absently.

“And,” she added theatrically, “they’ve recovered one container belonging to Lucifer Morningstar.”

Suddenly, she had his full attention. “Where?”

“Inside.”

“You didn’t take a sneaky peek before telling me?”

“You’d never lie to me, right?”

Lucifer gave her a wry laugh. “You’re gonna watch me open it.”

Chloe nodded and held up a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters. “You’re damn right.”

Fluorescent lights flickered to life as he opened the doors to his storage container. The inside was empty except for an old-looking crate, which opened to reveal a collection of Russian Nesting Dolls scattered in hay. Chloe, still suspicious, immediately grabbed one and opened it, but all she found was more dolls nested inside.

“Told you,” Lucifer said smugly.

There was nothing else under the hay, either. Chloe scoffed. “This is it? This was what had you so worried, you stole a police cruiser?”

“Well, I had to,” Lucifer protested. “He was going to get away!”

“And we could have found him again! Renny didn’t know we were there when he shot Cutter—he had no reason to think we’d be onto him,” she pointed out. “Hell, we probably could have picked him up three hours later asleep in his own bed.”

Lucifer deflated. “But—”

“This whole case, all you’ve been asking about is your stuff.” Chloe shook her head in disappointment. “You went after Renny because that’s the only thing you care about. You don’t care at all about helping me.” She pushed past him and stepped out of the container. “Maybe you should add that to your ‘self-centered’ list. Enjoy your dolls.”

Chapter 3: You Scratch My Back, I Scratch Yours

Chapter Text

Chloe didn’t know what Lucifer had been up to the last several days and, frankly, she didn’t care. She’d had a whole wonderful, peaceful week without having to babysit the world’s largest and most inappropriate toddler. Without him distracting her, she even had some extra time to go back over all her files from Palmetto. She’d brought them home from the precinct the night before, and now she had them spread out on the floor in front of her. She flipped through the photos, spreading them out and rearranging them. There was something they’d missed. She was sure of it.

“Is this really what you do in your spare time?” Lucifer’s voice, behind her, nearly gave her a heart attack. “How fascinatingly morose. Do you ever think of taking up knitting?”

Chloe quickly stood and glared at him, ready to tear him a new asshole for barging into her house uninvited. What makes him think that’s okay?! That thought stopped her in her tracks—he did think it was okay, didn’t he? After all, he let people barge into his penthouse uninvited all the time. No locked-out controls on the elevator, no door between the elevator and his home and, now that she thought about it, no visible doors within the penthouse, either. He has no expectation of privacy, she realized. And he has no idea that other people do. She took a deep, calming breath.

“Hi, Lucifer,” she said. She walked past him and pushed the front door closed. “By the way, most people prefer that you knock before walking into their homes.”

“Do they?”

She scrutinized his expression, but couldn’t find anything but mild curiosity. No smirk, no co*ckiness, no hint that he was being obnoxious on purpose. Then, she reexamined her last sentence, as well as his reply, and decided she might have been too subtle for the six-foot-three child in front of her. “Please knock before coming into my house. Maybe even call, next time.”

To her chagrin, he reacted with a flirtatious smile. “And ruin the surprise?”

She sighed. She really didn’t want to do this. But she was pretty sure it would work. “It annoys me when people walk into my house uninvited,” she said pointedly.

“Oh? Ohh!” His grin became even more salacious, and his voice took on a seductive lilt. “Very well, darling. I’ll add it to my list. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to be this accommodating to my efforts!”

She swallowed her irritated groan. “Mm. Okay. So why are you here, anyway?”

“Because I could really use your expertise, Detective.” He glanced down at the scattered pile of photos. “You’re not busy, are you?”

“…Seriously?” She looked down at her pile and then back up at him. “Yeah. I am busy. And it’s really not a good day for… for…” She gestured at him. “Distractions.”

“Oh, I’m distracting, am I?”

The barely-bitten-down smirk he’d been having such fun teasing out, however, fell completely off her lips. “Lucifer…” she started, a warning in her voice.

“Hold on.” He lost a little of his blithe flirtatiousness. “Now, I’m not one to get into the ‘feels’, usually, but you’re genuinely distressed about something. And I don’t think it’s me this time.” There it was—another hint of a smile. “Are you okay? Do you want to… I don’t know, chat about it or something?”

“Okay, fine,” she said, sighing. “Remember the Palmetto case I was telling you about?”

Lucifer pretended to think. “The case that’s been consuming you, causing people to despise you, call you names. I even quarreled on occasion because of it?” He pulled the teasing smile off his face and shook his head very seriously. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.”

Chloe laughed. “Well, they’re pressuring me to drop the case, assume the party line, and say the guy died a hero.”

“My spidey-sense tells me dropping it’s not what you want, is it?”

“I want the truth.”

“Well, then, seek it out,” he encouraged her. “You’re a police officer. You don’t need anyone’s permission.”

“Hmm.” Chloe was actually kind of impressed. “That’s decent advice,” she admitted.

“I know! I’m quite good. Anyway, now we’ve helped you. My turn.”

That didn’t take long, Chloe thought.

“See, I’m working a sort of case on my own. And it seems that I’ve… Well, hit a bit of a snag.”

“A case? What kind of case is it?”

“Well, the nature of the investigation isn’t important,” Lucifer hedged. “I’m strictly here for professional advice. What do you do when your case hits a wall?”

“What do I do when I get stuck?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I grab a pair of fresh eyes—someone who’s not going to be afraid to be honest with me, even if it’s not what I want to hear.”

Lucifer stared at her. “Hello. That’s a brilliant idea.”

“…Yeah.” She stared back, a lightbulb switching on in her head. “It kind of is. So, maybe if you help me, I could help you.”

“You scratch my back, I scratch yours? Preferably at the same time,” he suggested with a lecherous eyebrow waggle.

“Down, boy,” she said, trying not to snicker. “But… yeah. So what are you working on?”

Lucifer hesitated, chuckling uncomfortably. “I’m not sure you could handle it.”

Chloe shrugged. “Try me.”

“Okay. Uh… Remember that container that was so inelegantly taken from me?”

“The one with your Russian doll collection?”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t just nesting dolls that I was looking for,” he admitted with a grimace. “There was something else. Something… personal that was missing when we got there.”

“I knew it! Lucifer, what was in there?”

He braced himself. He really, really didn’t want to have to tell her this. “…My angel wings.”

…His angel wings.

His angel wings?

Chloe’s ‘Lucifer’ notes spun through her head on a reel. Convinced he’s the Devil. Gift from his dad. She decided to add ‘heavy religious indoctrination?’ to the list. Those asshole parents of his really did a number on him, didn’t they?

“…Detective? Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Sorry.” She shook herself and forced her anger at his parents off her face. “No wonder you want them back so badly.”

Lucifer did a double-take. “Wait, really? No… jokes, or…?”

“No,” she was quick to reassure him. “I mean, you’re not joking.” She paused, suddenly having doubts. “…Are you?”

“No.” He studied her for a moment, completely flummoxed. “Detective, you…” But he couldn’t seem to complete the thought.

“Don’t worry,” Chloe said. She squeezed his shoulder and offered a sympathetic smile. “I’ll do everything I can. We can put out an APB on your wings. What do they look like?”

“They… They’re white. About fifteen feet across, fully extended.” She was nodding, making notes in her notebook, and he felt dazed. “Feathers.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Thank you.” He took a moment to collect himself. “And now, I believe, you required my services on Palmetto?”

She smiled at him. “Yeah. I could use the help.”

“Wonderful! Lead on.”

“So, this is Palmetto Street.” The building was a cluttered mess; Lucifer kicked a paint can across the room.

“Jesus. Nice kick,” Chloe said. It had ricocheted off the opposite wall, leaving a visible dent. “You play soccer?”

Lucifer groaned. “Please don’t bring him into this. He already gets more credit than he deserves.” Another one for the file, Chloe thought. “Anyway, now that you’ve got me here, how can I assist?”

“I want to reenact the shooting. Figure out what I missed.”

“Ooh, roleplay! Excellent idea. Who shall I be for you today?”

She rolled her eyes at him, though she seemed more amused than annoyed. “You stand… here,” she said, manhandling him into position. “You can represent the seedy criminal element.”

“I believe you mean handsome criminal element.”

“And for Malcolm…” She looked around the room, considering. “Can you help me get down one of these punching bags?”

“Absolutely. This one looks especially tatty,” he suggested. He lifted it off its chain with one hand and set it on the ground next to Chloe. “Where shall Punching-Bag Malcolm go?”

“Just over here,” she said. She tried pushing it, having been encouraged by how easily he’d lifted it, but it tipped over and landed on its side with a loud thud. She tried pulling it back upright but it might as well have been glued to the floor. “Damn!”

“Allow me, darling,” Lucifer said. He plucked it off the ground and smiled at her, waiting for her instructions. Like he was holding a bag of feathers.

“Uh.” She blinked. “R-right here.” She pointed at a spot on the floor, trying not to stare. After Punching-Bag Malcolm had been set in its place, and Lucifer returned to his, she took her role as herself and walked him through the events. At one point, realizing Aoudi didn’t really have to move but Malcolm did, she had Lucifer switch their places. This time, she was careful to pay close attention, determined to find any sign that Lucifer was exerting himself… but there was nothing. He even nudged it with his shoe, not quite satisfied with the placement, and it slid an easy inch across the floor.

What. The Hell. How much did those things weigh? Chloe decided to look it up the moment she got home. And to make some revisions to the other document she had. The one she’d started after he’d thrown Joe Hansen across the room—through plate glass—without showing a hint of effort. The one she’d password-protected after including the incident where Lucifer had apparently teleported by several feet.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Lucifer declared after they finished their reenactment.

“Excuse me?”

“Aoudi would have no desire to kill Malcolm. Trust me—if there’s one thing I know, it’s desire.” He laughed. “I mean, if Malcolm were indeed corrupt, he’d be Aoudi’s golden goose. It’d be quite dumb to shoot him.”

Chloe considered that, wheels turning in her head. “…What if someone else was here?”

“Entirely possible,” Lucifer agreed. “Plenty of dark little corners. There could have been someone hiding, just like you.”

“They searched this place top to bottom, though.” She frowned. “They said there was no one else here.”

Lucifer scoffed. “Sure, there was no one else here by the time the rest of those laggards ambled over. How long did that take?”

“For officers to arrive at the scene? About… five minutes after I called it in.”

“Five minutes?” Lucifer asked, his voice rising nearly an octave. “Five whole minutes, you could have paraded a marching band through here and they’d have been long gone before anyone could find them!”

“And didn’t leave any evidence?” Chloe challenged him, but her gut was warming up; she was sure she was on the right track.

“You cops do that all the time,” Lucifer pointed out, “with your rubber gloves and your little foot booties—”

“Lucifer, that’s it,” she said, grabbing his arm. “What if Malcolm wasn’t the only corrupt cop? Any of the officers could have helped get rid of evidence, if there was any.”

“The only question is, who?”

“Yeah…” Chloe chewed on her thumbnail. “I mean, it could be anybody.”

“Is there anyone who was particularly insistent on closing the case?”

She snorted. “Besides Dan? Well, Paolucci was pretty vocal about…” She trailed off. Lucifer was staring at her. “…What?”

He raised his eyebrows at her and carefully tilted his head.

“…No.” She gave him a forced laugh. “No! Not— We were married! There’s no way he—” She cleared her throat. “No.”

Lucifer gave her a long, uncertain look, but eventually nodded. “Very well. But… Detective, I think you may be right about it being another corrupt cop. And if there’s no way of telling who it might be…”

“I can’t trust anyone,” she concluded. She huffed out a tiny laugh. “Except you.”

Something fluttered inside Lucifer’s chest. Something warm, and bright, and a little terrifying. If he’d ever experienced hunger, he’d have said it felt like the first bite of food after famine, jarring recumbent systems into life with a twisting, churning reminder of the emptiness that was finally starting to be filled.

Lucifer had never experienced hunger, though, so he forced it to the back of his mind and tried to forget about it.

Chloe’s phone rang while they were walking back to her car. “Decker,” she answered. “Okay, great. Thank you.” She paused. “Really? Okay, send me the address.”

“Good news?” Lucifer prompted.

“Yeah, actually. I got a hit on my ABP for your wings.”

“Excellent! Right, my turn.”

Agent Pitts was telling them about a charity auction, but Chloe was only half-listening. She was too busy studying the image of the wings on the tablet the FBI agent had given her. She had no experience with cosplay, but there didn’t seem to be any obvious way to attach those wings to a person. Shouldn’t there be straps, or a fitted frame, or something? Some bolt-holes, at the very least, if they’d stripped everything else to support the illusion of authenticity. Instead, the base of each wing terminated in what looked like a jagged lump of flesh, just barely visible within the metal rings that circled them. She zoomed in on the image and squinted at it. As a matter of fact, it looked like the same basic size and shape as the scars on Lucifer’s back.

Oh, God, she thought to herself. They could have forced implants on him. Found some sick doctor to… to install them on that poor boy, all in an attempt to support their bullsh*t indoctrination. She swallowed down the queasy lump in her throat and handed the tablet to Lucifer.

“…As long as you can prove the wings’ provenance, you’ll get it back in thirty days,” Agent Pitts was telling Lucifer. “No problem.”

“Yes, no problem,” Lucifer agreed, way too quickly. “No problem at all.”

Chloe eyed her partner as they walked back to her car. She had a feeling she would need to find her way into an auction that night.

Chapter 4: These Are Mine

Chapter Text

Chloe managed to slip into the auction partway through, thankfully before Lucifer’s wings had come up. Up at the stage, Carmen Grant rambled about something to do with the Papal Basilica. Chloe spotted Lucifer at a table next to a man she’d never seen before. He was almost as tall as Lucifer—no easy feat—but dark-skinned and maybe a little older.

“Paul’s wrists were too thick to fit in those chains,” he was saying to Lucifer.

Lucifer laughed. “I know! that man never could pass on dessert, could he?”

“He should have been the Saint of—”

“—Honey Cakes!” they both finished, laughing together.

Interesting, Chloe thought to herself. Both of them talking about the fake ‘artifacts’ as if they were familiar with the real ones. “I didn’t know there’s a Saint of Honey Cakes,” she said aloud. They both turned to look at her.

“Detective!” Lucifer greeted her happily. “No, you see, it’s just that Saint Paul had—”

“Yes,” his companion said at the same time. “It was, uh… Saint… Melito. Of Sardis.” He gave Lucifer a hard glare.

Lucifer made an annoyed face at him, but then said, “Oh, very well.” He turned back to Chloe. “How did you get in here, anyway?”

“I told you I have a little mojo of my own,” she told him.

He leaned back a little so he could give her a good look, all the way up and down. “Do you ever,” he agreed with a leer. “You look ravishing.”

“Thanks,” she said dryly. “But I only came to warn you.” She leaned in closer so she could whisper in his ear. “In about five minutes, the FBI’s going to storm this place, so we have to go. Now.”

“But we were just getting started,” Lucifer protested.

“‘We’?”

“Oh, that’s right! You haven’t met, have you? Allow me to introduce Amenadiel.” He put his hand on the other man’s back. “My brother.”

Say what, now?

“Well, come on, don’t look so shocked.”

“Um. I…” Chloe struggled to rearrange the assumptions she’d been putting together in her head. Adoption, she decided. Obviously, one of them is adopted. “…Didn’t expect your brother to be so handsome,” she recovered quickly.

“We’re all full of surprises, it seems,” Amenadiel said. “I never expected my brother to change careers as he did. But I’m definitely beginning to see why.”

She was a bad person, Chloe decided. This was going to turn out so badly. But she had a unique opportunity for insight, here, and she wasn’t going to get it again… “Yeah,” she agreed. “King of Hell to nightclub owner is one hell of a switch.”

Amenadiel’s eyes threatened to pop out of his skull. Lucifer’s face lit up like Christmas morning as he looked back and forth between Chloe and his brother.

“You told her!?” Amenadiel rasped at Lucifer. He sounded like he was choking.

“I tell everyone, brother!” Lucifer cheerfully reminded him.

Chloe, just as cheerfully, cataloged every moment of their reactions. Okay: Amenadiel knows about Lucifer’s devil thing. He doesn’t want other people to know. He’s not mad at Lucifer for spreading bullsh*t; he’s mad at him for spilling secrets. She scribbled out the question mark in her head after ‘heavy religious indoctrination’ and added ‘—isolated cult?’. It would help explain Amenadiel’s reaction. And his name, to be honest.

“Next up: the wings of an angel,” Carmen announced onstage. A spotlight clicked and the fabric draped over the display case fell to the ground.

“They’re gorgeous,” Chloe whispered.

Everyone else, it seemed, was as entranced as she was; a hush fell over the room as they all took in the sight of the snowy white wings. They almost seemed to glow under the shining lights.

She was startled from her admiration by the loud shout of the FBI team announcing their arrival. “Freeze! FBI!”

Agents poured in, guns drawn, throwing the auction into chaos. Chloe spotted Grant, being hustled away by a bodyguard, and quickly slipped through the milling crowd after him. He was only a few feet from her when he disappeared through a set of curtains… but when Chloe pulled them open, she found nothing but an empty space encircled by more curtains. She parted the set just ahead of her, only to find a featureless cinderblock wall.

“Where’d he go?” she wondered aloud.

“Who’s that, ma’am?” A couple of the FBI agents had followed her through the curtains.

“Carmen Grant,” she told him. “His bodyguard took him through here, somehow.”

The agent looked around—besides a few remaining ‘artifacts’, there was nothing in that little curtained area, nowhere for someone to hide, and no obvious exits. “Are you sure—?”

Chloe was still searching along the wall, determined to find out where he’d gone. She spotted a couple of large framed photographs of… well, something religious, anyway… and prodded at them. “I’m telling you, I saw him come in here.” Maybe there’s a hidden switch, or… She lifted the second photo and it released a mechanism, causing a hidden door to pop open from the wall. She stared down the hallway as agents pushed past her. “There was a secret door,” she whispered to herself, eyes wide.

She knew how the shooter at Palmetto might have gotten away.

Well… she knew another way the shooter might have gotten away. But this way, there might still be some evidence to find.

Back in the middle of the room, Lucifer was idly stroking a handful of the white feathers. “I see you got your wings,” she said. “Thought you’d be happier.”

“These aren’t my wings,” Lucifer told her gravely.

“Whose wings are they?”

“Someone with a warped sense of humor,” he suggested.

“I don’t…”

“They’re a knockoff, a sham. I mean, it’s— it’s good work, I’ll give them that,” he ranted. “Probably would have fooled just about anyone, save perhaps the actual owner of the wings.” He threw the feathers to the ground in disgust.

“Meaning you.”

“Yeah, they must’ve been switched out,” he decided. He rose to his feet. “It’s no coincidence that my wings are stolen one day, and then Carmen’s selling an exact replica a week later.” He pulled a breath through his gritted teeth in an annoyed hiss. “No, this is some serious foul play.”

He’s as upset about this as I am about Palmetto, Chloe realized. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. She reached out to squeeze his arm, and he offered her a tight-lipped smile. Her feet itched to go check her theory at Palmetto, but the broken look on her partner’s face made her pause. And anyway, who was she going to take with her? She wasn’t about to examine a crime scene at night without backup. Dan? She wanted to trust him, she really did, but deep down she knew she couldn’t take any risks on this, no matter how slight. “What are you going to do now?” she asked Lucifer.

He fixed her with an intense stare. “Now I’m going to track down that reprobate and make him pay!”

“Lucifer, seriously—”

“They’re my wings, Detective.” His voice cracked a little on the word.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. We’re going to find them, I promise. Do you have any idea where to look?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. But I will,” he vowed. “He’ll… he’ll have them somewhere he can look at them. Anytime he wants.”

Chloe nodded along. “Someplace with at least one large room for display. I drove my cruiser here—I can use the computer to run a search for any property he owns. Come on.”

They didn’t find any usable hits for Carmen Grant, but they did locate a large beachfront house once Lucifer suggested looking under aliases. The drive to the house was tense, Lucifer silent for most of the ride and drumming his fingers against the door.

“Detective,” he said out of the blue. “When we get there, it would be better if you stayed in the car.”

“I’m not—” She shot him a look. “Why? What are you planning to do to him?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he bit out.

“Lucifer! You can’t just beat up people who piss you off! I don’t care what they stole from you! I am your partner. I will go with you, and I will arrest Carmen Grant, and he will get his punishment! But it’ll be after he’s properly convicted.”

He looked at her in silence for nearly a full minute; she could see his jaw muscles twitching behind his cheeks. “I will not touch so much as a hair on that man’s head. I give you my word. But you must let me go in alone.” He looked away, out the window. “There wouldn’t be anything I could do that’d be worse than taking them away, anyway,” he muttered.

She considered. She actually did trust that he’d keep his word. But without knowing why he didn’t want her to come inside… “Okay,” she decided. “I’ll let you go in by yourself. But you’ll have two minutes to bring him out—peacefully—so I can arrest him.”

“Very well, Detective,” he agreed, although he obviously wasn’t happy about it.

He hopped out of the car the moment she pulled up to the house, not even waiting for her to park. Chloe watched him go with trepidation. She shouldn’t have agreed to this. She pulled up her ‘Lucifer’ file on her phone, trying to take her mind off what he might be doing inside the house. She made some notes about the last few hours, then scrolled up. God, she really had a lot of notes on him. One caught her eye—one of the many times he’d terrified a suspect to tears just by looking at them—and her heart sank. He didn’t need to touch Carmen in order to hurt him.

She hurried out of the car and through the front door. She could hear conversational voices in the next room; she sighed in relief.

“…Like some decorative stag head,” she heard Lucifer say, his voice strained.

She walked further into the house and through a wide archway, which opened into an enormous room with a desk and chairs. There was Carmen—unhurt and still sane, thank God—and Lucifer right in front of him. Behind them was an enormous set of wings, which had been mounted in a glass box and tastefully lit. They were even more beautiful than the replica they’d found at the auction, stretched out to their full span; the shape of them seemed more regal, somehow, and Chloe saw hints of bright gold glimmering from some of the feathers.

“No.” The choked word snapped her attention back to Lucifer. “No, please…”

Chloe frowned in confusion. “Are these the wrong ones, too?” She glanced at them again, wondering how he could tell the difference. If they were good enough replicas, how would he be able to know for certain?

“No, these are mine,” he said cautiously. He took a few slow steps towards her, head co*cked to the side, looking as confused as he’d been the first time his ‘charms’ hadn’t worked on her.

She stared back at him, waiting for the punchline. “So… that’s good, right? You’ve found your wings?

“I have.”

He was still staring at her, a look on his face that she now realized was worried, and she thought she’d figured out why. “What, did he forge some kind of paperwork as ‘proof’ that they’re his?” Her gaze flicked over to the wings again, this time focusing on the base of each. The jaggedly cut flesh—sh*t, was that muscle?!—was even more obvious in person, and she quickly looked away from the stomach-turning sight. “Yeah, I don’t think we have to worry about that,” she said with a grimace. “It’s going to be pretty obvious they’re yours as soon as they run the DNA.”

Lucifer’s mouth fell open at that pronouncement.

Chloe turned to the other man and pulled out her handcuffs. “Carmen Grant, you’re under arrest for fraud,” she informed him, clicking them onto his wrists. He didn’t even seem to notice—his eyes were fixed on the wings as if they had him hypnotized—only resisting once she tried to haul him from the room.

“No! Please!” he cried. “You can’t take them away from me! It’s not my fault—I didn’t know what they were! I thought that man was bringing me a sculpture. I didn’t—”

“Detective, wait!” Lucifer barked. He strode quickly across the room and forced Carmen to look at him. “What man?”

“Please,” Carmen begged again. “I can’t live without them.”

“What. Man?!”

“H-he said it w-was… uh… Menna. Amenadiel!”

What?!

For the briefest moment, Chloe thought she saw something like flames burning in Lucifer’s eyes. “Detective.” His voice was soft, but it was laced with barely-concealed fury. “You should take Mr. Grant back to the precinct with you. Do whatever you want to him with your… human laws.”

“What about you?”

“I have a bone to pick with my brother,” Lucifer growled. Volcanic rage seemed to burn underneath every inch of his skin, and Chloe couldn’t blame him in the slightest.

She released Carmen for the moment, certain he wouldn’t be going anywhere on his own, and turned to her partner. Putting her hands on both of his shoulders, she forced him to meet her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Lucifer.” This close, she could see the pain peeking through the rage in his eyes. “Look, I… I’m not going to try to stop you, even though I probably should. Just… Don’t do anything you’ll regret?”

“I assure you, the only one with regrets will be Amenadiel,” he said coldly.

“I’m serious. I don’t want you to end up in the hospital, in the morgue, or in jail. Got it?”

His lips pulled back in a malicious smirk. “Believe me, that will not be a problem.”

“And call me later?” Chloe added. “I may have a new lead with Palmetto, and I want my partner there with me when I check it out.”

“You have my word.”

Lucifer showed up at Chloe’s front door with a darkening bruise over his left eye.

“Oh my God! Are you all right?” Chloe asked. She swallowed. “Should I see the other guy?”

Lucifer adjusted his cuffs. “I’m fine. And so is Amenadiel. Now, didn’t you want to return to Palmetto Street? You mentioned a new lead on the case.”

Chloe recognized the show of nonchalance for what it was—a show. For someone so convinced he was invincible, Lucifer was quick to construct thick fortress walls around any sign of weakness. “Yeah. At least, I hope so.”

“Wonderful. Shall we?” he asked, already walking away from her house.

“The FBI took possession of the one pair of wings they were looking for,” she told him as they drove. “They don’t know that there’s a second pair. So you don’t have to worry about yours getting confiscated as evidence.”

“There isn’t.”

“…What?”

“There isn’t a second pair of wings.” Having grown accustomed to the musical lilting of his usual speaking voice, Chloe was startled by Lucifer’s flat tone.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What happened?”

“I burned them.”

“Wh—! After all that trouble we went to, to get them back!? Why?”

“They…” Lucifer swallowed, and fell silent for a while, but Chloe could tell he was thinking about how to explain. “The wings were from my Father,” he finally said. “They marked me as… as his. Dad’s obedient little soldier. Even after he kicked me out of the Silver City, I was still doing what he wanted. Up until I retired, that is. Cutting them off was supposed to be a statement. That I wouldn’t do anything he wanted, ever again, and he couldn’t make me.”

Another check in the ‘isolated cult’ column. “Was your Dad the one who…” Neutral language. Use neutral language. “…Put them on you?”

“Yes, of course.”

That didn’t quite track, though, with Chloe’s mental image of Lucifer’s father as a religious cult leader. As horrifying as the whole concept was, the prosthetic wings didn’t seem to have caused any lasting harm to Lucifer’s body. Besides the scars from their removal, of course. Unless they’d been much lighter than they’d looked, she would have thought they’d have caused some kind of… she wasn’t sure what. Spinal deformity? She hadn’t noticed anything asymmetrical about Lucifer’s back.

“Your Dad,” Chloe said. “Was he a… a surgeon, or something?”

“Uh… No, Detective.” Lucifer was staring at her like she had two heads and both of them had asked an extremely bizarre question. “He’s God.”

She sighed—so much for that line of questioning. “Right. Okay, well, why did Amenadiel steal them from you?”

“Because he thought—” He laughed mirthlessly. “He thought if I had to work to get them back, it would somehow make me want them again. He still thinks he can convince me to go back there and do what I’m told. No chance of that now!”

Chloe processed this, running it through the filters of the reality she’d managed to piece together so far. “What do you mean, exactly? The wings… forced you to obey?” Some kind of mental conditioning?

Lucifer snorted. “Of course not! Or I never would’ve been able to rebel in the first place. No, it’s much simpler than that—without my wings, I have no way to return to Hell.”

Chloe came up blank on that one. Some sort of… key…? Never mind, she’d add it to her notes and hope she would learn something else, later, that made it make sense. “You didn’t deserve to get sent there—” …wherever ‘Hell’ actually was… “—in the first place,” she said with feeling. “And I’m glad you won’t be going anywhere, now.”

Lucifer looked over at her and smiled and, though it was brittle and sad, it was also genuine. “Me, too.”

“Also, your brother’s a dick.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Agreed.”

A search of the room’s walls proved fruitless, even after they’d poked and wiggled everything in proximity. A grid-based survey of the floor, however, revealed a trap door that had been hidden under a mat. Chloe and Lucifer traded matching grins and dropped down into the tunnel below.

“I knew it!” Chloe said. “I knew it!”

“Why do you sound so surprised, darling? I’m sure by now you must be quite used to your instincts being correct.”

“Hah. That would be nice.” She criss-crossed the floor and walls of the tunnel with the light from her flashlight. “Hey, what’s that?”

The light had glinted off something shiny half-buried in the dirt. She had to pull Lucifer back from grabbing it with his bare hands. “Wait!” she said, catching his arm. “That might have fingerprints.” She picked it up with a piece of cloth.

“What is it?” Lucifer asked.

“It’s a 999 key. Police issue.” Her voice was hard. “Our shooter was a cop.”

“Can you tell whose key that was?”

“Not definitively,” she said, dropping it into an evidence bag. “But I can check it for prints. At least I know they’ll turn up in AFIS, if there are any.”

They checked the rest of the tunnel again, including the area just outside of where it led to the street, but didn’t find anything else that looked like it could be evidence.

Chloe drove them back to her house so Lucifer could get his car, then sent him back to Lux. She needed to take the key back to the precinct to check it for prints; although it shouldn’t take too long, she knew the wait would be far too boring to hold Lucifer’s interest. The wake for Malcolm Graham was due to start within the hour but, given what they had learned that day, Chloe didn’t think she could stomach it. She told Lucifer she’d fill him in as soon as she got the results.

Two hours later, she walked into Lux and joined Lucifer at the bar.

“It was Dan,” she said, her voice hollow.

Without a word, he set a glass in front of her and filled it with whiskey.

Chapter 5: It Gets Worse

Chapter Text

Chloe woke up with a stiff neck and the worst headache of her life. A plush black blanket covered her haphazardly, only marginally mitigating her whole-body malaise. Memories of the night before stabbed into her brain along with rays of eye-burning sunlight and the dissonant screeching of traffic below.

The key. Dan’s fingerprints. Whiskey. A lot of whiskey. Some very sincere offers of forcible skeletal rearranging that Chloe would have to pretend not to remember so that she wouldn’t have to arrest the man who’d made the offers. A trip up the elevator while Chloe gave an epic monologue covering every grievance she could remember since she’d met the two-faced rat bastard douche of an ex-husband. She thought she might even remember Lucifer applauding at the end.

Upstairs in the penthouse. More higher-than-top-shelf liquor that had gone down way too easy while Lucifer had sat at the piano and serenaded her with an improvised song called… “Douche Canoe Without A Paddle”? She’d tried to turn it into a duet…

She scrunched her eyes closed and whimpered.

“Well, look who’s awake!”

Chloe flailed an arm in the direction of the evil voice. “Shhhhh!”

Lucifer set a mug and a flask on the table next to her. He was wearing a silk robe and almost certainly nothing else. “Triple espresso, or hair of the dog?” he offered.

Words were too hard, so she just whined pathetically and pulled the wonderful soft blanket over her face.

“Right—both!” She heard liquid pouring and the scrape of the mug being pushed closer.

“Wh’time’s’t,” she complained.

“Not to worry, Detective. I’ve already informed your Lieutenant that you’ll be out sick today.” He settled himself into the next seat over. “Speaking of which, the Douche sent a reply to your texts.”

Impossibly, Chloe’s headache got even worse. She fumbled in the direction of the table until her hand found the spiked espresso, and only then did she risk sitting up. The movement shifted the blanket, letting in far too much chilly early-morning air despite the long-sleeved shirt she was wearing, so she gathered it up around her waist. She glared at the sunny landscape over the rim of the mug. “Why’m I outside? On a… on a… lounge chair?” The texture of it pressed uncomfortably into her skin, so she shifted a little to relieve it.

“You don’t remember? You were sleeping on the couch, then you came into my bedroom, threw your pillow at my head, shouted ‘It’s too hot in this five-star hellhole!’, and stormed out onto the balcony for some cool night air.”

Chloe groaned.

“It’s probably for the best,” he continued. “You snore, you know. Like an Albanian field wench.”

She sipped her drink until her brain rebooted enough to function. Why was she so chilly? Then, the most disturbing of Lucifer’s recent comments pinged a notification in her brain. “…You used my phone?”

“Yes, and you’re welcome.”

“No. Do not use my phone. Get your own phone.”

“But—”

She was playing with fire, but she was too hungover to deal with this without the magic fix-Lucifer word. “Annoying,” she grumbled. “S’annoying to use my phone without asking.”

As hoped (and feared), this perked him right up. “Ah! Of course—I’ll add it to the list.”

“Great,” she replied, deadpan. She sipped down some more of the drink and grimaced. “Ughh. Why did I let you get me so drunk?”

“In my defense, darling, you insisted on trying to keep up with me. It’s not my fault you only have a human metabolism.”

She eyeballed him, bright-eyed and chipper despite having drunk considerably more than her the night before. “And what’s your secret? A bionic liver, or something?”

He laughed. “Or something. Come on, let’s get you some brekky. Perhaps I could finally convince you to take advantage of my extraordinary skill at making omelets?”

She considered this. “I think I might throw up.”

“Nonsense! It’ll be just the thing. Some bacon on the side? …Or maybe some sausage?” he added with a wink. “I’d be happy to give you any meat you desire.”

“I’m too hungover for this,” she groaned. She hauled herself up from the lounge chair and glared at him through a tangled lock of hair that had fallen in front of her face. She swatted it out of the way. “Where’s your bathroom?”

Lucifer didn’t answer. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. No, wait, he was—he just wasn’t looking at her face. His gaze was somewhere below her waist and dropping lower. “Well, good morning, Detective!” he said, a pleased smile spreading across his face.

Oh. Oh, no.

Chloe looked down—barely necessary, since she already knew what she was going to see (a pair of blue print cotton panties below her shirt and not much else)—and snatched the blanket to wrap it around her waist.

“I was… hot.”

“You certainly are,” Lucifer agreed with a gleam in his eye, although at least he was looking at her face again. “And for the record, I always approve of you making yourself as comfortable as possible when you’re here.”

Chloe grumbled wordlessly and pulled the blanket tighter. “Bathroom?”

“Yes, of course.” Lucifer hopped to his feet and held out a hand. “Right this way.”

One shower later, and feeling considerably more human, Chloe sat at Lucifer’s bar with a plate full of breakfast and read through her recent message history. Her texts to Dan from the night before took her a few swipes to scroll the whole way through, and got increasingly incoherent—the last few were just strings of angry emojis—but the intent was clear: she wanted a divorce, and for Dan to go to Hell.

“I don’t actually have any control over that, I’m sorry to say.” She looked up to find Lucifer reading over her shoulder. “Humans send themselves to Hell if they feel guilty enough. Although I daresay your thorough scolding may well have done the trick.”

“It’s generally considered rude to read people’s texts without asking.”

“Is it?” He was still staring at her phone’s screen. “Ooh, I didn’t see that one last night. My goodness, Detective! Such language!”

Chloe turned off her screen and dropped her forehead onto her arms. “You really don’t have any concept of boundaries, do you?”

Deprived of his most recent entertainment, he wandered over to the liquor side of his bar and took down one of his many bottles. “I don’t think so,” he said. He poured himself a couple fingers’ worth of whatever it was and sipped it thoughtfully. “Is that when you keep yourself from doing what you desire just because someone else doesn’t think you ought to do it?”

“Yes.” She shook her head. “No. Ugh. It’s—” Her eyes wandered around the room, searching for inspiration. Actually, hang on… “It’s like your scars. You didn’t want me to touch them, so I didn’t. I respected your boundaries.”

For a moment, she thought she’d bluescreened him. Half a dozen emotions flickered across his face, too fast to identify, before blanking out completely.

“…Lucifer?”

He shook himself out of it. “Apologies, Detective. I will… I will take that into consideration.”

“Right.” She stared at him curiously. “Thank you.” Now that the self-proclaimed devil was no longer at her shoulder, Chloe turned her screen back on and reread the last text from Dan, right after the groveling apologies: “Can we please discuss this?” She sighed. “I’m going to have to talk to him.”

“The Douche?”

“Yeah. I just realized—I don’t even know why he lied about this for so long.”

“Do you think he’ll actually tell you?”

“Oh, he’ll tell me, all right,” she said with a dangerous glint in her eye.

Chloe went home. She was already on the record as taking a sick day, so she couldn’t exactly walk into the precinct to find Dan, and she wasn’t quite ready for that conversation anyway. Her hangover was still twisting her stomach and gnawing on her brain, and she wanted to recover as much mental and physical fortitude as she could before having that conversation. She sent Dan a text, telling him to come to her house on his lunch break (the last thing she needed was to have Trixie present for their conversation), and settled onto her soft couch.

Halfway through her binge of a miniseries on women who’d murdered their husbands, Chloe found her attention wandering to the laptop sitting on her desk. Her list of grievances, originally a release valve for her frustrations with Lucifer, now seemed heartless and unhelpful. The last few days had taught her some eye-opening—and heart-wrenching—things about her partner. Here he was making a list of ways to make her happier (even if it was intended as a way to convince her to have sex with him), and her own list was all the reasons she hated him. Except she didn’t hate him. Truth be told, she was getting pretty fond of him.

She retrieved the laptop and went to work.

The original list got rewritten with less mean-spirited language and a new column for possible explanations—‘child abuse’, ‘heavy religious indoctrination’, and ‘isolated from society during childhood’ took up most of the rows in that second column. After some thought, she made an entire separate section for all of Lucifer’s ‘Devil’ stuff: all of the things he said about being the Devil, comments about Heaven and Hell, even the things like how he claimed to have had millenia to practice cooking. I wonder if I could test that? she thought to herself. Tell him to prove it by cooking some recipe from Ancient Egypt? Then again, how would she know the difference?

There might be some other things, though, that she could use to catch him out. Gently pry him away from his conviction that he was the actual, literal Devil. If she could find an example of his weird mojo not working on someone, would that help prove it to him? Besides herself, of course. All of those things went into a third section of her file. She included the shocking strength and the teleportation thing, too—surely, at some point, she’d find an explanation for those, and it was going to bug her until she did. Maybe there was some common element every time he’d shown apparent super-strength; some hidden mechanism or trick she couldn’t immediately see. Hell, maybe he was just on some really good drugs and didn’t notice when he hurt himself pulling crap like that.

…She included some notes about his surprising tolerance for drugs and alcohol, too. Just in case.

And speaking of drinking… hadn’t he had a black eye, when they’d been searching Palmetto the second time? She’d been more focused on looking for evidence, but she could have sworn he’d had a very painful-looking bruise over his left eye. She couldn’t remember seeing it after she’d showed up at Lux, after running the prints… but, then again, her memory from the previous night was unreliable at best. Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought. After some deliberation, she added some notes about it, but marked that line as questionable.

She continued adding more and more details to the file, memories popping up after being reminded by other notes she’d made, until she was startled by a knock on her front door—damn, she’d lost track of time. She flipped her laptop closed and went to answer the door.

It was Dan. Of course.

“Can I come in?”

If only she could say ‘no’. She backed away from the door to give him space to enter, not trusting herself to speak just yet. He cautiously walked in; she shut the door behind him and turned to him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Listen, Chlo’, I am so, so s—” he started, but Chloe held up her hand to stop him.

“No,” she said. “I don’t care. No ‘sorry’ is going to make this go away.”

“I—”

“You lied to me, Dan!” Her eyes stung with gathering tears. “You tried to make me think I was crazy! You let the whole precinct turn against me!”

“He was going to shoot you, Chloe!”

She stared at him, jaw clenched to trembling, and fought to keep her raging emotions from choking her throat and flooding her eyes. “I don’t care,” she eventually managed to say.

“You don’t—?”

“Shut up!” she interrupted him. “You’re not talking right now. I am. And, Dan? I do not care about why you shot Malcolm. Not right now. He was a dirty cop, you shot him… fine. Just…” She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and scrubbed away the escaping tears with her sleeve. “Just… tell me why you lied.”

He looked away, shoulders slumping. “…Because I was involved,” he admitted.

Chloe’s universe lurched two inches to the left; she stumbled to the couch and dropped onto the cushions. “You need to leave.” She was proud of herself—her voice barely shook at all.

He hesitated. “There’s something else you need to know.”

She glared up at him through red-rimmed eyes. “What.”

“It’s… it’s Malcolm. He woke up last night.”

She nodded sullenly, her eyes fixed on the carpet. Of course. Of course Malcolm had woken back up. A few feet away from her, just at the edge of her line of sight, Dan shifted from foot to foot, but Chloe ignored him. She had nothing left to say to him, and nothing more she wanted to hear. He left after a few minutes; she heard the door shut behind him.

She wanted a drink. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rewind her life and forget everything she’d just learned. She wanted to rewind her life and never meet Dan in the first place. She wanted…

She buried her head in her hands. She wanted to go back to Lux and spend more time with the one person who’d had her back in recent memory. The one person she could trust.

But she had to pick up Trixie from school in a couple of hours. Had to make sure her daughter did her homework, ate her dinner, and went to bed. She had to go to work in the morning. Unless there was a new case, it would be nothing but paperwork, so there would be no terrible puns or inappropriate comments to ease her through her day.

Except…

She did have a new case, she realized. Sort of a new case. With Malcolm not only alive but awake, the Palmetto case had just taken a sharp left turn past Albuquerque. She looked at the clock—she had a couple of hours…

She snatched her keys off the kitchen table and headed for her car before she could talk herself out of it.

It had apparently gotten late enough in the day that Lux had opened for business, but nowhere near late enough for a line to form. She quickly found Lucifer inside amongst the first few patrons, sitting at a table and looking over paperwork with one of his employees.

“Detective! Back so soon?” He added his signature to the bottom of a page with a flourish and handed the packet of documents to the other man. “Can you give us a moment, Patrick? I’ll see to the rest later.”

Patrick nodded and hurried off, and Lucifer turned in his seat to face her fully. “To what do I owe this pleasure, darling? Just can’t get enough of the Devil?”

He’d stretched his arm out across the back of the booth; Chloe made sure to sit just past the tips of his fingers so he didn’t get the wrong idea. “The Palmetto case just got a lot more complicated,” she told him without preamble.

Lucifer scoffed. “What, more complicated than the shooter turning out to be your douche of an ex-husband?”

“Yeah, well, it gets worse.” She responded to Lucifer’s raised eyebrows with her own. “Malcolm Graham just woke up.”

“Malcolm? The one who got shot? I thought he was already in the ground.”

“He wasn’t far from it. His family pulled the plug last night—I skipped the wake they were having for him in favor of running those fingerprints.” Chloe shrugged. “Some kind of miraculous recovery, I guess.”

For some reason, that caught Lucifer’s attention, and he looked at her sharply. “Indeed,” he said, his voice sounding strange. “That does sound… miraculous.” Whatever was bouncing around in that unfathomable brain of his must have gotten shoved to the back, because he shook it off and put his ‘consultant’ face back on. “Do you suppose he knows who shot him?”

“…Crap. I didn’t even think of that.” Chloe groaned and rubbed her face. “I was too pissed at Dan to think about much else. Oh,” she added with an insincere laugh. “Speaking of which—turns out Dan was lying to me because he was taking payoffs, too. So that’s another cherry on top of this whole mess.”

Lucifer processed this with a carefully blank face. “I see.” He took an equally careful breath, and Chloe realized she could see small tells that she was starting to recognize as evidence that fury was brewing just below the surface. “Just so that you’re aware, if Maze were to pay that useless man a visit, I would consider it a favor owed to you, Detective.”

For one brief, insane moment, Chloe actually considered it. Nothing to actually hurt him; maybe just terrorize him a little bit? Scare him straight? Chloe had a feeling that any lesson on that front, delivered by Maze, would stick for a very long time. But she shook her head. “If Malcolm knows Dan shot him, she might not get the chance. Damn it! I’m pissed at him, but I don’t want him dead, either.”

Lucifer made an exaggerated face as if to say ‘are you sure?’. It did not make her smile. Her lips were twitching because her nose itched.

Chloe thought of something else, though. “Oh, damn it—I know Malcolm saw me that night. He might be after me, too.”

She didn’t miss the way Lucifer tensed. “Is he aware that you know about his misdeeds?”

“I’m not sure.” Chloe chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m sure he knows I was investigating, since he saw me there, but he probably doesn’t know Dan confirmed it for me.”

“Anyone who was able to keep his illicit activities hidden as long as Malcolm did is unlikely to be prone to rash actions,” Lucifer pointed out. “He’ll almost certainly have an explanation prepared—some story that paints him as heroic rather than criminal. With it known that you were investigating him, he must know it would be far too suspicious if you were to turn up dead.” He said this with such confidence that Chloe found herself relaxing. A little.

“I think you’re right.” She paused, and her eyes gleamed as a plan started to form. “In fact, I can make sure of it. I’ll go straight to him, tell him I found evidence that it was a cop who shot him. Apologize for thinking he was corrupt, because if a cop tried to kill him in cold blood like that, then obviously that was the corrupt cop, and he was the innocent one.”

“Throw him off your scent while you continue to investigate him.” Lucifer’s eyes glittered with approval.

“Exactly!” She smiled, wide and genuine this time, and reached out to squeeze his hand. “Thank you, Lucifer. I’m not sure whether I could do this without you or not, but I’m really glad I don’t have to.”

Lucifer stared after her, stunned, as she slipped out of the booth and walked towards the exit. There was that bright, fluttering feeling again. Like somebody was tickling him with a cattle prod, but on the inside. “Detective, wait!” he called after her. She turned, happy and curious. “I’m celebrating my birthday this Friday. Drinks with a few friends here at Lux. Would you—”

“Of course!” she called back with a smile. “I wouldn’t miss it!”

Maze was doing her best to ruin Lucifer’s good mood. Pointing out he didn’t have a birthday, as if he didn’t know that. He didn’t see why a re-birthday was any less important.

“Reborn?” She was laughing at him. “As who?”

“Whoever the hell I want to be,” he said with a smirk. “Isn’t it exciting?” He surveyed his party, soaking in the atmosphere of gleeful, unfettered sin. And if his mood hadn’t been fantastic already, his eye was caught by a head of golden-brown hair coming down the stairs. “Ah-ha!” He turned back to Maze for a moment with a smug grin. “To new beginnings. Happy birthday to me.”

Maze rolled her eyes with a scoff and made herself scarce. Lucifer barely noticed; Chloe was weaving through the gyrating crowd and heading straight for him. She had a bottle tucked under one arm and a jar full of green liquid clutched in her hands. He hurried to meet her and took the jar before anything could spill, then led her to the bar with a tilt of his head.

“You said ‘drinks with a few friends’!” she reminded him, laughing, once they were able to unload their respective glassware.

“We-ell, you know, things got out of hand… Just the way I like it,” he added with a flirtatious smile. He let his eyes drag down her figure and his smile widened; she’d worn a lovely dress, green and clingy, and it showed off more of her legs than he usually got to see.

Chloe rolled her eyes, but it was the kind of eye roll he liked—delivered with a sideways smile that meant she actually kind of liked it. “Well, I brought you a birthday present. Whiskey with a pickle juice chaser. It’s the station’s birthday tradition.”

“Lovely! How can I refuse?” She was already pouring the shots, and he eyed them dubiously. “Can I refuse?”

She shook her head, sideways smile still in place, and handed him his shot of whiskey. She waited until after they’d clinked glasses and he’d tipped back the shot to say, “Here I thought you liked putting anything in your mouth.”

He choked on the shot. She was already handing him the pickle juice chaser with a knowing smirk. The minx. He swallowed it quickly, unwilling to let her get one up on him. “Ooh!”

“It’s not bad, is it?”

“Briny!” He set the glass down with a clink. “Let’s find Maze! She needs to try this bizarre concoction. She loves a salty aftertaste.”

“Sure, why not?” Chloe said. She laughed. “Actually, yeah—I’d love to see her face! I’ll be here.”

When he returned, a grumbling Maze in tow, Chloe was happily sipping on a glass of wine.

“I’ll have to come to more of your parties,” she said when he walked up. “You don’t usually get top shelf at an open bar.”

“Open bar?”

Maze shot him a smirk, then turned to Chloe. “Lucifer didn’t tell you? He put you on the free drinks list.”

She looked startled, although he had no idea why. “I… Thank you, Lucifer. You didn’t have to—”

“Nonsense. I enjoy taking care of my friends.”

Something soft passed across her face, and then out of nowhere she gulped down the rest of her wine and grabbed his hand.

“Detective…?”

“Come on,” she said, dragging him away from the bar. “I want to dance with the birthday boy.”

His co*ck shot up to half-mast at that—did she mean…?

But, no. She kept her right hand in his left, her left on his shoulder, and never less than several inches’ space between the rest of their bodies. He enjoyed it, though, twirling her around as she giggled, freer than he’d ever seen her. At a gesture to his DJ, the song mix shifted to one better suited to their dancing. He didn’t want to give her any reason to pull away.

She did, though, eventually. “I’ve gotta take a break!” she shouted to him over the music, and gestured in the direction of the restrooms. “Be back in a minute!”

He released her with a grin to mask his disappointment and turned to assess the mass of party-goers, all here to celebrate him. The hours of drinking and dancing that would have exhausted a human only served to exhilarate him. His appetite was whetted, and he wanted more. And he didn’t have to wait long, either. Just moments after Chloe left in the direction of the restrooms, a pair of statuesque, nearly-identical brunettes in matching red dresses came up to introduce themselves.

He was dancing with both by the time Chloe exited the bathroom; he was too distracted by the thing Mindy—no, Cindy?—was doing to his neck to notice her slouch onto a barstool and order a shot of tequila with her back turned towards him. When he finally looked around a few minutes later and couldn’t find her, he assumed she must have found something else to occupy her. He buried his disappointment under a seductive grin and escorted Cindy and Mindy up to his penthouse so they could continue the party upstairs.

Chapter 6: Fundamentally Incompatible

Chapter Text

It was four days before Lucifer heard from Chloe again. If one could call the relay of a message left with his business manager ‘hearing from her’. He memorized the address and headed out, although not straight for the crime scene—he had an appointment with Dr. Linda, first, and he despised the idea of missing an appointment he’d scheduled with someone. It would be terribly rude. He still didn’t understand why the good doctor had insisted upon altering their arrangement after only four sessions, requesting compensation in money rather than sex, but at least it made it easier for him to keep up with payments.

To his surprise, the address Chloe had given him was the office building of another therapist.

“Oh, dear! Someone’s session went poorly,” he commented upon seeing the deceased’s blood-spattered face.

“Finally,” she huffed. “I’m surprised you bothered coming at all.”

The Detective! Lucifer turned to grin at her, but was stopped short by the chilly look on her face. “Er… yes. Sorry,” he said, not sure what he was apologizing for but quite certain he needed to apologize for something. “Had a session with Dr. Linda. Therapy twice in one day! How L.A. of me.”

Not his best quip, admittedly, but Chloe didn’t even seem to hear it. She just rattled off some rather boring facts about the case, then handed him a tablet.

“Oh! Hello,” Lucifer said when he saw the website she’d pulled up. ‘The Cheater Therapist’—this case might be interesting after all!

“He encouraged couples to cheat to save their marriages.” Chloe’s voice left no ambiguity as to her opinion on the matter. “You can imagine how many people want to kill him.”

“I can’t, actually. Sounds like a great idea!”

Chloe gave him a withering glare. “Of course you’d think so. You don’t save a marriage by sleeping with other people.”

“It can’t hurt to try,” he countered, giving her a saucy smile.

No sell. “Yeah,” she replied in a hard voice. “It can.”

The smile slipped off his face as she shoved past him. He had to scramble to keep up with her. “Detective!”

She was already walking into another room where a distressed woman was being comforted by a man with thick-rimmed glasses and a tissue box.

“Alexandra Shaw? I’m Detective Decker,” Chloe said, all hints of aggravation stripped from her as she slipped back into ‘detective’ mode. “I just need to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.”

The woman nodded tearfully; the man next to her handed her another tissue.

“Can you think of anyone in particular who might have had reason to harm your husband?” Chloe asked her gently. “Was he ever contacted by the spouse of one of his patients?”

“N-no,” she sobbed. “I mean, not anyone that was angry about it. He had couples come together, sometimes, but he helped them find happiness. “He… he just wanted to help people. He dedicated his life to others.”

Lucifer crouched in front of her. “And he did,” he assured her. “I think your husband’s work was bang on! Believe me, Alexandra—may I call you Alexandra?”

“S-Sandy,” she sniffled. “Everybody calls me Sandy.”

“Sandy,” he continued smoothly. “Desire shouldn’t be contained—it’s unnatural. Your husband recognized that.”

“Sorry, who are you?” the man in glasses asked.

Chloe pursed her lips. “This is my… associate. Mr. Morningstar.”

“Lucifer,” he said, rising and offering his hand.

“Jonathan Medina,” he replied. “I’m a… was a colleague of Dr. Shaw’s.”

Sandy sniffled again. “Who would do this?”

“We’ll find out, Mrs. Shaw,” Chloe promised her, then motioned for Lucifer to follow her out of the room. “Every one of her husband’s patients is a suspect,” she said quietly once they’d reached the hallway.

“Ooh! Does that mean we get to dive into patient files?” He all but bounced with excitement. “Read the deepest, darkest secrets of L.A.’s most unfaithful?”

“No,” she told him firmly. “We can’t look at them without a psychologist to protect patient confidentiality.”

“Perfect! I have just the psychologist—Linda Martin!”

“Your therapist? No!” She scowled at him. “Do you have any idea how unethical that would be? Besides, it’s out of our hands. Court-appointed. A judge needs to sign off.”

A confident smirk pulled at his lips. “Oh, I doubt that will be a problem.”

Impossibly, this seemed to anger her even more. She set her jaw and flashed him a glare that threatened to freeze every one of his organs. “What is wrong with you?!” She didn’t even wait for an answer before stalking off down the hallway.

“I think there’s something wrong with the Detective,” Lucifer told Linda.

Linda looked up from the file she was reviewing. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, for one thing, she hasn’t laughed at a single joke I’ve made, lately.” He crossed his legs with a huff of indignation. “Not even a smirk!”

“Making Chloe laugh is something you enjoy doing.”

“Oh, yes—it’s quite the challenge! I never realized how much more pleasurable success could be after a truly difficult task.”

“There is a lot of satisfaction to be found in overcoming challenges,” Linda acknowledged. She gave the files in her hand a look of regret and carefully set them back on the table. “Do you think you might also enjoy it because of the end result?”

“Yes, that’s what I just said.” He frowned impatiently at her. “Sorry, am I enunciating?”

Linda decided to try a different angle. “How do you feel when you’ve made her laugh? Can you describe it for me?”

“It feels…” Lucifer thought for a moment. “Warm,” he decided. “And sort of tingly. Quite a lot like the afterglow of a good prostate massage, actually. It’s odd, though…”

“What is?”

“Well, I’ve just realized I felt a similar sensation when the Detective said she trusted me. What do you suppose that means?”

Linda fought hard to keep her amusem*nt off her face. “It sounds like you’re experiencing these feelings at times when you’re connecting with Chloe on an emotional level.”

Lucifer brightened immediately. “Oh, I see. Yes, it is quite a lot like foreplay, isn’t it?”

“…That’s… one possible interpretation of it,” Linda said as neutrally as possible. “Regardless, I think this is good progress for you.”

“But it’s not, though, is it? Suddenly it’s like I’m trying to get a reaction out of a rock. It’s no fun at all. There must be something wrong with her. Ah!” he exclaimed, sitting up straight. “You could fix her! Let’s make an appointment for her immediately.”

Linda held up her hand to forestall his enthusiasm. “That’s not how therapy works,” she reminded him. “We deal with your issues. Not someone else’s.”

“But the Detective is the issue,” he whined. “It isn’t like I’ve done anything different lately.”

Something in the tone of his voice made her ask, “What have you done lately? When is the last time you remember Chloe being responsive to your attempts to connect with her?”

“Hmm… my re-birthday party, I suppose.”

“Yes, you mentioned that yesterday. Did something happen at the party?”

“It was quite lovely, actually.” Lucifer smiled at the memory. “She brought me this horrifying drink—whiskey with a pickle juice chaser—and then we danced for nearly an hour.”

Linda hummed noncommittally, although inwardly she was congratulating herself on her decision to stop sleeping with him. She’d never be able to live with herself if she were one of the obstacles in the way of Lucifer’s steady baby-steps of emotional progress. “And after that?” she prompted him.

Lucifer frowned. “She went to the restroom. But she never returned. I ended up spending the rest of the night with a pair of lovely ladies. Plus a few of their friends.”

It took all of Linda’s considerable training and experience to keep from dropping her head into both hands. “Mm. I see.” The stock phrase was easy to echo, a reflex from her years as a therapist. The next sentence, however, required a deep breath before she was sure she could speak without anything but calm, professional curiosity in her voice. “Do you think it’s possible that Chloe saw you in the company of these ladies?”

Lucifer leaned back into the couch, looking thoughtful. It was obviously the first time he was considering the possibility. “Perhaps,” he allowed. “I don’t see what difference that would make, though. The Detective made it clear she wasn’t interested in extracurricular activities that night, and it’s not like my own activities are a secret.”

One step forward and two steps back, Linda thought to herself.

Chloe interrupted him in the middle of cajoling Linda into letting him see the patient files. “Lucifer…”

“Ah! Speak of the me.”

Chloe was even less amused than she’d been the day before. “Out here. Now.” She turned and left the room again, not waiting to see if he was going to follow. “You slept with the judge, didn’t you?”

“Well, I try not to kiss and tell.”

She made a disgusted noise. “It’s all just a joke to you, isn’t it? You couldn’t care less about the people you sleep with; all you care about is the sex! It would never mean something to you, because nothing means anything to you!” She was being unfair, but she was too upset to keep her words in check. “I don’t care how many lists you make—that’s why I’m never going to sleep with you! Or did you forget that part when you were concocting this ridiculous scheme of yours?”

“I didn’t—! It’s not—!”

“…Um, excuse me,” Linda interrupted. “Everything okay?”

“Yes, Linda, everything’s—”

“No offense, Dr. Martin—”

“—absolutely fine…”

“I found something,” Linda announced, interrupting their overlapping responses. She told them about a patient named Richard Kester, who had sent Dr. Shaw a death threat a year before.

“I’ll look into him,” Chloe said. “Thank you.”

“Top work, Sherlock!” Lucifer added, patting her on the shoulder as he passed.

“Lucifer, wait. Do you have a minute?”

He hesitated, looking at Chloe’s departing back, then decided he could catch up with her later. “Of course, Linda. What can I do for you?”

She ushered him into her office and closed the door to give them some privacy. “So, I couldn’t help but overhear you and Chloe just now…”

“Ah, excellent! You have some insight for me, then? Some way to fix whatever’s turned the Detective into the Grinch?”

“Lucifer, she has a point.” Lucifer looked like he was going to start arguing, so she quickly continued, “I’m not saying I agree with her about your interests or priorities. But… do you care about Chloe? Or is your only interest in convincing her to sleep with you?”

“Of course I care about her!” he responded, extremely offended.

“Okay,” Linda said. “Then I think you should consider what it is you truly desire.”

“I desire her. How have I not made that clear?”

“Do you desire a relationship with her? Or do you just want to sleep with her, and then move on? Actually, before you answer that, tell me—what do you think Chloe desires? Because her opinion should matter as well.”

He scoffed. Said, “Of course her opinion matters!” But it was a reflex, a deflection, a way to bandage over the sudden uncertainty and guilt stirring inside him. Right before Chloe had pointed at ‘meaningful sex’ as one of her requirements for sleeping with him, she’d talked about relationships. Monogamous, committed relationships. That’s what would, apparently, make the sex ‘meaningful’ for her.

“From what I know about you,” Linda was saying, “and the little I know about Chloe, it sounds like you have fundamentally incompatible attitudes towards sex. I don’t think it would be fair to either of you for you to pursue something with Chloe if she desires a commitment that you’re not interested in offering. You’ll both end up hurt.”

Something ugly twisted in Lucifer’s gut. Linda was right. He’d tried to ignore it, but he knew deep down that Chloe wouldn’t want sex without the promise of a relationship. Maybe it hadn’t mattered to him much, in the beginning, but now the thought of hurting Chloe—not to mention putting their continued partnership at risk—pressed an awful, leeching feeling into his chest. As much as it pained him to admit, even to himself, he needed to put any thoughts of having sex with Chloe out of his mind. She was just too important to him.

He caught up to Chloe in front of Richard’s apartment. She and a small crowd were staring at the roof of the building, but she turned to look at him when he jogged over. “Seriously?” she asked with a sour look on her face. “You had to stop for a quickie in the middle of a case?”

Lucifer reeled back. “I did no such thing! Dr. Linda just wanted to talk to me, that’s all.”

“Oh, I bet. What was the topic? Alternate uses for a therapist’s couch?”

“I am not sleeping with Linda,” Lucifer insisted. “And what I discuss with my therapist is no business of yours.”

Chloe immediately deflated. “Sorry. No, you’re right.” She shook her head. “Well, now that you’re here, do you have any ideas?”

“Ideas about what, Detective?”

She pointed at the top of the apartment building across the street. “Kester. It’s going to be a little tricky to question him while he’s up there.”

So that’s why everybody was staring at a building. Lucifer popped over to talk to the man before he did something that would make their investigation much more difficult. Once Richard had both feet safely on the ground, Chloe gave him a typical lecture about his methods, but Lucifer didn’t see the problem—he’d saved the man’s life, hadn’t he? And, although he was a dead-end as far as being a suspect, he did point them in an interesting direction. One that ended up leading them to a trunk full of horse manure.

“So Tiffany was sleeping with your husband,” Chloe said, not so much a question as a request for confirmation.

“She was,” Sandy admitted.

“How’d you find out?”

“My husband’s colleague, Dr. Medina, called me.”

Chloe nodded along. “Okay, so he told you that your husband was cheating?”

“No, he had no idea. He just called to see if Bernie wanted to grab a last-minute drink. But Bernie was supposed to already be with Dr. Medina. That’s when I knew my husband lied to me.”

“But he was the cheater therapist,” Lucifer pointed out. “I don’t quite see the problem here. I mean, you said yourself…”

“The problem is he fell in love with her,” Sandy grudgingly admitted. “I lied to him about my trip, then I drove back from Phoenix to see what he was doing. I was jealous.”

Chloe’s face, thanks to long experience, stayed calm and professional, but she couldn’t escape the lurch of empathy that stabbed through her chest. It was one thing to know that your husband was sleeping with other people; it was another thing entirely to find out that they meant more to him than you did.

“I loved him,” Sandy continued. Her voice started to shake. “I didn’t kill him. I just wanted him back.”

“You still had him, though!” Lucifer said. “He was married to you—I’m sure he still loved you. What does anyone else have to do with that? You should know that—or are you telling me the wife of the Cheater Therapist didn’t have some action on the side, too?”

Sandy shook her head. “I never wanted anyone but Bernie,” she said with a sniffle. “Dr. Medina approached me a few times, but… but he wasn’t Bernie.”

Chloe’s head snapped up. “Dr. Medina was interested in you?” She paused, thinking, as Sandy nodded. “And then he was the one to call you when your husband was with Tiffany…”

“What are you thinking, Detective?” Lucifer asked.

“…Why wouldn’t Dr. Shaw have asked Dr. Medina to back up his cover story? It doesn’t make any sense. Unless… unless he did. Maybe he confided in Dr. Medina about the affair.”

“But Dr. Medina said he had no idea!” Sandy protested.

“He said,” Lucifer pointed out. “He could have been lying.”

“He wanted Dr. Shaw out of the way. So he called and told you everything you needed to know to figure it out,” Chloe concluded. “We need to talk to Dr. Medina.”

After that, the case was so easy to solve that they barely even needed Lucifer’s mojo to draw out Dr. Medina’s confession. Chloe dismissed him as soon as they had the man in cuffs, and Lucifer wasted no time returning to Lux. Linda had been right—that was what Lucifer wanted. He was on Earth to have fun, after all. He desired pleasure. No guilt, no rules, no restrictions. No pretending to himself that one person—no, the potential of one person—would be worth giving all that up. So he wouldn’t bother trying.

Chapter 7: No Hard Feelings

Chapter Text

The next morning, Anthony Paolucci was found dead at The Paddock. Between the confessional note and the corroborating evidence, it was quickly ruled a suicide, but Chloe knew better. Paolucci would never have confessed to shooting Malcolm and then killed himself… because he hadn’t been the one to shoot Malcolm. In her mind, that only left one suspect.

“Hey, Malcolm,” she said, catching him once she’d returned to the precinct. She couldn’t put this off any longer, no matter how uneasy he made her.

“What can I do for you, Detective Decker?” His tone sounded casual on the surface, but Chloe thought she heard some tension running underneath it.

“I just wanted to apologize. I was sticking my nose in, thinking you were this dirty cop—” She forced a self-deprecating laugh. “—And here you were trying to do the same thing. It’s just a shame we didn’t figure it out so we could’ve worked together.”

“Yeah…” He hesitated for a moment, then flipped an internal switch to ‘cheerful’. “Yeah! Total shame,” he agreed. “But, hey, no hard feelings! Huh?”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” He waved the idea away. “Water under the bridge, all’s well that ends well, and all that crap, right?”

She smiled, grateful for all those acting lessons in her youth. “Right.”

Malcolm sauntered away, and Chloe spotted Dan from across the room. She considered cornering him right then and there, but realized she couldn’t take any chances. Malcolm had killed someone. That made it much more likely that he’d kill again. She shot him a text, instead, asking him to come over for dinner. She knew the moment he read it—his eyes shot up and he searched the room. When he found her, he gave her a confused expression and pointed at his phone. She responded with an expression that hopefully translated into “No, I still hate you, but we need to talk in private.”

“I’m guessing I’m not actually here for dinner,” Dan said under his breath when she opened the door that evening, mindful of their daughter happily setting the table in the next room.

“You can eat dinner with us,” Chloe said. “But afterwards, we need to talk.”

“About us?” he asked hopefully.

“About Malcolm.”

“…Right.”

He focused on Trixie as much as he could during dinner, both to keep his behavior from tipping her off that something was wrong and because he’d realized how much he’d been missing out on time with his daughter lately. It wasn’t until after dinner, and Trixie had been sent to finish her homework, that he and Chloe were able to get a chance to talk freely.

“He killed Paolucci,” Chloe said. “I’m sure of it.”

“There’s no proof—”

“Paolucci didn’t kill himself. Not over guilt for a shooting you’re responsible for. This is Malcolm’s chance to clear himself of suspicion. There’s nobody else with motive.”

“Okay, but then why didn’t he kill me, instead? Since I am the one who shot him.”

Chloe shook her head, thinking it through. “I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t see who shot him? Made an educated guess?”

“No,” Dan said with a tone of finality. “He knew it was me.”

“Okay. I don’t know, then. Maybe he has something else planned for you?”

“Like what?”

“He knows you shot him. He knows you’re dirty. Blackmail?”

“I was dirty,” Dan corrected her. “I swear, Chlo’, I didn’t take a cent of payoff money after that night.”

“It doesn’t matter—he’d still have leverage.”

“So what do I do?”

“…Let him,” Chloe decided, after some thought. “Pretend like you’re going along with it. We could get info on whatever he’s planning, stay one step ahead of him.”

“And… and what if he figures it out? Realizes I’m double-crossing him?”

“Well, it’s not like you don’t have practice betraying people who trust you,” Chloe reminded him coldly.

Dan’s face fell. “Yeah. You’re right. And, hey—if I turn up dead, at least you’ll already know who killed me.”

Chloe sighed. “Yeah.”

Chapter 8: A Priest Who Knows How to Have Fun

Chapter Text

He must be doing something wrong, Lucifer decided. He’d doubled his orders from his usual suppliers, opened multiple bottles he’d been saving for a special occasion, and even found another Britney to join the other two Britneys. But for some reason, none of it was nearly as fun as it used to be.

Linda was no help at all, either, going on about loneliness and friends. As if those were something he lacked. Take Maze—he’d been friends with her for millenia. And Chloe, well, he wasn’t sure if they were friends, exactly, but they were certainly friendly colleagues. No, it must be something else. He was just… bored. He needed something new. Something different.

So when Maze came up to him wearing her signature smirk, nodding over her shoulder and telling him she had a funny one for him, Lucifer perked right up.

A priest, of all things, was sitting patiently in one of Lux’s booths. Lucifer sauntered over to the man. What sort of fun could he have with this one? And what could this poor, repressed soul possibly want? If it was drugs, sex, or any of the other delightful things Lucifer considered to be part of a good time, he’d happily lend a hand. Or another appendage, if that’s what he desired. It’d been ages since he’d had one of Dad’s cronies screaming his name. Not his usual kink, but after such an unsatisfying week the idea did have a certain appeal. And if, on the other hand, it was the sort of thing that always had Lucifer assign his best torturers to a Hell loop, he could think of several amusing ways to remove the man’s appendages instead. “Welcome to Lux, Padre. If you’re here for the sin, I’m afraid you’re a few hours early.”

The priest stood and smiled in greeting. “Believe me, if I wanted any of the vices offered here, I already know where to get those. Father Frank Lawrence,” he said, offering his hand. “You must be Lucifer Morningstar.”

Lucifer shook the offered hand, already pleasantly intrigued. “A priest who knows how to have fun! So what brings one of Dad’s most faithful to the Devil’s doorstep? Looking for something a little harder to find?” He wandered over to his bar as he spoke, pulling down a bottle of scotch.

Father Frank followed him, leaning against the bar. “Actually, I’m here about a neighborhood youth center.”

Lucifer paused, nonplussed, for several seconds. “…Well. That’s disappointingly dull.”

“It’s being used as a front for an illegal drug operation,” Father Frank continued, undeterred. “The center’s director, Lenny Arietta, is recruiting kids from my church to move his product.”

“Less dull. Still disappointing,” Lucifer said, taking a sip of his scotch. “Of course it’s about young boys. I should have known.”

“One in particular—a kid named Connor.” Father Frank pulled out his phone and showed him a picture of a teenaged boy in a knit beanie hat. “He’s had it rough. Lost both his parents at six. Bounced from home to home, some juvie. But deep down, a good kid. I’d like you to talk to Arietta before Connor gets involved.”

“Why not go to the police?”

“They were useless. Couldn’t find anything on Arietta.”

Lucifer eyed the man thoughtfully—that didn’t quite add up. “But you did. How do you know Arietta is running a drug ring?”

Father Frank shifted uncomfortably, but admitted, “The proof I have is tied to the kids. But I don’t want their lives ruined for that man’s evils. That ‘criminal’ label is hard to shake, once given.”

There was no way that the priest could have known that that particular point would have been the one sharp enough to skewer Lucifer through the metaphorical midsection. It also told Lucifer something else about the situation. “So Connor’s already involved, isn’t he?”

“He’s a good kid,” Father Frank replied, not confirming Lucifer’s accusation but, more importantly, not denying it either. “There’s still hope for him. Time to turn his life around.”

It was, Lucifer had to admit to himself, the best argument he could have asked for… if the man was telling the truth. Just to be certain— “You understand, I hope, what will happen to you should it turn out your interest in this boy is anything less than purely benevolent?”

“I do,” Father Frank replied steadily. “It’s one of the reasons I came to you.”

Lucifer nodded, satisfied. “Very well. I can pay this Arietta a visit. What’s your offer? If it’s to put in a good word about yours truly to Dad Almighty, I’m afraid I’m not interested.”

“I’ve been given to understand that you accept IOUs, to be decided later.”

Lucifer’s eyes glittered. “A priest offering a blank check to the Devil? Now I’m very interested. You have yourself a deal.”

“I got no idea what you’re talking about, pal.”

Lenny Arietta, Lucifer had decided, was a deeply unpleasant man. He lounged back in his desk chair as they talked, a posture which for Lucifer would have given a charming air of insouciance, but for Arietta just looked insolent. His outfit—black turtleneck over black trousers, trainers, and a tastelessly gaudy wristwatch—screamed ‘sloppy pretension’. And he chewed gum. The smack, smack, smack of it was slowly drilling a hole through Lucifer’s patience.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Lucifer said. “I have no problems with your line of work, myself. Well, none with your side business. I’ve no idea why you’d choose to trap yourself in here with these children all day, every day.”

“What, these little angels?” He said it with such a sarcastic note in his voice that it put even Lucifer’s teeth on edge. “But it’s such a rewarding career.” Arietta snapped his gum again, just to annoy him.

“I’m guessing there’s no point in mentioning that you’re jeopardizing these kids’ futures, if they get caught doing your dirty work.”

Arietta smirked at him, unphased. It would be so easy for Lucifer to call up his Devil face and scare that smug expression off his face… “You kidding? Bunch of minors? If, hypothetically, they got caught doing something they shouldn’t, well, they hit eighteen and those records get sealed right up. Win-win for everybody.” He shrugged lazily. “But they ain’t doing any under-the-table work for me.”

This time, Lucifer knew, the man was telling the truth. How interesting. “No? Who are they working for, then?”

Arietta just looked at him impassively. Didn’t even shrug.

Oh, well. Time to bring out the theatrics. Lucifer leaned in, taking care to catch Arietta’s eyes. “Tell me—working at a place like this when you hate kids, what is it all for? What do you want?”

The disappointingly simple man cracked like a rotten egg. His face twisted into a sneer, finally breaking through the cool mask of indifference he’d been wearing. “I want to find the son-of-a-bitch who edged me out of my business,” he said, “and I want to put a baseball bat through his skull.”

“There it is.” Lucifer straightened back up, pleased with a job well done. “I’m afraid I can’t help with that, though. I mean, I could. I just don’t want to. And now I get to tell a priest that he owes a favor to the Devil.”

Arietta frowned at him. Lucifer gave him a cheerful wave as he walked out of the office. “Call me if you ever do get back into the business,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m always looking for more suppliers.”

Favor accomplished, Lucifer pondered what to do with the rest of his day. He’d caught up with all of the more mundane bits of running Lux—sufficient boredom, it turned out, made even paperwork seem interesting. Maybe that’s why the Detective liked it so much, he realized. Well, he could certainly help make her life more interesting. If she ever came by again.

A few hours later, while he was in the middle of arranging an early opening for Lux, he got his wish.

“Detective!” He abandoned his event coordinator and practically teleported across the room to meet her. “Please tell me there’s been a murder.”

She twisted her face up in an amusingly disapproving expression. “Seriously?”

“Actually, scratch that—please tell me you’re here to keep me company.” He waggled his eyebrows at her in a way that usually earned him a classic eye-roll, if not an outright half-hearted groan.

To his delight, he got both.

“No, there’s been a murder. Body found in an alley about an hour ago. You busy?”

“Never too busy for you, Detective.”

“It looks like it was probably a mugging gone wrong,” Chloe told him. “Signs of a struggle, a couple of stab wounds, and his wallet’s missing—we’re still working on an ID.”

The unfortunate fellow was sprawled sideways against a dumpster, right hand stretched out and the other arm twisted awkwardly under his body. Almost as unfortunate as his outfit: a black turtleneck over black trousers.

“That’s Lenny Arietta,” Lucifer blurted.

“You knew him?”

“Met him. Once. Had a conversation with him this morning.”

Chloe gave him that look she liked to give him when he did something particularly outrageous. “This morning? You talked to our vic right before he was killed?”

“I couldn’t say if it was right before, Detective. But I assure you, he was alive and well when I left him four hours ago.”

“What did you talk to him about?”

“Drugs!” he cheerfully informed her. “Specifically, about how he wasn’t dealing drugs anymore, but wished he was.”

Chloe sighed, closed her eyes, and gave the bridge of her nose a hard pinch. “Okay, yeah, I’m going to need some more information on that.”

“Well, it all started when a priest walked into Lux…”

She listened, incredulity pouring from her in waves as he explained the whole situation. “Just so we’re clear, you went to talk to a drug dealer in order to convince him to stop dealing drugs, as a favor to a priest? You.”

“Not to stop,” he protested. “Just to stop using underage teenagers for transportation. Anyway, in my defense, I’ve been terribly bored this past week.”

“Right.” She shook her head. “Well, now there’s a murder to keep you entertained.” She turned to one of the uniformed officers on the scene. “What have we got so far?”

“Three stab wounds; one of them nicked an artery,” the officer told her. “The M.E. is putting time of death between 10 and 10:30 this morning. Forensics took some scrapings from his fingernails, but it’ll be a while before we get results. And they pulled some fingerprints off his watch—might be his, might be the assailant’s.”

“Wait, he was wearing a watch?”

The officer nodded and handed her an evidence bag. Inside was the garish thing Arietta had been wearing earlier.

“It’s garbage,” Lucifer told her. “I’m familiar with the brand. It’s only gold plating. Over nickel.”

“I doubt a mugger would have known the difference,” Chloe said. “So why didn’t they take it?”

“Maybe they had taste.”

“Maybe it wasn’t a mugging.” She handed the evidence bag back to the officer and returned her attention to the body, arms crossed in front of her chest. “Maybe it was just staged to look like a mugging. You said this guy worked at a youth center?”

“He did. It’s only a block away, in fact.”

He could almost see the gears clicking into place in her brain; her eyes took on a thoughtful gleam. “Then I think we should go talk to Mr. Arietta’s former coworkers.”

Mr. Arietta’s former coworkers hadn’t even noticed he’d been missing.

The lead counselor, Eric Doyle, stared at them with a confused expression on his face and took several awkward seconds to process the news. “I saw him leave to get some coffee a while ago. He didn’t come back?”

“He told you he was going to get coffee?” Chloe asked.

Doyle shrugged. “He goes out for coffee a lot.”

“How often, would you say?”

“I dunno. At least twice a day? This job can be stressful, I guess. A lot of kids, not a lot of funding.”

Chloe turned her head towards Lucifer’s shoulder. “That’s a lot of coffee breaks,” she murmured, “especially for a job with this kind of pay. Want to bet it wasn’t actually coffee?”

“That’s a very good point, Detective. Eric, did you know Lenny was selling drugs?”

Chloe jabbed her elbow into his side.

“What?” Doyle said. “No. No way. Lenny was so nice! And he was such a good boss.” His voice started to quaver. “There’s no way he was involved in something like that.”

“Uh-huh. And where were you between 10 and 10:30 this morning?”

He took a deep breath as he thought, stretching out the fabric of his ill-fitting red polo shirt. “Uh… here. In counseling sessions with, uh, Nikki and Connor.”

“Connor?” Lucifer interrupted. He looked over at Chloe. “Well, that’s the altar boy from the priest’s photo.”

“We should speak with them, too. Mr. Doyle, are Nikki and Connor here right now?”

“Yeah. I mean, probably. They usually eat lunch in the cafeteria. It’s down on the first floor.”

“Okay, thank you,” Chloe said. “We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.”

They found the two teenagers sitting on one of the tables at the edge of the cafeteria. On, not at—the little hoodlums had their rear ends pressed firmly against a surface from which others would later be eating—and they were passing a bag of potato chips back and forth.

“Are you Connor and Nikki?” Chloe asked.

The teenagers gave her matching looks of antipathy; the girl, likely Nikki, crumbled the chip bag between her hands and stuffed it into a battered backpack. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m Detective Decker, with the LAPD, and this is my associate Mr. Morningstar. We’re investigating the murder of Lenny Arietta.”

Connor gawked at her. “Mr. Arietta’s dead?!”

“I’m afraid so,” Chloe said. “Did you know him well?”

“A little, I guess. He— he— I mean, he ran the place.” Connor’s eyes darted around the room as he spoke. That was odd. Shifty, or simply uncomfortable with eye contact?

Chloe was doing her ‘impassive, thorough detective’ routine, nodding along with their statements without giving away so much as a hint of her thought process. “And where were you between 10 and 10:30 this morning?” she asked, so placidly one might almost forget she was asking for a murder alibi.

The teenagers traded a glance. “Counseling,” the girl said. “With Mr. Doyle.”

Connor looked at her for a moment longer before nodding. “Yeah. Counseling session with Mr. Doyle.”

Chloe traded her own glance, much more subtle, with Lucifer, tilting her chin down by a hair. To the teenagers, she asked, “Do you know if Mr. Arietta was involved in any drug activity?”

“Drugs?” the girl asked, laughing. “I mean, I wish he was. That would’ve made him more interesting.”

“I see.” Chloe gave them a professional smile. “Thank you for your help.”

“He was involved in drugs,” Lucifer told her as they walked out of the building. “He said so when I spoke with him this morning.”

“I believe you. Anyway, it’s the only thing that makes sense right now. If Arietta’s ‘coffee breaks’ were a cover for illicit activity, then that’s probably what got him killed.” She sighed loudly. “Except we still have no leads on who could have killed him. What about your priest? How did he know about Arietta’s activities?”

Lucifer hesitated. Unfortunately, Chloe noticed.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

He took a few moments, as they returned to her cruiser, to compose a response that might satisfy her. “You know my views on the necessity of punishment,” he eventually said. “For all those who are guilty of wrongdoing.”

His clever detective picked up on the implication immediately. Well, almost. “You don’t think Arietta was doing anything wrong.”

“With the drugs, no,” he admitted freely. “But he was endangering others, so I have very little sympathy for his fate.”

“Endangering others? What do you mean?”

“Certain labels can be hard to shake, Detective,” he said carefully. “Especially negative ones. Even if those labels are not entirely accurate. Someone could carry such a label for the rest of their life. I have no desire to see anyone punished in such an unjust manner, especially those, as you already realized, I don’t believe to be guilty of any wrongdoing.”

They had reached Chloe’s car; she stared at him, scrutinizing his statement, with her hand resting on the door handle. “Right.” She nodded. “Yeah.” She pulled open her door, and Lucifer followed suit. “You know, I think, in certain circ*mstances, I… I might agree.”

Lucifer allowed a smile to creep up his face. He’d known she would understand. “Where to next, then, Detective?”

“I’d like to talk to Father Frank. Find out exactly what he knows—why he was so sure about Arietta. He might have a detail that could lead us to known players. Do you know his address?”

“Just the church where he works,” he said, and gave her the name of it.

Chloe entered the information into her cruiser’s computer; her eyes went wide.

“What is it?”

“Father Frank has a criminal record,” Chloe told him.

“Really?” Instantly intrigued, Lucifer leaned over to see the screen. Sure enough, the mugshot of one Frank Lawrence scowled out from the center, a surprising number of arrests listed on the side.

“Assault and battery, disorderly conduct, drug charges…”

“My goodness! Maybe the good Father isn’t as dull as I thought.”

“Of course you’re impressed by drug charges,” Chloe said, rolling her eyes.

“And the disorderly conduct,” Lucifer reminded her gleefully. “Sounds like the Padre knows how to have fun.”

“Not anymore. I’m not seeing any charges in the past ten years.” She tapped on another tab. “Ah—restraining order filed by Lenny Arietta last week.”

Lucifer’s eyes lit up. “Naughty priest.”

“Right. Now I definitely want to talk to this guy.”

Chapter 9: Together

Chapter Text

Her phone rang while Chloe was driving, so she answered it on speaker. “Decker.”

“Hey, Chlo’, it’s Dan. I’ve got an update about… that thing we were talking about a couple days ago. Is now a good time?”

She did her best to ignore Lucifer’s expression—distaste and curiosity rolled into one pinched look. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“You were right about Malcolm—he’s blackmailing me about Palmetto and… all the stuff before.”

“What does he want you to do?”

“He wanted me to get a gun out of evidence.”

“Dan, you can’t!”

She heard him sigh over the connection. “I already did.”

Chloe groaned.

“Did you not like your nickname, Detective Douche?” Lucifer chimed in, heedless of Chloe’s quick gesture to stay quiet. “I could start calling you Detective Dimwit, instead. Ooh, or The Dimwit Douche! Daniel the Dimwit Douche.”

“Lucifer!” Chloe hissed.

“Lucifer’s with you!?”

“Of course he is,” she said. “He’s my partner.”

“Chloe, you can’t—”

“He’s helped me with Palmetto more than you ever did,” Chloe interrupted him sharply. “Do you know why Malcolm wants the gun?”

“He didn’t say.”

Chloe drummed her fingers against the steering wheel as she thought. “See if you can make him tell you before you give it to him. We might get a little warning before he does whatever he’s planning.”

“I’ll try.”

She ended the call, all too aware of the look Lucifer was giving her. “What?”

“Detective, what if I was wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know I said, before, that Malcolm wouldn’t be so careless as to… to silence you, now, but if he’s had the Douche acquire him a firearm…”

“No.” Chloe shook her head. “I talked to Malcolm a few days ago, after Paolucci was found. ‘Apologized’ for suspecting him. He thinks that I think he’s totally innocent, a hero cop.”

“Paolucci was found? What do you mean?”

Oh, crap, that’s right. I didn’t tell him. “Paolucci was found dead in The Paddock, apparent suicide. There was a note in his handwriting confessing to shooting Malcolm.”

Lucifer’s eyes widened in alarm. “But if your ex is the one who shot Malcolm…”

“Yeah. I know. And I doubt Malcolm just wants a gun for target practice. But he’s got no reason to see me as a threat. He’s got to have something else planned.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I. But we can’t do anything else without evidence.”

“Maybe you can’t, Detective, but once again I’d like to remind you that I’m not beholden to the same rules as you.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He’s guilty. We know he’s guilty. Let me punish the little pest like he deserves. I’m happy to give you whatever plausible deniability you desire.”

“Lucifer, you can’t just—” She broke off. In his mind, he could just, and she knew from experience that she’d never be able to convince him he couldn’t. Insisting otherwise, no matter that she was definitely right in this situation, would just end in an argument, hurt feelings, and no progress whatsoever. It didn’t help that there was a part of her that did want to see Malcolm huddled on the floor in front of them, crying and begging for mercy. It wasn’t all she wanted, though. She wanted…

“No,” she said decisively. “I don’t want you to break his legs, or terrify him into catatonia. That would be letting him off easy. I want to bring him down. I want him frog-marched through the station with enough evidence to nail him to the wall, and I want everyone to know that I was right.”

Lucifer had been about to argue, but by the end of her speech he looked downright impressed. And maybe a little turned on. “As you wish, Detective. What can I do to help? Besides remove his hand from his wrist if he’s foolish enough to try to harm you.”

Chloe groaned. “Seriously?”

“I’m quite capable, I assure you.”

“Yeah, because that’s the part that worries me,” she said sarcastically. She spared a glance away from the road to glare at him. His tendency to embrace violence probably worried her even more than his inhuman indulgence in drugs and alcohol. It’s like he’s never even heard about the concept of solving problems with words instead of fists and violence, and…

…Oh.

Oh, Lucifer.

She glanced at him again, trying to mentally peel away his deep-conditioned façade of severity, and saw worry laced into the lines of tension running through him. Worry for her.

“Promise me we’ll do this together,” she said. She reached out and put her hand on his. “Help me bring this bastard down the right way—arrested and convicted.”

Lucifer stared at their hands, curled together on his lap. “Together,” he agreed. “You have my word.”

Father Frank was surprised to see them. “Mr. Morningstar. Come to collect on your favor already?”

“Ah, not to worry, Padre,” Lucifer said. “I’m still brainstorming on the most entertaining way to collect on a favor from a priest.”

“We are here about Mr. Arietta, though,” Chloe added. “Lucifer tells me you had reason to suspect him of involvement with illicit drug activity. What can you tell me about that?”

“Not much,” Father Frank said, although he looked at Lucifer instead of her. “I, uh… I wasn’t always a priest. I’m familiar with certain signs. Ways for buyers to recognize sellers.”

“Signs that you saw from Mr. Arietta? Like what?”

He pinched his lips shut and kept his face stubbornly blank.

“Father Frank, I’m with Homicide, not Narcotics. I’m not interested in… anyone else who might be involved in the drug ring, unless they turn out to be suspects.”

Father Frank’s placid expression faltered. “Suspects? Homicide?”

“Lenny Arietta was found dead this morning, a block away from the youth center.”

“Oh, Heavenly Father,” he said. He took a step back, his expression horrified, and crossed himself.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I don’t see why he has to get involved.”

“We believe the death may be related to the drugs,” Chloe continued. “But we’re still looking for more information on who else might have been involved—who might have had a motive to kill him.”

Father Frank nodded, still looking a little shell-shocked. “Of course. What would you like to know?”

“Why don’t you come with us back to the station? Get everything on record.”

“Anything you need. I’m happy to help.”

Lucifer, still enthralled with the idea of a disorderly priest, followed on Father Frank’s heels as they exited the church. “You know, it’s a shame we’ve lost you to Dad’s insipid ranks,” he said. “Isn’t life so much more boring now? Just think what fun you could be having if—”

“Get down!” Chloe shouted, pushing them both to the ground. Belatedly, he registered the sound of screeching tires and then gunshots slamming into the side of the building just above their heads. By the time he picked himself back up, Chloe was already chasing the fleeing vehicle, squinting after it to try to catch the license plate.

Lucifer ran to her, heart pounding. “Detective! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to brush him off, but he insisted on looking her over, top to bottom. “Seriously, I’m fine. I need to call this in—can you take Father Frank back inside and keep an eye on him?”

He finally relented. “Of course, Detective.”

Father Frank was still a little shaky by the time Chloe made it back into the sanctuary. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

He nodded. “It’s not the first time I’ve been shot at, but I had thought I’d left that sort of thing behind me a long time ago.”

“Do you have any idea why anyone might have wanted to hurt you?”

“Arietta, maybe. It’s no secret we had our differences. But I backed off when he filed that restraining order last week.” He nodded towards Lucifer, who was wandering around and being mildly inappropriate with the religious icons. “That’s why I asked Mr. Morningstar to talk to him on my behalf.” The man in question must have somehow heard his name from across the room, because he perked up and started making his way over to them. Chloe made a mental note to add that to her Lucifer List.

“Setting aside that that’s still a violation of the restraining order…” She trailed off. Lucifer had probably been seen speaking to Arietta just a few hours ago. And he and Father Frank had been right next to each other during the drive-by—it would be next to impossible to tell which one the shooter had been aiming for.

“I’ve heard rumors of another dealer trying to take over Arietta’s business,” Father Frank was saying. Chloe nodded—that matched what Lucifer had told her. “Somebody called ‘The Spider’. Scary, violent reputation. If Arietta’s dead, this could be their doing.”

“Do you know who this ‘Spider’ is?”

“I don’t.”

Chloe sighed. “All right. We’ll look into it. In the meantime, do you have a place to stay? We can offer police protection.”

“I’m fine right here,” Father Frank insisted. He sat down on the pew bench. “This is my sanctuary.”

“Well, your sanctuary just got shot to high heaven, Padre,” Lucifer pointed out. “But if you’re looking to lie low, I believe I know just the place.”

“You stay here and keep an eye on Father Frank,” Chloe said, once the three of them had reached Lux.

Halfway out of the car, Lucifer stopped and stared at her. “You’re not coming?”

“I have to get back to the precinct,” Chloe explained. “I have to run the partial I got from the SUV and look for more leads.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Somebody has to stay with Father Frank,” she reminded him.

Lucifer froze in indecision; the worry she’d spotted earlier now poured unchecked from the dark brown puppy-dog eyes he was giving her. She opened her mouth to protest that she was a grown woman, who could look after herself, and on top of that she’d be in the middle of a police precinct surrounded by cops, and then he played the most unfair trump card. “We promised ‘together’, Detective.” And that wasn’t what she’d meant at all. But. Damn it. She did need to keep an eye on him—he might have been the one the Spider was after, rather than Father Frank.

“Fine,” she said, being sure to pump the word full of reluctance so Lucifer wouldn’t get the idea he could suddenly charm her that easily. “But only if I can work upstairs—I’m not going to be able to get anything done in the middle of a noisy club.”

He lit up at her capitulation, which Chloe was already starting to regret. “Absolutely. After you?”

Lux wasn’t actually all that noisy. At least, not yet. The music that pulsed through the sound system was still on at a “pleasant background” level, and the few patrons already in attendance at such an early hour of the afternoon were mostly interested in quietly nursing their drinks at the bar.

For once, Maze wasn’t tending bar, but she did make a bee-line towards them as soon as she saw Lucifer.

“You need a phone.”

“Hello to you, too, Maze,” Lucifer said.

Father Frank kept walking until he reached the bar, no doubt to ask for something boring like a glass of water. Chloe touched Lucifer’s arm, making sure she had his attention, and said, “I’ll be upstairs if you need me.”

He nodded and watched for a moment as she walked to the elevator. A very large part of him wanted to follow her. “Any news?” he asked Maze.

“Yeah. News I could have given you without walking away from my mark if you had a damn phone.”

“Yes, yes, just tell me what you’ve learned.”

“Your brother definitely had something to do with it. They’ve got some kind of deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

Maze shrugged. “Dunno. They didn’t say. Amenadiel’s pretty pissed that Malcolm’s not following through, though.”

He frowned.

So did Maze. “What?”

“Any chance this deal could involve a gun?”

Maze looked unimpressed by the possibility. “Sure, why not?”

…Damn. And, of course, he’d already given his word to the Detective. “Keep an eye on our guest,” he said, nodding towards the priest. “Tell him he can have a drink on the house if he orders something decent.”

“Where are you going?”

He was already halfway to the elevator, though, and didn’t bother to answer. Maze grumbled to herself about weaknesses and took her usual position behind the bar.

“Good news!” Lucifer called out into the penthouse. “It appears our friend Malcolm is planning to kill me.”

Chloe had set up her tablet and a small stack of paperwork at his desk in the library nook. She looked up when Lucifer arrived; once she processed his greeting, she waited several seconds for a punchline that was never going to come. “How is that good news?”

“Well, for one thing, that means he’s not interested in killing you. At least, not that we know of.” He uncapped a decanter and poured some of the alcohol inside into a glass. “Something to drink, Detective?”

“What? No. I’m working.” Chloe now had several questions, and was having difficulty deciding which was the most important. “How do you know Malcolm is planning to kill you?”

“I’ve been having Maze follow him for the last few days. In my defense,” he quickly added, off the exasperated look on Chloe’s face, “this was before you and I agreed to only pursue that pissant together.”

Chloe sighed. “Fine. And?”

“He’s made a deal with my brother,” Lucifer said. He sipped from his glass. “Probably in return for bringing him back from Hell.”

It took a second for Chloe to digest this. She slowly capped her pen and dropped her forehead onto her hands. “Let me get this straight—you think Malcolm died and went to Hell, and then Amenadiel brought him back to life?”

“Well, I don’t see him going up to the Silver City instead, do you?”

Chloe pushed that whole… thing… to the side for a moment. Malcolm got lucky, and Amenadiel conned him into giving him credit, she told herself. That’s all. “Okay. Sure. So why does Amenadiel want Malcolm to kill you?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough to guess. If I die, I go straight back to where I came from. A rather tidy way of sending the Devil back to Hell. For good, this time, if he succeeds.”

Right. Okay. So… Amenadiel wanted to send Lucifer to Hell. At the very least, in the most generous interpretation of this whole fever dream, Lucifer fervently believed that his brother wanted to send him to Hell. If he was wrong, well, at least Lucifer already had regular sessions with a therapist. If he was right, though… “Are you absolutely sure?” Chloe asked. “Because if you have proof, he’s looking at up to nine years in prison.”

Lucifer just laughed. “I doubt there’s any human prison that could hold Amenadiel. Not to worry, Detective—I can handle my brother.”

“Lucifer, solicitation of murder is a felony! I can’t let you just drag him into a back alley and break his kneecaps, or whatever it is you’re planning!”

“Not to point out the obvious, darling, but as I’m the Devil, that makes my brother an honest-to-Dad angel, you know!”

Chloe was at the end of her rope with Lucifer’s weird… Lucifer stuff. “How about this? Last I checked, there’s nothing in the California Penal Code that allows exemptions if the perp’s an angel. So you turn over whatever evidence you have, I’ll arrest your brother, and then it’ll be the jail’s problem to keep him contained.”

Lucifer hesitated. Chloe recognized the look on his face as the one that meant he was trying to figure out how to respond without lying. She rolled her eyes. “Never mind. Of course you don’t have any evidence.”

“I could have Maze acquire some,” he offered.

“‘Acquire’? I hope you don’t mean ‘manufacture’.”

Lucifer dropped his glass onto the bar top with a heavy thunk. “I most certainly do not mean ‘manufacture’. I simply meant I’d have her make a recording of their interactions.”

“Right, sorry.” She rubbed her forehead, trying to think. It’s not the worst idea in the world—put the suspect under surveillance. Probably the closest Lucifer will ever get to ‘sensible’. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said, “but that’s actually a good idea. Maze can obviously take care of herself, and if she’s watching Malcolm, we’d have plenty of warning if he tried to hurt you. Either of us.”

“Why, Detective, are you concerned about my well-being?” He put on one of his smirks, the flirtatiousness of it dialed just low enough not to annoy her. “I didn’t know you cared.”

She huffed at him. “Of course I care about you, you idiot.”

Warmth rushed through him that had nothing to do with the glass of whiskey that had suddenly frozen halfway to his lips.

Chloe was still speaking, unaware of her partner’s imminent existential crisis. “I’ll need to talk to Maze, though—make sure she knows how to collect evidence that can be used in court.”

It went against every instinct Lucifer had, the thought of collaborating on one of his schemes. But it was her scheme, too. Even if Maze was now involved. “Of course, Detective,” he said. “Maze likes to see to proper punishment almost as much as I do. Shall I send her up so the two of you can discuss?”

“That would be great.” She smiled at him, warm and soft. “Thank you, Lucifer. This really means a lot to me.”

He swallowed against a suddenly-dry throat. There was no reason for her statement of gratitude to affect him so much. And yet there he was, miniature flash grenades going off behind his ribs. It was a bit like mixing cocaine and Molly with pop rocks. He was suddenly very, very aware of the rhythm his heart made, pounding away in his chest. “Nonsense, Detective. After all, I care about your well-being, as well.”

The look in her eyes after he said that followed him the whole way down the elevator. It haunted him as he directed Maze up to his penthouse and while he finalized arrangements for the afternoon’s entertainment (a personalized tribute for Father Frank). It was still painted across his mind’s eye an hour later when Chloe emerged from the elevator, saying she had to go pick up Trixie from school and take her to the babysitter’s house, and another hour after that when she returned.

She wove her way toward him through the thematically-appropriate dancers he’d hired for Father Frank’s benefit. The soft fondness had long since slipped from her face, but he treasured this expression, too—eyes bright and focused, giddy with the thrill of the chase and quickly closing in on her prey. She had his attention long before she called out her greeting.

“Hey!”

Lucifer beamed at her. “Detective! Join us!”

She did, sliding into the booth next to him, and he turned to give her his full attention. “So, partial plates from the shooter’s SUV came back with a couple matches.”

“Thanks to your quick thinking,” he said, raising his glass.

She shrugged off the compliment, but he thought he detected a flicker at the corners of her lips. “And get this—one of them was recently reported stolen outside the youth center.”

Lucifer found himself spellbound by the way her eyes lit up at the puzzle pieces of her investigation all coming together. “You think someone inside’s responsible.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, but he knew it was at the thrill of the chase, not for him. “It’s too much of a coincidence not to be. I ordered traffic cam footage, so hopefully it’ll show us who was driving.”

“Excellent!”

“And that’s not the best part—Forensics found a gray polo shirt, men’s size XXL, covered in blood, in a dumpster not too far from where Arietta was killed. They’re checking it for DNA, and to see if the blood matches Arietta’s.”

“An extra-large polo shirt, you say?”

Chloe hummed. “Sound familiar?”

“Indeed it does! Shall we go and arrest that sack of excrement now?”

“Not until we get the results back from the lab, which could take a couple hours.” She looked away for a moment, distracted by something. “Couldn’t resist, huh?” she asked him.

“What?” He swiveled to see what she was looking at: the dancers in nun’s wimples and not much else. “Oh, yes. Well, the man deserves some fun.”

“Or you’re still trying to tempt him away from his vows?” she countered.

For a moment, he forgot his resolution not to flirt with her anymore. “Well, what can I say?” he asked with a rakish smile. “Temptation’s in my nature.”

“Hmm. And how’s that working out for you?” Her eyes flickered to Father Frank, who was bopping his head along with the music with his eyes closed.

She didn’t stay long, though, unfortunately. She slid back out of the booth with a quick squeeze to Lucifer’s shoulder. “I’ll be upstairs,” she said. “I want to see if I can find anything to link Doyle to the Spider.”

“Anything I can do to assist, Detective?”

“Yeah.” She gave him a smirk that did strange things to his insides. “Stay here and keep an eye on Father Frank.”

Disappointment swirled at the dreadfully dull assignment, but he shoved it down as deep as he could. It had been twice, now, that her thanks for his actions had given him a rush better than a top-notch designer drug co*cktail, and he was determined to find out if it would work a third time.

He looked away from the elevator once it closed behind her and saw Father Frank watching him with a knowing expression on his face. “So, Padre… can I tempt you with a drink?”

Chapter 10: Very Bloody Inconvenient

Chapter Text

When the elevator opened into his penthouse, Chloe had her phone pressed to her ear with one hand while the other scribbled on a piece of paper. She glanced up when she heard the chime.

“Father Frank, here, seems to think he can play the piano better than the Devil himself,” Lucifer told her. “We need a judge.”

She scowled at him and held up a finger. “Sorry, could you repeat that last part?” she said into the phone, followed by more scribbling. “Got it, thanks.”

Lucifer fixed himself a drink while he waited for her to finish with her phone call. Father Frank helped himself to the piano, and Lucifer wasn’t sure whether to be more offended at his presumption or his choice of composition: ‘Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door’. He tolerated it for nearly a minute before offering his critique.

“Come, now, Father—you can’t think that little ditty will impress the Detective. Let’s try something more upbeat. Something a bit…” He sat down at the piano bench next to Father Frank. “I mean, like, uh…” His fingers were suddenly dancing across the keys—the opening notes to Ray Charles’s ‘Mess Around’. He shot a co*cky look at Chloe over his shoulder and she tried to pretend she wasn’t impressed. He saw her smile, though, and straightened his shoulders just a little.

“I think I know what you mean,” Father Frank said. To Lucifer’s dismay, he joined right in on the lower half of the song. “Something like that?”

It was… Damn it, it was fun. Father Frank kept up his side of the melody like they’d been playing together for years. They finished with a flourish, and to Chloe’s enthusiastic applause.

“Well, Detective?” Lucifer asked. “And by all means, be as biased as possible.”

“If I say Father Frank is better, are you going to give him a piano made of gold?” she asked, a teasing glint in her eye.

“I’m fresh out, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, well, in that case…”

“Yes?”

Chloe laughed. “In that case, I have no idea.”

“Detective!”

“Sorry! I don’t know nearly enough about it. I… I only had a few years of lessons. Ages ago,” she added, when Lucifer’s eyes lit up.

“Nope, you’ve said too much. Come on, then, Detective.” He shifted over on the piano bench and patted the spot next to him; Father Frank, wisely, vacated his own spot to make room.

“No,” Chloe protested. “No, I—”

Lucifer’s fingers on her wrist were loose, a temptation rather than a demand. “Come on, it’s your turn. You must know something.”

She dropped onto the bench with a huff. “All right, well, I only remember one thing.” With one finger, she tapped out the first few notes to Heart and Soul.

Lucifer laughed incredulously. “Surely you must be joking.”

She shook her head and started over, more determined this time.

He sighed, although the impatience in it was only a tease. “All right,” he said, and joined in on the bottom line. They played for a few minutes, grinning at each other as Father Frank watched, until Chloe’s phone rang again.

“Sorry,” she said, stopping the song to answer it. “Decker.” A predatory grin slowly pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, Cacuzza.”

Chloe filled him in as they drove: Forensics had matched the blood on the shirt to Arietta, and had found a short blond hair on the collar. Chloe had requested a warrant for Eric Doyle’s DNA, which had just been approved, so now they were on their way to Doyle’s apartment to serve the warrant and collect his DNA. Lucifer, naturally, had insisted on accompanying her, so they’d left Father Frank in the penthouse under strict instructions not to go anywhere.

Unfortunately, Doyle wasn’t at home, nor was he at the youth center. Chloe put out an APB on Eric Doyle and they returned to the penthouse, disappointed, just in time for the traffic camera footage to come back and show them Connor driving the car involved in the shooting that afternoon.

“This doesn’t prove Connor’s involved in all this,” Father Frank said, handing the tablet back to Chloe with a stubborn look on his face.

“It’s pretty damning, Father,” she countered. “And it’s enough for the APB that just went out. Connor’s been declared armed and dangerous.”

“‘Armed and dangerous’?” he echoed incredulously. “The boy needs to be helped, convinced to turn himself in.”

“Father, he shot at us.”

“Yes, but he didn’t harm anyone. I have to believe he didn’t want to harm anyone.”

“We’ll do everything we can to bring him in peacefully,” Chloe assured him.

Lucifer, appearing at her side, smiled and nodded in support of her statement. He held three drinks balanced in his hands; he offered one to Father Frank, but the priest backed away quickly.

“If you’ll excuse me, I… need some air,” he said, and fled to the balcony.

Lucifer sighed, and Chloe put a hand on his arm. “This can’t be easy for him,” she said. “I have to do some more digging. Why don’t you go talk to him? I’ll be just over there if you need me.”

It was only a minute or two later that Father Frank crossed the penthouse again, this time in a hurry to get to the elevator. Chloe stood up and found Lucifer still standing idly on his balcony. “Where’s Father Frank going?” she asked.

Lucifer shrugged. “Something about one of his parishioners.”

“And you just let him walk out of here? Lucifer!”

“What—?” He set down his glass and followed Chloe, who was already stabbing at the call button for the elevator. “Detective?”

“We can’t just let him leave! We’re supposed to be keeping him safe!”

“Maze!” Lucifer called out once they’d reached the club level. “Mazikeen?”

“Didn’t you send her to tail Malcolm?”

“Yes. Damn.” He scanned the crowd. There—by the door. Father Frank was hanging up his phone and walking quickly towards the exit. “There he is.”

“I see him. Where’s he going?”

They weren’t able to get outside soon enough to keep him from getting into an Uber, but they were quick enough to hop into Lucifer’s Corvette behind him.

“I think he’s heading to his church,” Chloe said.

“He did say he’d received a call from one of his parishioners,” Lucifer reasoned.

“Something urgent enough to make him run out of Lux without telling us?”

Lucifer had to concede that point. Thanks to his estranged relationship with speed limits, they managed to pull in behind Father Frank just as he was getting out of his Uber.

“Father Frank!” Chloe shouted, and the man stopped in his tracks.

“Detective Decker, you didn’t have to follow me here.”

“Is there a reason you left police protection while you’re still a possible target of an active shooter?”

Father Frank’s eyes flickered between her and Lucifer. “I, uh, got a call,” he said. “From one of my parishioners.”

“Right, and which parishioner was that?”

“I don’t see how that’s—”

“Was it Connor?” Lucifer interrupted.

“Connor is one of my parishioners,” Father Frank said stubbornly. “He said he needed my help.”

“I can’t let you go in there alone,” Chloe said. “Especially without clearing the building. Is there another way in?”

Father Frank sighed, then nodded. “Yes, there’s a back door, around that way,” he said, pointing to the left side of the building. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a key. “You’ll need this.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Wait here. I’ll come get you if it’s clear.”

Lucifer made to follow her, but she stopped him with a hand to his chest. “Detective?”

“I can take care of myself,” she reminded him softly. “I need you to keep Father Frank safe. Please?”

His jaw tensed, but he nodded.

With one last glance at the two of them, Chloe swiftly rounded the corner of the building and found the side door. It opened easily with the key she’d been given, revealing a fluorescent-lit hallway with several closed doors. She peeked through the windows on each door: a kitchen, a music room, and some sort of multi-use hall; all dark and empty. The restrooms were brightly lit but just as deserted as the other rooms. Closer to the end of the hallway, Chloe could hear voices coming from the half-lit sanctuary.

“You’re sure he’s coming?” one of them asked. Male, and familiar.

“He said he would.” The second voice was also male but younger, cracking a little—most likely a teenager.

“I just hope you’re ready to do what needs to be done,” said the first voice.

Damn. Sometimes Chloe really hated being right. She crept closer, trying to get her eyes on them without being seen. Sudden movement made her duck quickly behind the door frame—one of them had started pacing in his impatience. She’d had a split second to see the man, though. Eric Doyle, their lead suspect and, if Chloe’s gut was correct, the Spider himself. The teenager could only be Connor.

Chloe checked her sidearm and considered her options. Based on their words, it seemed likely that at least one of them was armed. Better assume that both were armed. It would be a terrible idea to go in there alone, but her only immediate backup was an unarmed club owner with delusions of superpowers. Protocol said to call for more backup—more armed backup—so that’s what she’d do. She’d just have to get back outside the church so she could call it in without being overheard. She snuck back down the hallway, careful to keep to one side, only to end up face-to-face with her partner when she opened the side door.

“Lucifer!” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

“I heard voices!” he replied, for once in a cautious whisper. “I thought you might be in danger!”

“What about Father Frank?”

“Don’t worry, I told him to st—”

“Connor!” Father Frank’s voice boomed from the sanctuary. “What’s going on?”

Chloe’s eyes slid closed. “Damn it.” She unholstered her gun and hurried back towards the sanctuary, Lucifer at her heels.

“I’m sorry, Father,” Connor said. He pulled a gun from the back of his waistband and aimed it at the priest.

“You don’t want to do this.” Father Frank raised his hands in supplication. “I know you. This isn’t you.”

“Connor!” Chloe yelled. She stepped out of the hallway, gun held in front of her. “Drop your weapon!”

Connor startled and immediately raised his hands in surrender.

“That’s it,” she encouraged him. “Nice and easy.”

The sound of another gun being co*cked pulled her attention away from the frightened young man. “I should have known you didn’t have what it takes,” Doyle said with a grunt of disgust. Time slowed. Chloe watched Doyle raise his gun and aim it at her. She heard Lucifer shout, and saw a blur of black as he shoved her to the side. The ear-splitting report of gunfire. Lucifer’s solid weight collapsing in front of her with a punched-out gasp. She jerked her own gun up and fired once, twice, three times. The first went wide; the second hit Doyle in the gut, and the third in the shoulder. He dropped his gun and went down. She kicked the gun away from him and then spun around, falling to her knees in front of her partner.

“Lucifer?!”

He pushed himself up from the floor with some effort, one hand pressed against his side. It came away crimson.

“Well, this is very bloody inconvenient,” he quipped.

“sh*t!” Chloe yanked off her jacket and pressed it against the wound. “Lie back,” she ordered him and, for once, he did as he was told. “Father Frank!”

The priest hurried to her side. She spared a glance at Connor; he was panicking, but he’d put the gun down. Not a threat, but unlikely to help, so her brain filed him under ‘irrelevant’. She moved over so Father Frank could take over for Lucifer while she fumbled her phone out of her back pocket.

“I think this h-hurts more than… the leg did, Detective,” Lucifer gasped out.

“Shh. Don’t try to talk. Just— Yes, this is 8-3-1, requesting ambo and backup. My partner’s been shot. Second ambo for the suspect.”

Lucifer grumbled and coughed. “I do believe I’ve had quite enough of this mortality sitch,” he complained.

“You’re going to be fine,” Chloe told him. She switched positions again with Father Frank. He walked off to the side, but she didn’t see where; she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything but Lucifer in that moment. “Ambulance is coming.”

He groaned and shifted uncomfortably. “D’you think they’ll give me the good drugs?”

Her lips pulled tight into an attempt at a reassuring smile. “If anyone can talk them into it, it’s you.”

Chloe watched the ambulance carry away her partner and told herself he’d be fine. The bullet had gone straight through, it hadn’t seemed to hit anything that couldn’t be repaired by a good surgeon, and he’d been coherent enough when they loaded him up to tell her he’d listed her as his emergency contact.

He’d jumped in front of a bullet for her.

She made Trixie a quick dinner and reminded herself that no news was good news.

She kissed her daughter goodnight and made plans to visit Lucifer the next morning. She could drive straight to the hospital after dropping Trixie off at school.

In bed, she stared at her phone. She wondered if the hospital would give her an update, if she called. Probably not, but maybe it couldn’t hurt to try. She wished Lucifer would get his own phone so she could just text him directly.

Exactly three seconds after she clicked off her bedside lamp she had to click it back on, because somebody was knocking on her front door. She paused for a moment—maybe it was just a package delivery? She couldn’t remember ordering anything. But who would be knocking at her door this late? Then, whoever it was knocked again, so she got out of bed and padded cautiously down the stairs.

She peeked through the curtains at the door and immediately yanked it open. “Lucifer! What are you doing here?”

“As promised, Detective.” He gave her a toothy grin and waggled something small and electronic at her. “Can I come in?”

Chloe stared at him. He stared at Chloe. ‘It annoys me when people walk into my house uninvited’—that’s what she’d said. He hadn’t even tried to proposition her in… ages, actually, but despite that he was still trying to respect her wishes. She bit her lip and nodded, her heart melting just a little bit. “Of course,” she said, backing up so he could step inside. Then she stopped. “Wait. No!”

He paused and looked at her uncertainly.

“Lucifer, you were shot a couple of hours ago!” She gestured to the side of his abdomen, where the bullet had gone through. “You should—”

Her glance had caught up to where she’d been gesturing. It had landed on a crisp white shirt and his customary black suit jacket, and it didn’t look like there was anything else underneath. In a moment of insanity, she moved her hand forward another few inches and pressed her fingers into the fabric. Soft flesh, that moved gently under her fingers as he breathed. She looked back up at his face to find him smirking down at her.

“Not to worry, Detective. I may be vulnerable for some reason, but I still heal devilishly fast.”

“No. No, that’s not possible.” Her fingers caught at his shirt and started pulling it out from where it was tucked into his pants.

“Why, Detective, if you want to get my clothes off, you need only ask!”

Chloe ignored him. She pulled the white fabric up and away from his wound, expecting to see skin-tight bandaging, maybe some sophisticated dermal adhesive. What she found was a ring of puckered scar tissue that looked at least a week old.

“How…?” She reached out to touch the nearly-healed wound. Her mind struggled to make sense of it, throwing out ‘surgical glue’ and ‘stage makeup’ right up until the moment her fingers brushed warm skin that trembled at her touch. “That’s not possible…”

“The evidence is right in front of you,” he countered. “Speaking of which…” He held up the electronic thing again. “I believe you requested some?”

She dropped his shirt and tried to focus on it. “What…?”

“Maze followed our miscreants, as instructed, to a rather sub-par diner. Slipped this little beauty into the waitress’s apron and gave her a small cash incentive to be extra attentive to the gentleman with the ugly p*rn-stache. Apparently, he ordered quite a lot of food.” He set it down on her table. “Care to listen?”

He was distracting her on purpose, but Chloe almost didn’t care. If they had evidence that could bring down Malcolm…

She nodded, and he pressed a button on the side of it.

Amenadiel’s voice could be heard, loud and clear, saying, “I don’t care what you’re doing with your new life, Malcolm, except for what I’ve asked of you. What’s taking so long?”

“Come on, come on, chill out, Amena-dude,” Malcolm could be heard saying. “Here, have some waffles.”

“Do you want to go back? Do you… want… to go back?” Amenadiel’s voice was deep and threatening. “Because I can make that happen. Yeah. You’re remembering it now, aren’t you? I bet your thirty seconds in Hell felt like thirty years. Imagine what eternity would feel like.”

“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. Look, I got it. An untraceable gun. It won’t come back to me. I’m ready now. So, tell me, who do you want me to kill?”

“His name is Lucifer Morningstar.”

Lucifer pressed the button again and the playback stopped. “Well, Detective? Can we go punish that little co*ckroach, now?”

Chloe could barely breathe. She stared at the recording device, wide-eyed and unmoving. Their voices were recognizable; they’d identified each other by name; they’d directly stated the deal to kill Lucifer. Recorded by a visibly present waitress in a public place. In the hands of any decent prosecutor, this would be a slam-dunk conviction against both Malcolm and Amenadiel.

Beside her, Lucifer shifted in place. “Detective?”

Chloe swallowed. “We’ll need to get a warrant and arrest him, first, but yeah. Yeah, I think this is enough for a conviction.” She couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of her lips as she looked up at him. “This is…” She chuckled in near-disbelief. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face. You want to come with me when I request the warrant? I know you hate paperwork, but it is your recording. And I’m cuffing that bastard the moment it’s approved ”

“Maze’s recording,” he corrected her. “But… yes, I believe I would enjoy that.” His face lit up. “And you can text me the details! I had Maze acquire me one of those little devices you humans like so much.” He dug into his pocket and produced a sleek smartphone to show her. “What’s your phone number, Detective?”

After he’d left, Chloe sat on her bed with her laptop.

May 2, 2016: Lucifer was shot in the abdomen at approx. 5:40pm. Heavy bleeding. Taken to hospital by ambulance. Came to house at 10pm, wound site mostly healed. Scar tissue, no bleeding, no bandaging or stitches. Cited quick healing. Theories: ???

Chloe reread her notes for the… well, she’d lost count. The words still didn’t disappear or change. In a fit of pique, she deleted the question marks and typed in ‘experimental super-serum; nanobots; gamma radiation’. What else had those movies used to explain their heroes’ superpowers? Oh, yes, couldn’t forget the long-lived aliens that had been mistaken for deities by the ancient Nords. Hah, that one was almost too fitting.

She stopped herself. No. She was not actually entertaining this idea. Lucifer was not a member of some group of aliens, or… or… cryptids, or whatever, that had gotten misinterpreted and turned into biblical legend by ancient humans. That was impossible.

More impossible than freakish strength, desire mojo, and a healing ability that would make an X-man proud, though? There had to be some explanation for those things.

Eliminate the impossible.

A day ago, she would have said it was impossible for someone to heal forty times faster than normal. But she’d seen undeniable proof with her own eyes. Normal humans couldn’t do that. Therefore, Lucifer couldn’t be a normal human.

Surely there were things that existed in the universe that science couldn’t explain yet. Emphasis on yet. So, okay, if Lucifer wasn’t a normal human, maybe he was part of some undiscovered subspecies that could heal really, really fast. Maybe… Hell, maybe it was just freaking magic. Sure. Sufficiently advanced technology, right? And ancient humans being human, they decided these guys were deities and ran with it.

Chloe dropped her head into her arms. She was insane for even considering this. Unfortunately, she was beginning to suspect she’d be insane not to consider it.

She needed a good night’s sleep, she decided. She’d feel much less insane in the morning.

Chapter 11: Some Devil You Are

Chapter Text

They didn’t take Dan into an interrogation room. Not while Malcolm was lurking around the precinct, and not while anyone could slip in behind the glass without them knowing.

Instead, they took him to get coffee.

They took their lattes to a nearby park; Lucifer lounged on a bench next to Dan, while Chloe stood in front of them. She watched her soon-to-be ex-husband with her arms crossed, a stony expression on her face—bad cop, by unspoken agreement, to Lucifer’s charming cop. Dan, meanwhile, was trying to convince them he really didn’t need to confess to anything. It wasn’t going well.

“They’re going to ask him where he got the gun, and he’s going to have some story prepared,” Chloe said.

“Perhaps one that paints you in an even less flattering light than the truth,” Lucifer added. He sniffed. “If that’s possible.”

“You have them both on tape,” Dan whined. “Why should I have to sacrifice my entire career just to add a redundant nail to his coffin?”

“You know as well as I do—conviction is never guaranteed,” Chloe said. “We can’t take any chance he slithers out of this.”

Dan crossed his arms, trying to look tough. “You don’t know you won’t get that conviction. If it gets to trial and it’s not looking good… maybe. But right now you’re asking me to give up everything. And for no good reason.”

Lucifer heard Chloe whisper his name, barely audible, under her breath. Quietly enough that a human wouldn’t have been able to hear it, and wasn’t that interesting? He glanced up at her and realized she’d been trying to catch his eye. When she saw him looking, she nodded towards Dan and made a subtle gesture towards her eyes. “Mojo?” she mouthed inaudibly.

He grinned and winked at her. “Tell me, Daniel—” He leaned towards the other man, catching him in his hypnotic gaze. “What is it going to take, for you to do the right thing?”

“I…” Dan swallowed heavily. “I, um…”

“Come on, there must be something you’d like.” Lucifer leaned in a little closer. “You know how good I am at making things happen. So… why don’t you make a little deal with the Devil? What is it you want?”

“I want everything back the way it’s supposed to be,” Dan said in a daze. “My wife, my job. Back to normal.”

Lucifer heard Chloe snort and didn’t bother disguising his smirk. “Well, I’m afraid the ‘wife’ part isn’t going to happen. But I think we can make arrangements about the job. I suppose you’ll be needing a lawyer if you want to stay out of trouble.”

“I— okay,” Dan said. “Fine, yeah. If you hire me a good lawyer, I’ll admit to getting the gun out of evidence for Malcolm.”

“I’ll hire you the best lawyer money can buy,” Lucifer countered. He saw Chloe’s eyes widen and it strengthened his resolve. “And, in exchange, you’ll admit to everything.”

“Ev—”

“Your actions—your lies—” He spat the word like it had personally offended him. “—Caused the Detective quite a lot of hardship. I think it would be only fitting if you were the one to correct this situation. Don’t you?”

“I…” Dan sighed and leaned his elbows against his knees. “Yeah, all right. What do you need me to do?”

Chloe hit ‘send’ on her warrant request—with both the audio recording and Dan’s sworn statement attached—and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Sent,” she told Lucifer. “Fingers crossed, it should be processed by the end of the day.”

“Excellent!” Lucifer said. “Can I go home now?”

Something inside her rebelled immediately against the idea of him leaving her side. Not wanting to analyze it too closely, she latched onto the first, most obvious reason she could think of. “Not until Malcolm’s in cuffs,” she protested—quietly, of course.

“But, Detective,” he whined. “There’s nothing fun here. There hasn’t been another murder, has there?”

“No, but—”

“So, there’s nothing you need me here for! I’m sure there’s plenty of paperwork here for you to amuse yourself with. Just call me when he’s ready for punishment!”

God, he really was a child sometimes. Hmm… how would she deal with Trixie in this situation?

“Nope,” she told him, channeling all of her mom-to-a-crafty-eight-year-old confidence.

And it worked—he stopped in his tracks and gave her a thoroughly baffled look. “Sorry—what?”

“You’re not going anywhere.” She looked him dead in the eye, daring him to argue. She saw the defiance flare in his expression, as expected, but there was also the flicker of something else. Something… intrigued? Whatever it was, she had to stamp down on the impulse to double down even harder to see if she could tease out more of that reaction.

He co*cked his head, looking at her, now, with a faint but growing intensity. “And why is that, Detective?”

“Because we promised we’d do this together. Or is that not what you meant when you made me stay at Lux yesterday?”

For the second time ever, she had rendered Lucifer Morningstar speechless. His tongue ran a slow circuit of his bottom teeth as he considered her response. “Very well,” he finally said, eyes gleaming with a delightful promise of sin. He retraced the few steps he’d taken in his aborted escape, getting a little farther into her personal space than she normally allowed. “If you’re that desperate to keep me by your side, I accept… on one condition.”

Chloe tried not to groan. “Fine. What?”

“Well, we’ve already proven that your beloved paperwork can be accomplished anywhere with an internet connection, haven’t we?”

“Not all of it.”

“Plenty of it,” he insisted smoothly. His co*cky grin should have been illegal. Chloe was dismayed to realize that the self-proclaimed Devil was just as tempting in non-carnal matters as he was with all things sexual. “So-o…” He drew the word out with a baritone lilt in his voice that absolutely did not latch itself into Chloe’s hindbrain. “Let’s both take this someplace a little more fun. Together, as you are so keen on reminding me.”

Chloe had no intention of giving into his cajoling so easily. If nothing else, it would set a terrible precedent. “If we go anywhere, it’s going to take that much longer to get back here for you-know-what once the judge signs off.”

“Something close by, then. I’ll buy you another coffee.”

Whatever reaction he’d been expecting in response to his offer, it hadn’t been the sudden stillness that washed over her like a cold wave. Much less the unprecedented way she said, without a trace of sarcasm, “You know what? You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

Lucifer followed close on her heels as she packed up her tablet and walked to the elevator, too baffled to offer his usual tasteless jokes or innuendos. Instead of a coffee shop, though, she drove them to a diner, and informed him in no uncertain terms that she’d be paying.

“Why are you doing all this, Lucifer?” she asked once they’d sent the waitress away with their orders.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I know how much lawyers cost—I’ve been shopping around for one for my divorce. And you’re going to hire ‘the best lawyer money can buy’ for Dan? Why?”

Lucifer leaned back in his seat, blinking owlishly at her. “To convince him to confess, of course. I don’t understand, Detective. You—”

“Why do you care?”

Later, when she replayed the conversation in her head, she kept coming back to the honest, utter confusion on his face at her question. It wasn’t faked. She was sure of it. “Malcolm must be punished. A fact you and I are happily in agreement on.”

“Seriously? That’s it?”

“Were you expecting a different answer?”

“I—” Dammit. He somehow looked so innocent like this—despite the subject matter—that she felt guilty admitting to her initial assumption. “I thought you were trying to prove something to me.”

He tilted his head to the side, still baffled. “Prove what, Detective?”

“That you were—” That he wasn’t self-centered, as she’d accused him before. That he was still going through the whole song and dance to convince her to have sex with him. Except the irony was, if he hadn’t been doing it to get into her good graces—and, therefore, into her pants—he actually was proving himself not to be self-centered. In a rather dramatic way. “Never mind. Sorry. I…” She shook her head, trying to unscramble her thoughts. “I don’t like being in anyone’s debt, and you spending so much of your money on this for me… it’s a lot.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Is it so hard to believe that I want the little pest punished as much as you do? That would make my motives perfectly selfish, really.”

That was a good point. However, Chloe was quickly becoming fluent in ‘Lucifer’, and that also wasn’t a denial. She eyed him, searching for cracks in his blithe exterior, but couldn’t find any.

The waitress returned, bearing oatmeal and pie; Lucifer accepted his plate with a wink and a flirtatious one-liner, nearly causing the waitress to trip over her own shoes and Chloe’s eyes to roll out of her head. “What if we made our own deal?” he offered, spearing a piece of pie with his fork.

That instantly put Chloe on high alert. “Oh, God,” she said. “What are you going to make me do?”

“Nothing untoward,” he assured her, though the teasing glint in his eye gave her some serious doubts. “I’d have nothing but your own best interests in mind.”

“Right. Says the man who claims to be Satan himself.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I have no interest in convincing people to do things they have no desire to do.” A drip of the sticky red filling from his pie dribbled onto the base of his thumb. Immediately proving himself a liar, he stuck his mouth over the webbing at the side of his hand and sucked at it with a hum of enjoyment and then, for good measure, licked the whole area clean with the flat of his tongue. “Then they’d feel guilty, and next thing you know there’s another soul sending themselves Downstairs.”

Chloe huffed. “Some Devil you are. Shouldn’t you be trying to get people to go to Hell?”

“And create more work for myself? Highly unpleasant work, I might add.” He wrinkled his nose. “Certainly not. So? What do you say?”

Chloe’s phone chimed an alert. “Hold that thought.” She pulled up her work email and read the new message with widening eyes, then read it two more times just to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. “The judge already issued the warrant. Come on!”

The best day of Chloe Decker’s life had been the day Trixie had been born. The best feeling she’d ever experienced had been holding her newborn daughter in her arms.

Walking back into the precinct that morning came in at a very close second.

Chloe spotted Malcolm by the break room, half of a donut dangling from his hand as he gossiped with one of their coworkers. She and Lucifer shared a glance; he circled around the long way, his long legs quickly carrying him around the bullpen to block Malcolm’s escape from the other direction.

“Malcolm Graham.” Chloe’s voice carried throughout the room, and several officers turned to look at her. She slipped her handcuffs out of her pocket. “You are under arrest for soliciting and receiving bribes, extortion, conspiracy to murder, and the murder of Anthony Paolucci.”

“Hey, what the hell?” Malcolm tried to back up, only to collide with Lucifer’s chest. “Jesus!”

Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Chloe snapped one cuff around his wrist and spun him around to secure the other behind his back. If she twisted his arm a little more than strictly necessary while she did it, well, nobody would blame her. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Decker?” one of Malcolm’s friends demanded.

Malcolm himself, though, was a little quicker on the uptake. He craned his neck to search the precinct for his newest partner. When he found Dan, he glowered at him and shouted, “I don’t know what you told this bitch, Espinoza, but you’re go-aaghk!”

“Lucifer!” Chloe’s hand shot out to grip her partner’s wrist. “Let go!”

“But, Detective! He called you a—”

“I don’t care. You’re not jeopardizing this for me.”

His grip loosened immediately. Malcolm gasped, and his face lost some of its purplish hue. “You psycho! No wonder your brother wants you dead!”

Lucifer gave him a toothy grin that would have been more at home on a shark. “Oh, I do hope everyone heard that!”

“Let’s go,” Chloe told Malcolm, yanking his cuffed wrists around a little more forcefully than necessary. “Maybe you’ll get lucky and there won’t be anyone in booking yet.”

Booking was on the first floor. They made their way down with more eyes on them than Chloe’d had to deal with at her movie premiere. At least, Chloe reflected, she actually liked her date for this red carpet walk. Oh, God, she thought, I did not just think of Lucifer as my date.

He stayed with her through the paperwork, although she suspected it was only so he could keep an eye on Malcolm. And so he could jostle the man as they took his fingerprints (as redundant as that was), forcing him to start the whole messy process over again.

“This definitely calls for a celebration,” he said, after the bars of the holding cell had closed behind Malcolm.

“Here we go.” Chloe rolled her eyes and started walking back to the elevators.

“In fact, this is perfect! Your end of our deal.”

“Lucifer, whatever you have in mind…”

He skipped ahead of her, his classic nobody-can-resist-me grin infringing on her personal space. “Come now, Detective. You’re the one who said you didn’t like being in anyone’s debt. Come celebrate our successful apprehension of the p*rn-stached little pest with me.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

He schooled his face into a show of regretful severity. “Then I’m afraid there’s only one other way you can repay your debt to me.”

Chloe’s jaw tensed. I knew it. “What?”

“You’ll have to look me in the eye and say ‘Thank you, Lucifer’,” he told her, voice rising into a high-pitched American accent at the end.

She blinked at him. She choked on a laugh. He was— He was serious, wasn’t he? She surrendered to the smile trying to spread across her face. “Thank you, Lucifer.”

He returned her warm expression, but Chloe didn’t miss how it flickered for a moment. Disappointment, if she knew her partner. That, in the end, was what solidified her decision.

“So what kind of celebration did you have in mind?” she asked.

Once the surprise passed, the expression on his face could only be described as radiant. “Come to Lux tonight. Nine o’clock?”

“I’ll have to see if Dan can take Trixie,” she warned him.

“I’m happy to assist with arrangements if he’s unavailable.”

“Okay.” Chloe gave him a look even she wasn’t sure how to interpret. Or maybe she was afraid to. “I guess I’ll go ask him.”

“Wonderful! Let me know if you need me to call in a favor.” Flashing her one last co*cky smile, he turned towards the exit rather than the elevators.

“Wait! Where are you going?”

“To Lux!” he said, as if the answer was obvious. “I have a celebration to plan!”

Chloe stared at his retreating back and sighed. It looked like she’d be spending the rest of the day doing paperwork by herself. Again.

Chapter 12: Classy Billy Joel

Chapter Text

Chloe almost didn’t recognize the place when she walked into Lux that evening. There was a distinct lack of strippers. Or thudding R&B music. Or multicolor flashing lights. In fact, the club had been set up like a classy piano bar, with none other than Father Frank Lawrence providing the music. The knee-length co*cktail dress she’d worn, normally a few shades more conservative than typical for Lux, fit right in.

Lucifer appeared at her side as if by magic, one hand extending a glass of dark liquid. “Right on time, Detective.” He clinked his own glass against hers, once she’d accepted it, and smiled at her. “To properly punishing pesky p*rn-stached pissants.”

Chloe couldn’t help her laughter at the elaborate alliteration. “You worked on that, didn’t you?”

He smirked, dark-lined eyes glinting playfully, and didn’t deny it. “Do you like tonight’s theme?” he asked instead. “A bit more your style, I think.”

It really was. Maybe more high-class than she was used to, but she felt much less out of place in his club than she usually did. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”

Eyes still fixed on her, he shrugged one shoulder, a practiced show of nonchalance. “It’s not often I succeed in getting you to relax and enjoy yourself, so I decided to make the most of it.”

She smiled and shook her head, looking out over the crowd. Was it her, or was the ratio of men to women much higher in her favor than usual? “This is really nice,” she admitted. “Very ‘Classy Billy Joel’. You got Father Frank to play?”

“I know, I know, he’s not as good as yours truly, but he owed me a favor and I could hardly deprive you of my own scintillating presence this evening.”

Chloe snorted. “I give you ten minutes before you get bored and wander off.”

“Not tonight,” he assured her. “Devil’s word. This is your celebration, so you’ll have the pleasure and privilege of my company as long as you desire.”

The arrogant comment was par for the course for Lucifer, but Chloe was getting better at reading him. She saw the barest hint of a question in his eyes, a need to hear her confirm the sentiment. “I thought this celebration was for both of us,” she said, not quite ready to admit that she might, actually, enjoy his company. “After all, I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

This observation seemed to catch him off guard, from the way his Adam’s apple jumped in his throat and from the open, almost vulnerable, look she so rarely saw in his eyes. He tilted his chin in an old-fashioned gesture of acknowledgement that somehow suited him perfectly; his lips parted as if to say something, but he only drew in a deep breath. On the exhale, his mask fell back into place, and he gave her a smile that would have been flirtatious on anyone else, but for Lucifer was simply his default state. “The evening is ours, then,” he said. “What shall we do with it?”

What did she want to do? She’d taken an Uber to the club, so she didn’t have to worry about driving home. Dan had readily agreed to take Trixie for the night, and Chloe didn’t have work the next day, so she didn’t have to worry about getting home at a reasonable hour. She was freer than she’d been in recent memory. And it was a heady feeling, having all of Lucifer’s intense attention focused on her. She sipped her drink, stalling for time while he waited for her answer.

The more she learned about Lucifer Morningstar, the more of a mystery he became. Playboy club-owner, addicted to everything he could get his hands on, and a different person (people) in his bed every night. The man traded in more favors than a mob boss, and she had serious doubts about the legitimacy of Lux’s books. And yet he offered his hospitality and fortune with an open hand; offered his full-throated and unconditional support without hesitation at a time when nobody else had had her back. Hell, the self-proclaimed Devil had been owed a favor from a priest, of all people, and he’d cashed it in on a request that the priest do something he already enjoyed. For her. She realized she recognized the song, too. “Is that ‘Come to My Window’?”

Lucifer hummed in confirmation. “Melissa Etheridge. Delightful woman. Met her at a party with this women’s soccer team, and—”

“Yeah, I think I get the picture,” Chloe interrupted him, laughing. Down at the piano, Father Frank transitioned into Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Something to Talk About’. “Hang on. How did you pick this playlist?”

“Why, it’s yours, of course!” Lucifer looked altogether too pleased with himself. “I saw it on your phone a few weeks ago, when you spent the night. Two hours straight of sweet nineties jams in the queue.”

It was, quite possibly, the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done for her. Mildly invasive too, of course, but he wouldn’t be Lucifer if he understood social boundaries. Impressive, in that he’d somehow recalled her entire playlist after what couldn’t have been more than a quick glance… she hoped. Certainly not what one would expect from a man who claimed to be the Devil himself.

The real, honest bitch of it, in Chloe’s opinion, was that the man was somehow more tempting when he wasn’t trying to tempt her. She had eyes—she could admit that he was gorgeous enough to be a (fallen) angel. This close to him, she had a nose, too, and whatever obscenely expensive cologne he was wearing was making it difficult not to drift closer into his space. Which was probably the point of it, she realized.

“Did you have any specific plans for tonight?” she asked. “Past the playlist and drinks.”

“Whatever you like, Detective—I told you,” Lucifer insisted. “How does Chloe Decker like to let her hair down?”

Chloe had to fight the unexpected heat that prickled up her neck at the sound of her name on his lips—something she rarely heard. It was a dangerous question she was about to ask, but the whiskey he’d given her had started to loosen her tongue. “You first. What do you want to do?”

“I—” His eyebrows twitched, amusem*nt and not a small amount of confusion etched across his face. “There are quite a lot of things I want to do with you, darling, none of which you usually care to hear.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. “Right. Never mind that, then.”

Lucifer’s lips twitched, but he wisely held his tongue.

“Honestly?” she said after a while, making him perk up. “I just want this. Relaxing with my partner after a job well done.” Warmth from the whiskey was now spreading pleasantly through her body; she decided to blame it for the way she sighed and rested her head on Lucifer’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said, just loudly enough to be heard over Father Frank’s beautiful rendition of ‘Iris’. “For all of this.”

Lucifer looked down at her with wide eyes and squirmed a little at the unexpected affection. He brought his arm up, hand brushing awkwardly against her bare elbow, and tried to pretend he wasn’t at all uncomfortable. Chloe wasn’t fooled. It made her relax further into him, and she felt his jaw tilt hesitantly against the top of her head. “You— you’re very welcome, Detective.”

In retrospect, he probably should have given Father Frank more than two hours’ worth of songs to play. Or at least specified that the favor repayment would include playing as long as the Detective stayed at Lux. In his defense, he hadn’t expected her to have the next day off work, the lovely news of which she promptly informed him when he remarked—in a moment of insanity—that he was surprised she was staying out so late in the middle of the week. As it was, he was put in the disturbing position of requesting a favor from the Padre so that he’d continue playing for another couple of hours.

Four hours was, unfortunately, how long the Detective stayed at Lux, despite Lucifer’s best efforts to cajole, coax, and otherwise convince her to linger a little later. He wondered if she’d have stayed until closing if he’d waited until the weekend. But the Devil had never been very good at waiting when given the prospect of something he wanted, and when it came to the Detective…

He wanted the Detective in ways he didn’t even understand. He’d long since resigned himself to the fact that he’d never have her in his favorite ways—naked, sweaty, and in any number of places and positions that he’d happily leave up to her—but that knowledge had done nothing to dampen his desire for her company in any other capacity he could arrange. He’d found himself sending her messages throughout the day with his new phone—funny images he’d found on the Internet, mostly, and the occasional droll remark when he thought of something that might make her roll her eyes. Every half-amused reply from her was a hit of something far more addictive than anything he’d ever sampled before.

She left after Father Frank finished his second set, staying just long enough to compliment the Padre’s performance and say farewell. Lucifer walked her out to the sidewalk while she waited for her Uber, and just before she got into the car she pressed her hand against his arm, gave him a soft smile, and told him she’d had a great time.

“Nice night,” Father Frank said. Lucifer hadn’t even noticed him walk up. “It looked like things went well with your detective.”

“Yes, well, it clearly could have gone better, considering she only stayed a few hours. And the two-for-one gentlemen’s special went completely to waste. The Detective didn’t seem interested in any of them.”

“No, she didn’t,” Father Frank agreed, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. “At least, not in any of the club’s patrons.”

Lucifer tried to puzzle this out. “One of my employees, then?”

Father Frank chuckled at him. “Actually, she seemed to be mostly interested in you.”

“That’s…” Lucifer could only laugh awkwardly. “No, the Detective isn’t interested in having sex with me. Believe me, Padre, I tried.”

Father Frank made an amused sound in the back of his throat. “I didn’t say anything about sex. I said she’s interested in you. She certainly didn’t seem inclined to leave your side tonight.”

“Padre, you scoundrel,” Lucifer said, raising an eyebrow. “Were you watching us?”

But Father Frank wasn’t deterred or fooled for even a moment by Lucifer’s attempt to cover his uncertainty with his usual salacious bluster. “I glanced over occasionally,” he allowed. “Enough to see you were both enjoying yourselves.”

“Of course she enjoyed herself,” Lucifer retorted reflexively. “She was with me.”

Father Frank smirked knowingly at him, an uncanny expression on a man of the cloth. “Why do I get the feeling that ‘of course’ goes both ways?” He waited for a moment, watching Lucifer stew in flustered silence, before taking pity on him. “Anyhow, I appreciate the opportunity to come play on that fine instrument of yours.”

“Of course. And have you decided what you’d like, in return?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Father Frank said with a sparkle of feigned ignorance in his eye. “This makes us square, doesn’t it?”

“But you…”

“Played piano at your club, as agreed. Not a bad way to spend an evening.”

The Detective wasn’t the only one who disliked the feeling of being in someone else’s debt. So he offered the first thing that came to mind. “Well…” He tugged on his jacket cuffs, fixing the length. “If you ever wanted to come back to Lux to play again. During the slow hours, of course. You could.”

Father Frank smiled and clapped him on the back. “I think I’d like that.”

Chapter 13: Fanboy

Chapter Text

Despite the next victim having been found in a grocery store, Chloe was very certain that Lucifer’s fruit-emoji-based reply to her summons had nothing to do with the produce aisle. After three tries, she was pretty sure she’d come up with a way to respond that didn’t imply that she understood his pictograms or that she had any desire to understand them, which is of course when he decided to waltz in like he owned the place. (Which, considering his obscene wealth, was always possible—Chloe made a mental note to check into all of his properties.)

“Right! So, what have we got?” he asked, shooting Chloe a bright smile. He snagged a peach on his way and winked at her like they were sharing an inside joke. Dammit, she was going to have to actually decipher his text, wasn’t she?

She dropped her phone to her side and surreptitiously deleted the message she’d been composing. “This is an interesting one,” she told him. “Our victim’s a sixty-year-old male, collapsed in broad daylight. No obvious injuries, no sign of struggle.”

Lucifer slurped obscenely at his peach. “And the interesting part is…?”

She crouched down next to the victim and lifted the sheet from his face so she could avoid staring at the juice smeared across his mouth. “This. Based on the bloodshot eyes and the closed throat, looks like this guy was poisoned.”

He immediately knelt down next to her. “No! No, no, no, no, this is horrific!”

“Dead bodies don’t usually affect you.”

“You know who this is? This is Chef Javier!” He gestured with his peach as he spoke, nearly splattering the victim in juice.

Chloe grabbed it away from him before he could do any more damage. “Javier Arias, yeah. Owner of Sol de Javier. Did you know him?”

“Well, only by his work. I mean, this chap was a… an artist in the kitchen. He made the most exquisite Mexican cuisine I’ve ever had! I was going to recommend him for Taco Tuesday, do you remember? And now…” He cut himself off with a desolate sigh.

“It’s okay,” Chloe said, pulling the cloth back over the victim’s face.

“I’ll never taste his perfect tamales again,” he lamented.

She rolled her eyes and stood up. “So this isn’t about the man, this is about your stomach.”

“This is about a crime against good taste, Detective,” he retorted, standing as well. “Well, somebody definitely needs to be punished for this. And can I have my fruit back, please?”

Chloe held up the peach. “This fruit? Did you pay for this?”

“I texted you!”

And there were the patented puppy-dog eyes, right on cue. Chloe sighed and dug out her phone to look at his text again:

“Seriously?” She held her screen out to show him. “That’s what that was supposed to mean? I thought it was something… you know,” she finished, face turning pink.

“‘Detective, juicy peach please’,” he recited, pointing at each emoji in turn. “Plus, of course, my signature sign-off. I would love to hear what you thought it meant, though. Having some naughty thoughts, Detective?”

“Shut up,” she grumbled. “Why can’t you just use words, like a normal person? Do you have any idea how annoying it is trying to decipher your hieroglyphs first thing in the morning?”

He blinked at her, an inscrutable look on his face, then sighed. “I… yes, of course. My apologies, Detective. I’ll be sure to stick to full words in the future.”

Guilt prickled under her skin at his subdued tone. “You can use emojis if you want,” she conceded. “Just, you know—maybe enough words that I can actually understand you?” He nodded, and she held up the fruit in question. “As for your peach, you can have this back if you promise to stop eating at crime scenes.”

“What for?”

“It’s disrespectful to the victim, for one thing.” Predictably, he rolled his eyes at that. “And, not to mention, you could contaminate the crime scene. You know—make it harder to catch and punish the bad guy?”

He sighed. “Very well, Detective, if you insist,” he said. He made a grabby-hand gesture towards the peach, which she finally handed over.

“And you need to pay for that.”

He shoved it straight into his mouth for another enthusiastic chomp. “Of course.”

Once he’d wandered back from giving the cashier enough money to purchase most of the produce section, Chloe filled him in on more of the case details. He was aghast at the suggestion that one of Javier’s employees could have done the deed; less so, once they started interviewing the staff and learned that they all considered Javier to be a father figure.

“Oh, this is much more interesting now.”

“Why is that?” Chloe asked, looking dubious.

“Well, my dear Detective,” he said, straightening his suit jacket, “this is patricide! It’s a tale as old as time. You know—Oedipus, the Menendez Brothers. Voldemort.”

Chloe snagged his arm and brought him around for an impromptu tête-à-tête.

“Yes?”

“Listen,” she said, “I know you don’t have the best history with your dad—”

“Understatement.”

“But there’s a lot of reasons to commit murder. I don’t want us to miss something because you’ve already decided you know what the motive must be.” He still looked like he wanted to argue, so she smiled and bumped his elbow with her arm. “Got to make sure we punish the right bad guy, right?”

The effect was immediate; some of the tension drained from his posture, and he gave her an approving smirk. “Absolutely, Detective,” he said. “Glad to see you’ve got the spirit of it.”

“Great. So, you want to start with the hostess?”

“After you.”

They were interrupted, however, by Officer Chin, announcing that Chloe’s sister was there to see her. Since Chloe didn’t have a sister, this was actually her mom—back from the convention circuit—and Chloe got the opportunity to witness Lucifer turn into a tongue-tied fanboy when he realized her mother was none other than Penelope Decker, the Vampire Queen. It was an opportunity she’d have much rather missed. Especially when they started flirting. Ew.

“Poor Javier,” her mom lamented, overselling the emotion as she always did. “Such a wonderful chef.”

“A woman of refined taste, as well!” Lucifer said, an unnervingly saucy grin growing on his face. “See, Detective? You should have taken me up on my offer to dine here while you had the chance.”

Chloe’s mom glanced between the two of them with one eyebrow raised to a mischievous height. “The two of you eat dinner together?”

Oh, no. Nope. No, thank you. Chloe did not need her mom getting it in her head that she and Lucifer might be a thing. “Only when I don’t have any better options,” she said, trying her best to indicate by tone and body language that her mom needed to leave right now and preferably without saying anything else embarrassing or gross.

“‘Better options’?” her mom asked, looking Lucifer over from head to toe. “I don’t see how you could find a better option than this gorgeous specimen.”

Lucifer preened under the flattery. Chloe tasted her breakfast.

“You know, I keep telling her that,” he said, “but she refuses to believe me for some reason. It’s a pity your daughter didn’t get your sense.” He gave her a sweeping, appreciative look, flirtatious little smirk firmly in place. “She certainly got your looks, though.”

Right. That was way more than enough. Chloe had enough mental scarring already. If she didn’t get her mom away from Lucifer within the next minute, she was going to end up with images in her head more horrifying than Lucifer’s medical records. She snagged her mom by the wrist and dragged her towards the exit. “Okay, Mom, please stop hitting on my partner. We can catch up later.”

“Absolutely!” her mom exclaimed, and Chloe had the sudden sinking feeling that she’d walked into a trap. “I was thinking we could have a family dinner tonight.”

Yep. This was what she got for procrastinating on moving into her own place until after she’d finished paying her divorce lawyer. “Family dinner?”

“That’s right.” Her mom’s eyes were wide and innocent, but Chloe knew better than to fall for that act. “It’s been ages.”

“Ages…? We never had—”

“And, Lucifer, you have to come.”

Chloe shot her partner a pleading look, although she wasn’t sure whether she was pleading with him to stay away or to save her from her mother.

“I’d love to!” he said with a grin.

“Oh, great! Well, then, I’ll see you both tonight!” She blew Chloe a kiss, said, “I love you, pumpkin,” then finally sashayed away.

Chloe sighed so loud it was almost a groan. “Seriously, Lucifer, you don’t have to feel obligated—”

“Nonsense, Detective. When else am I going to get the chance to have dinner with my second-favorite movie star?”

“Second-favorite?”

“Well, sure. I have dinner with my first favorite movie star all the time. If you can count cool ranch puffs and a vending machine sandwich as ‘dinner’.”

Chloe fought back a smile. He was just being his usual over-charming self, right? Except, she remembered, Lucifer never lied. “Just, do me a favor?” she asked. “Can you keep the fanboy stuff to a minimum?”

“Oh, well, if you insist.”

Despite her warning, Lucifer still ended up projecting his own daddy issues all over the restaurant’s employees. They all recited the same story, over and over: merciless taskmaster, nothing ever good enough, and no—of course they would never hurt Javier, because he was like a father to them. Chloe ended up making more mental notes to add to her Lucifer file than she did for the homicide investigation.

Hours later, with Lucifer sporting a flatteringly snug but garishly green Sol de Javier T-shirt after a second poisoning victim had vomited blood all over his shirt and jacket, the two of them were brainstorming about who might have had a motive against Javier and the sous chef.

“Perhaps someone who was kicked out of the family biz?” Lucifer suggested.

“You mean Junior.”

“Well, he seemed like a very troubled young man to me.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said, glaring at him. “It’s almost as if his Dad just died.”

“Right! You’d think he’d be happier, now.”

Chloe paused, then turned to face him. “You’re right.”

“Sorry, what’s that?”

“If he’d wanted his dad dead, he’d be happier right now. But none of the people we just talked to are happy about this. They’re all grieving.”

“They’re lying.”

“Maybe.” Chloe chewed on her thumbnail. “It can’t be accidental contamination. Not with both mercury and heroin. Maybe we missed someone.”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know… significant other? Javier was a widower—maybe he had a girlfriend?”

The employees were all confident that Chef Javier was happily single, but they did find out that Naomi Austen—who had been seen yelling at Javier and Anne just two days before—was both Junior’s ex-girlfriend and a heroin addict.

They got her address from her parole officer and headed out. After a quick stop at Lux for Lucifer, who hadn’t stopped complaining about the T-shirt (and after Chloe had snapped a stealthy photo of Lucifer in the shirt—for blackmail material, she told herself), Chloe rang Naomi’s doorbell while Lucifer peeked in through the window.

A young woman who looked like she hadn’t seen a good night’s sleep in years answered the door after the third buzz. Her hair had been bleached a few too many times, and she’d ringed her eyes with thick, dark makeup—probably to mask the dark circles under each eye. “Who the hell are you?”

Chloe held up her badge. “Detective Decker, LAPD. Are you Naomi Austen?”

“What do you want?”

“Can we come in?”

“I d—”

“That’s a nice collection of drug paraphernalia you’ve got in there,” Lucifer said, interrupting whatever Naomi’s response would have been. “All in view through the window, isn’t that right, Detective?”

The implication was clear: they had probable cause to enter, and they were going to enter. But everyone would be happier if it happened with an invitation.

With all the reluctance of someone who’d fallen on the wrong side of the law often enough to resent the intrusion, but also to have become resigned to the inevitability, Naomi backed away from the door and gestured for them to enter.

The apartment was in even worse shape than it had appeared through the window. The table was covered in spoons, foil, an open bottle of liquor, and half-drunk glasses of orange juice. A random assortment of clothes littered the furniture, and she still had a Christmas tree set up near the wall despite the holiday in question having passed four and a half months before.

There was also a large, dark green duffle bag in the middle of the floor.

“That bag looks pretty full,” Chloe said. “Are you planning on going somewhere?”

But Lucifer was already inspecting the luggage tag. “It’s Junior’s,” he announced.

“He’s staying with you?”

“Yeah,” Naomi said. “He just got into town and needed a place to crash.”

“And where were you between seven and seven-thirty this morning? Did you go to the restaurant with Junior?”

“No. I… I went to see my sponsor. I’ve been having a tough time of it lately,” she admitted, her eyes flicking to the mess on the table. “You think I killed Javier?”

“Well, I don’t,” Lucifer said, “but she definitely does. But she thought it was the sous chef before, so don’t take it personally.”

Chloe cleared her throat and shot him a disapproving look. “The poison that killed Javier was laced with heroin. We know you use, and we know you had a fight with Javier and Anne Martin two days ago.”

Naomi helpfully filled in the details about her altercation with Javier and Anne. Lucifer fidgeted while Chloe questioned her, first disemboweling the duffel bag onto the floor, then poking around at the various knickknacks scattered around the space.

“Interior design isn’t really your forte, is it?” he commented, interrupting whatever Chloe had been asking. “I mean, look at this—two donkeys on a beach? It doesn’t exactly tie the room together, does it?”

Chloe turned around to see what he was looking at. When she saw the painting, she got a curious look on her face and walked over to it. “And it’s very crooked,” she said. “Like it got put up in a hurry.” She pulled it from the wall and turned it around, then ripped something from the back of the frame. She held the baggie up to show Lucifer.

He grinned at her. “Well! What have we here?”

Naomi dropped her head into her hands.

“I’m going to need to take this in for testing,” Chloe told her. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to call your parole officer.”

Naomi just nodded glumly.

It didn’t take long for officers to arrive at Naomi’s apartment. They led her away while Chloe tapped out an email on her phone.

“APB on Junior’s out,” Chloe told Lucifer. “We’re trying to ping his cell.”

He grinned at her. “I’m glad we’re finally on the same page.”

“You know, ever since we met this kid, you’ve had it in for him. Why?”

“I guess he’s a bird of a feather.” He followed her to her car. “Someone who had a shadow cast over him his entire life. Whereas I could never escape from under mine, he could. I wonder how that feels,” he added to himself.

Chloe’s phone rang just as she was about to get into the car. “Decker.” Her face fell. “No. No, you did the right thing. I’m on my way.”

“Did they find Junior?”

“No, it’s Trixie. We’ve got to go, right now.”

Lucifer’s eyes flashed wide with alarm and the first promise of vengeance, and he scrambled to get into the car. “What is it? Did something happen to the urchin?”

“My mother.” She threw the car into drive and screeched away from the apartment building. “That was the babysitter. Apparently Mom told her to go home early. God only knows what she’s got planned. If I’m lucky, I’ll get home before… whatever it is.”

“Detective, forgive me if I’m wrong, but… don’t grandparents often spend time with their grandchildren?”

Chloe barked out a wry, humorless laugh. “Mom’s never been interested in being a parent, let alone a grandparent.”

“Ohh! Do I detect some angst?”

“She’s like a child. All she wanted was to doll me up and take me to auditions. And… I know it’s nothing compared to the crap your parents pulled, but she just…” She sighed. “She made everything about her. You know?”

Lucifer hummed. “Indeed I do. Treating the children as if they’re nothing more than extensions of the parents, never letting you have any free will of your own. You might say I’m familiar.”

Chloe reached over and grabbed his hand, giving it a slight squeeze.

He smiled softly at her and squeezed back. “Well, then, Detective. Let’s go save your offspring from the wicked clutches of your mum.”

Chapter 14: Very Thoughtful

Chapter Text

Trixie turned around and smiled brightly when she saw her mother and Lucifer walk through the door.

“Nana says we’re gonna be in a movie!” she announced. She’d been dressed up in a sparkling silver dress, her fanciest fake jewelry, and far too much makeup for an adult, let alone an eight-year-old.

Chloe shook her head and scoffed. “This is why you sent the babysitter home early?”

“We didn’t need her anymore,” Penelope said, too busy touching up Trixie’s makeup to so much as look at Chloe. “We were just on our way to our first audition! Isn’t that a thrill?”

“You didn’t think to ask me about that?”

Penelope and Chloe continued bickering, which Lucifer promptly ignored on the grounds of it being both too domestic and too boring. “And you, Urchin?” he asked. “Did anyone think to ask you if you wanted to be in a movie?”

Trixie thought about that for a moment. “No,” she said. “Nana said it’s lots of fun, though! Have you ever been in a movie?”

“Nothing you’re likely to ever see,” he said with a smirk. “Quite a bit different to the movie your Nana wants to audition for.”

“What kind of movie?”

Lucifer froze. “Uhh…” He thought quickly. “Why don’t you go get changed, spawn? It doesn’t appear you’ll be going to that audition, and you look like an old drag queen.”

“Okay!” she said, and flounced off towards her bedroom.

Over in the kitchen, Chloe and Penelope were wrapping up their argument; Chloe turned to gesture at her daughter and frowned when she didn’t see her. “Where’s Trixie?” she asked Lucifer.

“In her room. I sent her to go change out of that ridiculous outfit.”

“‘Ridiculous’?!” Penelope protested, which they both ignored.

“Okay, good.” Chloe took a deep breath that turned into an annoyed sigh. “Now what do I do? It’s probably too late to call the babysitter back here…”

“Lucifer can stay with me!” Trixie emerged from her room, now dressed in jeans and a bright turquoise sweatshirt. “Right, Lucifer?”

“Wh—” Lucifer’s jaw dropped open and he stared at Chloe with comically wide eyes. “Detective, I don’t think—”

“How about we both stay with you for now?” Chloe offered. “There’s some things I can follow up on from here. At least until we get a hit on the APB for Junior.”

Trixie’s squeal of delight alarmed him almost as much as the sticky arms now wrapped around his midsection. “Yes. Lovely.” He tugged delicately at her sleeve, trying to extricate himself without ruining any more of his suit than she already had. “Detective, how do you make her let go?”

Chloe, merciless minx that she was, threw her head back and laughed at him. “She’s eight. Aren’t you supposed to be the King of Hell?”

“Demons are much easier to corral. For one thing, they actually listen to me. Well, most of the time.”

Chloe rolled her eyes—the way he was so fond of, with an amused sparkle in them—but she finally took pity on him. “Come on, Trix. Why don’t you go pick out a movie? You guys can watch it while Mommy does stuff for work.”

“‘Hot Tub High School’?” Lucifer suggested hopefully.

“Disney.”

Lucifer gave her a horrified look. “I have literally been in this exact Hell Loop, Detective.”

“Oh, good,” she retorted with a smirk. “Then you’ll be used to it.”

Lucifer Morningstar was not renowned for his patience, nor for his attention span. The introduction of animated singing princesses did nothing to increase either of those qualities. Quite the opposite, actually. So it wasn’t long before he was desperately typing out pleas for liberation—in the form of terse instructions—to his favorite demon, who listened to him most of the time.

The groceries were delivered first, not long after Penelope had left for her audition, and were, in retrospect, the most well-received.

“Lucifer, what are you doing?”

Lucifer handed a stack of bills to the delivery boy and grinned at the bags he handed over. “Your mother’s family dinner, remember? I thought I’d assist.”

“What?” Chloe blinked at him. “Wait, you’re going to cook?”

“Well, yes, Detective. I think we’ve established that I’m more than capable. Ah-hah!” He pulled out a blue apron from one of the bags. “Good old Mazikeen. So detail-oriented. What do you say?” he added with a wink as he tied it around his waist.

Chloe looked at the apron. It had ‘Kiss The Cook’ emblazoned on it in red text, which he was helpfully showing off for her. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“What, you don’t want my culinary prowess improving your evening?” He held his hand to his heart as he said it, a pitiable portrait of dismay and hurt feelings.

“What ‘culinary prowess’?” she teased back. “I’ve only ever seen you cook omelets.”

“Ah, but it was the best omelet you’d ever eaten, wasn’t it?”

She pretended to hesitate, only relenting once she couldn’t hold back her giggles at his feigned outrage.

“Right.” He shook a spoon at her. “That’s it, you’ve asked for it. The best meal you’ve ever had in your life, coming up, or your money back.”

“What’s on the menu?”

“Bolinhos de bacalhau, porco à Alentejana, and pudim abade de priscos for dessert.”

She couldn’t help but notice how smoothly he pronounced the words—like a native speaker, if she was any judge. “You speak… What is that, Portuguese?”

“It is. I speak every language, Detective.”

She laughed. “No, you don’t!”

“I most certainly do!”

“So if we had to question a witness in… in—” She thought for a moment. “—In Swahili, I could use you to translate?”

“Ndiyo, Mpelelezi, unaweza nitumie kwa njia yoyote unayotaka.”

“Hang on.” She pulled out her phone and brought up a translation app. “Say that again.”

He smirked, but obediently repeated the sentence, and Chloe blushed when she saw the translation: “Yes, Detective, you can use me in any way you want.”

“Okay, point made,” she conceded.

“Am I permitted to start cooking, then?”

She waved her hand at him in a vague ‘get on with it’ gesture. “As if I could stop you from doing whatever you want.”

Having already turned back to her work, she missed the wistful look that settled over his face, arresting him in melancholy for a moment before he shook it off and started sorting through the groceries.

The second delivery was received with somewhat less enthusiasm.

Chloe answered the door, since Lucifer was busy doing something with hot oil, and found herself ducking out of the way of the tousled young man who was being shoved towards her face. “Junior?!”

He stumbled awkwardly into the house. “Uh, hi. Um. Do you know this crazy lady?” He jerked his thumb behind him, and Chloe finally noticed Lucifer’s bartender standing in her doorway, flipping a curved knife around her finger.

“Maze!” Lucifer called out. “Excellent, you found him!”

“Yep. You gonna pay me?”

“That should cover it,” Lucifer said, handing over another wad of money.

Maze grinned and made it disappear. She didn’t seem to have any pockets in her skin-tight leather; Chloe decided it was best not to think about it. “Easiest cash I ever made. Bye.”

“Hey! You can’t—!”

But it was too late. Maze had already revved up her motorcycle and disappeared down the street.

In a slight daze, Chloe very calmly closed the door. She leaned her back against it. She looked at Junior, standing awkwardly in the middle of her living room. She looked at Lucifer, once again stirring something on her stove. British playboy, owner of the hottest nightclub in L.A., Mr. “I’m The Actual, Literal Devil” Morningstar, was wearing a blue “Kiss the Cook” apron and humming “Let It Go” while cooking dinner for her family. After having paid his insane ninja bartender to hunt down her suspect and deliver him right to her front door.

It started as a single snort. Then a series of inelegant choking noises in the back of her throat. By the time she’d caught Lucifer’s attention—and concern—she had a hand across her face and was shaking with barely-concealed laughter. It was just so… so… Lucifer.

“Detective?”

She held a finger up at her partner, did her best to regain control of her face, and addressed Junior instead. “You all right? Maze didn’t hurt you?”

He shook his head, so Chloe nodded. She very calmly crossed the room to the kitchen and placed her hand on the back of Lucifer’s shoulder. She didn’t miss the brief moment of tension in his back, triggered by her touch.

She had to pause for a moment, at this point, before she could release the cheek she had clamped between her teeth. “Okay, so, Lucifer?” she started, barely loud enough to be considered a murmur. “It was very thoughtful of you to have our suspect delivered to the house. Very convenient. But, um, that is considered kidnapping, and you—” No, wait, he wouldn’t care about that. “—I could get in a lot of trouble for it. Maybe we could get Maze certified as a bounty hunter if you’re going to do that again?”

“If you like, Detective.”

She squeezed his shoulder and smiled at him. “I, um… I appreciate the thought, though. Junior?” she called out at normal volume. “Why don’t you have a seat over here?”

Well, she did need to question him again.

In the end, it wasn’t Junior’s insistence that he hadn’t killed his father; that he had gone backpacking through India and gotten clean, not even eating meat let alone using heroin, that convinced Chloe that he was innocent. It was the raw grief pouring from every inch of his face when Lucifer, eager to live vicariously through the suspected patricide, sat down next to her and demanded a play-by-play of Junior’s emotions when he killed his dad.

Except… he hadn’t killed his dad. Chloe and Lucifer were both convinced, but unfortunately it did put them back at square one for possible suspects.

It was probably a sign that she was spending too much time around Lucifer when his complete attitude reversal towards the young man didn’t even surprise her. Inviting Junior to stay for dinner was a little much, she thought, even if it did help to blunt the edge of the freaking kidnapping he’d endured. To her relief, Junior politely declined as soon as he was informed that every dish on the menu included some sort of meat or seafood. Chloe sent him on his way with a stern instruction to keep his cell phone on, just in case they needed to talk to him yet again.

“Not to worry, Detective—I can always have Maze retrieve him again if need be.”

Chloe poked her finger into Lucifer’s chest and pushed him backwards into the kitchen. “Certification first,” she reminded him.

He smirked; she rolled her eyes. They both knew they’d compromise somewhere in the middle, with a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of policy towards the shenanigans that he liked to slip in under her radar. Sometimes it worried Chloe, how easily Lucifer could convince her to bend the rules, but he was so good at getting out of trouble it never seemed to matter.

For now, her main concern was getting the food he’d prepared onto the table. It smelled ‘sinfully good’, as he liked to say. She helped Lucifer with the serving dishes and did her damnedest to ignore the unsubtle looks her mother kept sending her way.

“I, uh, take it Dan is out of the picture, then?”

“Yep,” Chloe said, mentally begging her to drop the subject.

“Oh? What happened?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s suspended right now,” Lucifer told her. “Turns out he was on the take, and— ow!”

“If you keep telling my mom things that are none of her business,” Chloe told him under her breath, “I’m going to tell Maze that you watched ‘Frozen’ with Trixie.”

He plastered on a smile and finished his sentence with, “…And now he’s out of the picture.”

“Well,” her mom said with a sniff. “You certainly traded up! Tell me—is he this good at everything he does?” She winked at him. She actually winked at him.

“Mom!”

Lucifer set the last bowl on the table and sat down across from Chloe. “While I am obviously a much better partner than the Dou—”

Chloe jabbed her boot into his shin and flicked her eyes sideways, to where Trixie was sitting. She shook her head slightly and gave him the glare that usually meant he was on her very last nerve.

He sighed dramatically, but corrected himself. “—Than Daniel… I’m afraid the Detective has been quite adamant about not sleeping with m— ow!” He lifted his leg up so he could massage his abused shin, a bewildered and woeful look on his face. “Why do you keep kicking me?”

How? How had she ended up with a partner who had all the social awareness of a concussed squirrel?

Her mom raised one eyebrow and gave Lucifer a speculative look. “Why on Earth not? If I were twenty years younger, I’d snap him up myself.”

“Who said you’d need to be younger?” Lucifer retorted with a flirtatious grin.

Chloe dropped her head into her hands. She really needed to move out of her mother’s house.

Chapter 15: Think Positive

Chapter Text

Chloe’s phone rang while they were cleaning up. She quickly rinsed off her hands and passed the sponge to Lucifer, then pulled the phone out of her pocket. “Decker. Yeah.” The person on the other end of the line must have said something interesting next, because she raised her eyebrows at him in an expression that usually translated to ‘I’ve just learned something crucial about our case and can’t wait to tell you’.

“Great, thank you,” she said, then hung up.

“Interesting news?”

“That was the lab. The heroin that we found at Naomi’s doesn’t match the kind that killed Javier.” She leaned against the counter and chewed on her thumbnail as she puzzled it through. “But if Junior didn’t kill his dad, why use heroin?”

“To… frame him, maybe?”

“Maybe.” Lucifer had taken over scrubbing duty, so she picked up the dish towel and started drying. “The only other person with motive got poisoned too, though.”

He handed her a clean plate, which she absently dried. He recognized that look in her eyes, lov— liked that look in her eyes, the one she got when she was hot on the trail of a lead and about to crack a case wide open, so he waited eagerly—and silently—to see what she’d come up with.

“Unless,” she said after a moment, “she knew exactly how much to give herself.”

He grinned at her, his clever Detective. “Creating all the gruesome symptoms, but without the finale.” He thought of something else, though. “But the restaurant was hers, so why would she do it?”

Chloe shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Pops had a change of heart. Decided to bring Junior back into the fold after he found out he’d changed and was coming home?”

It was certainly something to ponder; a viable motive and method. Chloe picked her phone back up and dialed. “Yeah, this is Detective Decker,” she said. “I’m calling about a patient, Anne Martin… Yeah… Forty minutes ago?” Her eyes widened and she looked over at Lucifer. “Yeah… thanks.” She stared at her phone for a moment after she hung up. “Guess who checked out against orders.”

“Well.” Lucifer put down the pan he was scrubbing and curled up his lips in a toothy smile. “I wonder where our lovely sous-chef is headed in such a hurry.”

The restaurant was dark and deserted when they pulled up. Chloe circled, looking for signs that anyone was around, then pulled around to park a block down the street.

“Do you think she already came and went?” Lucifer asked as they walked back towards the restaurant.

“Hospital’s across town,” Chloe said. “It would take her at least half an hour to get here, and that’s if she came straight from the hospital.”

“So that’s a ‘maybe’, then?”

She sighed, but he was right. “Let’s just… think positive.” She cupped her hands against a window, trying to see through the glass, but it was simply too dark to see anything inside. “Hey,” she whispered, waving him over. “You’ve got crazy good hearing, right? Can you hear if there’s anyone moving around in there?”

The look he gave her was somewhere between incredulous and amused, but he dutifully pressed his ear against the locked door. “I can’t hear anything.”

“All right. Let’s check inside.”

He turned the knob and swung the door open for her; she fixed him with a level stare, then went inside, shaking her head. “If that was locked when we got here, please make sure it’s locked again.”

He smirked, though she couldn’t see it, and obediently reengaged the bolt. “What are we looking for?”

“Heroin, hopefully. I’m probably going to regret asking this, but where would you hide it?” He opened his mouth, and she quickly added, “If you had to hide it in this restaurant.”

He closed his mouth again and looked around, considering. “Someplace easy to reach, but hard to see. Someplace it’d be unlikely for someone else to stumble upon it.” He eyed the vents above the stoves, then eyed her. “No, too high—she’s about your height.”

Chloe slipped on a glove and started running her hand along the undersides and backs of the kitchen appliances. She hit the jackpot at the back of the stove, just under the lip at the top, and carefully pulled out her prize to show Lucifer.

His eyes lit up. “Bingo!”

“Want to bet this has Anne Martin’s fingerprints all over it?”

“I’m sure it does! Want me to hold onto that for you?”

“Yeah, right,” she said, snorting. “But you know what this means—she hasn’t gotten here yet.” She held the baggie up to the light coming in from the window and squinted at it. “Silly question, but do you have any very small plastic bags with you?”

Ten minutes later, Anne Martin, former sous-chef to Javier Arias and erstwhile heir apparent to Sol de Javier, frantically pulled a tiny bag full of baking soda off the back of her stove. She only had about two seconds to sigh in relief, though, before Lucifer stepped out of the shadows.

“Bra-vo! That’s a brilliant hiding place. No wonder the police couldn’t find it earlier.”

Anne whirled around, tucking the bag behind her back. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Chloe said, “we’d ask you the same question, but we already know you’re trying to destroy evidence.”

“Because you killed Javier!” Lucifer added, almost interrupting her in his enthusiasm.

“I told you,” Anne snapped, scowling at them. “I would never do anything to hurt Javier!”

“You seem genuinely upset,” Lucifer noted. “Like you didn’t want Javier to die.” He shook his head and chuckled. “You humans are quite the paradox, aren’t you? You’re always killing your loved ones and then—”

“Unless the poison wasn’t meant for him,” Chloe suddenly realized. “You meant to kill Junior, didn’t you?”

Lucifer gave her a baffled expression. “What—? Oh!” An amused, sharp-looking smile spread across his face as he caught up to Chloe’s train of thought, and he turned back to address Anne. “Hence the drugs. He’d die a grisly death, and we’d assume he simply got a bad fix. Oh, that is very clever.”

“Except you didn’t realize that Junior changed while he was away,” Chloe added, not missing a beat. “He stopped eating meat.”

“Which is why his father ate his food, and you killed the man you love.” Lucifer cackled, entirely too delighted at the irony of the situation. “Ooh, a cruel twist of fate.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Anne was trying to sound stern, but Chloe could hear the uncertainty growing in her voice.

“So when we test this powder—” Chloe held up the real bag of heroin. “—You’re telling me it’s not going to match the poison that killed Javier?”

Eyes flaring wide, Anne lurched forward to snatch at the bag, but was stopped by the large metal fryer in the middle of the room. Chloe could see the decision in her eyes the moment she made it, though not soon enough to stop her from kicking over the fryer. Oil splashed out of it, towards them, and then Anne was flicking something at the oil and the floor was suddenly an inferno. Chloe started to go after her; Lucifer pulled her back just before another appliance caught fire with a roaring burst of heat and light. She looked for another escape route, but it was too late—they were surrounded by flames. Lucifer tipped a metal table over onto its side and they hid behind it from the worst of the fire.

“Are you all right, Detective?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got to get out of here. Any ideas? If you have any more tricks up your sleeve…” Chloe looked around them nervously. “Now’s the time.”

After a pause, he started shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Lucifer, please don’t tell me you’re about to offer some kind of ‘we’re about to die, so we might as well—’” She was cut off by his jacket dropping across her face. “What the hell?”

“Hold tight, Detective,” he said, slipping one arm under her knees. “That should keep the smoke out of your face for a moment.” He pulled her up as if she weighed nothing, and she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck.

“What about you?” came the muffled protest, even as he quickly crossed the patches of fire between them and the door.

“I’ll heal.” He kicked open the door and carried her out, setting her down a safe distance from the burning building. He pulled the jacket from her with one hand; the other didn’t seem to want to leave her waist. “Are you all right?”

She did a brief internal tally and nodded. “You?”

He smirked at her and started to bring his thumb up to wipe at the soot on her cheek. “I’m the Devil, darling, I hardly think—” He broke off with a hiss. The fabric at his elbow had a jagged, black-edged hole in it, and the skin underneath wept raw and red with a vicious burn. “The Devil gets burned by fire,” he commented wryly. “Could this be any more ironic?”

Chloe pulled away from him and winced in sympathy. “Ouch. No, don’t touch it!” she warned him, closing her hand over the finger that was about to prod at the ruined skin. Sirens rang out, rapidly coming closer, so she tugged him to the sidewalk. “Fire trucks are coming—someone must have called 9-1-1. Come on, let’s get you patched up.”

They were alive. Chloe took a deep breath of fresh, clean air, and let herself enjoy the moment. Five minutes earlier, she hadn’t been sure they’d ever make it out of that restaurant… but they had. They were alive. What was more, she’d kept hold of the little bag of heroin despite the chaos of the fire, and Anne had been caught and arrested just a few blocks away.

Next to her, Lucifer flinched and complained at length as the medic wrapped his arm in a third layer of gauze, and she couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Does my pain amuse you, Detective?”

“Baby,” Chloe teased. “Don’t tell me this is the first time you’ve ever been burned.”

His gaze went distant for a moment. When he refocused on her, she saw the ghost of a faint, sad smile pulling at his mouth. “No. But it’s been a very, very long time.”

…Oh. Damn. Her heart lurched in sympathy as she realized the implication. Holy sh*t, she thought to herself, how bad was the last burn? Instinct told her his abusive bastard of a father was almost certainly to blame for it. At least it hadn’t left any disfiguring scars.

“Well, don’t worry,” she said. “As fast as you heal, you’ll probably be fine by tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, well, it’s a shame the same can’t be said for my Armani,” he said bitterly, inspecting the ruined edge of the sleeve that had been first burned, then sheared off by the medic. “That’s the second shirt I’ve ruined today!”

That was a pretty good point—maybe she should start keeping a spare set of clothes for him in the trunk of her cruiser, next to her own spares. Something he’d whine piteously about having to wear. Maybe something ‘Frozen’ themed.

“…Might be a record, though,” Lucifer was saying. “Have we ever solved a case in a single day before?”

“Uh…” She quickly shook thoughts of Lucifer with Elsa sparkling across his chest out of her head. “Yeah—Lenny Arietta and Eric Doyle, remember?”

“Ah. Yes.” The wind was only knocked out of his sails for a moment, though. “Still, certainly a cause for celebration! What do you say—come back to Lux for a celebratory drink?” He leaned over to bump her shoulder with his own and then the idiot actually batted his eyelashes at her. “Especially since I know Penelope is at home right now, looking after your offspring.”

For once, she didn’t even want to argue or resist. And, now that she trusted him to keep his hands and propositions to himself… “Yeah, all right. One drink.”

Chapter 16: Angel of Debauchery

Chapter Text

Chloe realized, belatedly, that she should have specified one drink downstairs.

“I reserve the best for myself, Detective,” Lucifer told her as they waited for the elevator to ascend to his penthouse, “and you deserve the best.”

The man was so good at finding—and exploiting—loopholes that Chloe decided she should probably add “Fae” to her list of possible Lucifer explanations.

The thing was, though, that she really did enjoy spending time with Lucifer. He was like a well-meaning preschooler; as long as she occasionally reminded him about the existence of people other than himself, he was actually really fun to be around, especially now that she didn’t have to worry about fending off regular attempts to get into her pants. He was funny. Kind. Generous, almost to a fault, like the only reason he had so much money in the first place was so that he could spend it on other people. So she smiled at him, open and easy, while he mixed her a drink and regaled her with a (probably?-)made-up story about assisting in the invention of the Long Island Iced Tea.

She just had to ignore the butterfly that wandered into her stomach when he looked up from his task, eyes meeting hers as they laughed together.

Then his eyes flicked just a hair to the left, and the butterfly froze as the warmth in his eyes turned to ice.

“You must think you’re very clever, arresting Malcolm Graham.”

Chloe whirled around—she was certain there hadn’t been anyone else in the penthouse. It was Amenadiel; he walked towards them from the balcony, wearing an odd gray garment and a dour expression.

Lucifer moved around the bar, positioning himself in front of Chloe. “Now is not the time, brother,” he said. “As you can see, I have company this evening.”

Amenadiel grimaced disdainfully at Chloe. “You have already informed her of our nature, as unfortunate as that is, and she’s just a human. She will be no hindrance to my task.”

‘She’ did not appreciate being dismissed so easily. “Right,” Chloe said. “I don’t know how you got in here, but you’re under arrest for solicitation of murder.” Lucifer tried to snatch at her arm as she strode past him, but she shook him off. “Are you going to come quietly, or do I get to add ‘resisting arrest’?”

Amenadiel’s smug expression was one she had, unfortunately, become all too accustomed to over her years as a police officer and then detective. Plenty of men underestimated her, right up until she slapped cuffs on them and twisted their arms just gently enough to avoid claims of police brutality.

She was not, however, accustomed to suspects snatching those cuffs out of her hands and crushing them like aluminum foil. “W-what? How…?”

This time, when Lucifer grasped her arm to draw her back to safety, she couldn’t even think about resisting. “I find I also must remind you,” he said to Amenadiel, “that our deal still stands.”

“Oh, I’m not going to take you back to Hell,” Amenadiel said, far too calmly. “Not yet. I’ll just bring Hell to you, until you’re begging me to take you back.”

“Whoah, hey—”

“Detective.” Lucifer turned around and put his hands on her shoulders, his eyes blazing bright and serious. “Go downstairs,” he begged her. “Have a drink, or something. I’ll be down as soon as I deal with my self-righteous idiot of a brother.”

“I’m not going to leave so he can do God-knows-what to you!”

“Yes, Dad probably does know what he’ll do to me, but please, Detective.”

“Listen to my brother, Chloe Decker. For once in his life, he is showing some wisdom.”

“Where the hell do you get off?” she snapped at Amenadiel. “You come in here, threatening to beat up Lucifer in his own home, and you think you’re the one in the right?”

“You know what you’re defending, do you not?”

“Who,” she corrected him fiercely. “Who I’m defending. And, yeah, I do.”

“Pathetic.” Amenadiel chuckled. “You’re just another easily-swayed human, fallen victim to his charms just like every other—”

His sentence was cut off by way of Lucifer’s fist connecting with his jaw. “You will not speak to her that way!”

Amenadiel lunged at Lucifer and, after that, Chloe could barely keep up with the fight. They splintered the piano, tossed the couch across the room, and crashed across the bar. They even appeared to pop in and out a few times, suddenly appearing across the room from where she’d seen them last.

Lucifer got in a few punches with his bandaged right arm; Amenadiel threw him against the glass shelves behind the bar, sending liquor and glass shards spraying across the floor.

“Lucifer!” Chloe ran over to her partner, who was lying prone and bleeding on the floor. “Oh, God.”

“Stand aside, Chloe,” Amenadiel ordered her.

Chloe glared at him and unholstered her gun. “No.”

“This is foolishness.”

“I don’t care.” She raised her weapon. “I’m not letting you kill him.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, like one might stare at a particularly annoying bug.

She stared right back at him. “Back. Off.”

He sighed heavily. “Very well,” he said, taking a step backwards. “I’ll come back when my brother doesn’t have his pet human to cower behind.”

It was a testament to how badly he’d been beaten that Lucifer did no more than groan at Amenadiel’s parting barb. Chloe turned to him at the noise, and by the time she looked back at Amenadiel, the man was nowhere to be seen.

“Come on, partner,” she said, reholstering her gun. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Can you stand?” Inwardly, she was praying that he wasn’t hurt as badly as he looked.

As always, though, Lucifer seemed able to walk away from injuries that would have sent others to the hospital, if not the morgue. With little more than a few grumbled complaints, she managed to haul him up onto the one bar stool still standing. “Hang on, okay?” she instructed him, before running to his bathroom for clean towels, fresh water, and a pair of tweezers.

She started with the tweezers, picking shards of glass out of his skin as patiently as if he were Trixie and dropping them into a half-destroyed decanter she set next to them.

“Amenadiel was right about one thing, at least,” he said while she worked. “That was foolish of you.”

“Shut up and let me take care of you.”

Lucifer chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

She dipped her towel in the bucket of water and wrung it out; used it to gently clear the drying blood from his swollen eye. “Do you have a first aid kit?”

“It’s not something I’d usually need.”

Chloe sighed and shook her head. “Because you’re not human.”

“Exactly!” He tried to grin at her, but it ended in a sharp wince as the muscles pulled at the jagged cuts on his face.

She dabbed away the blood. Picked the bits of glass out of his skin. Cleaned his cuts with insanely expensive vodka, for lack of any better options. Carefully peeled off his bloodied shirt and did the same for the gashes across his torso. There wasn’t much she could do for the bruises—contusions, really—except wrap some ice in a towel and press it gently against his abused flesh.

By the second time she returned from the bathroom with fresh towels and an ice bucket filled with clean water, the bruising on his chest had started to yellow and he’d found a bottle of liquor which had somehow escaped the destruction.

She paused for a moment, taking in the sight of her rapidly-healing partner drinking a glass of bourbon at his destroyed bar, and laughed a little. Super healing, super hearing, super strength, desire mojo, that thing with locks, a brother who also liked to talk about humans as if they were a different species, and whatever the hell had been going on while the two of them had fought. Chloe was a devout skeptic, but even she had her limits. “Okay.” She stepped gingerly around the shattered glass and pulled a second barstool upright. “Yeah. You’re not human.”

“Detective…?” Shock and—was that hope?—blazed in his eyes. He set down his glass and stared at her, waiting for the joke.

She sat on the stool next to him and leaned against the glass bar top. “At least,” she said, “not a normal, non-superpowered one.”

“I’m not any kind of human.”

“Okay.”

“You…” He swallowed. “You believe me?”

“I believe you that you’re not human.”

“But not that I’m the Devil.”

“Of course not!”

He made an incredulous noise and knocked back the rest of his drink, then poured himself another.

“Lucifer, the Devil is… well, supposedly—” Chloe cut herself off. As long as Lucifer considered himself the Devil, he’d interpret any description of it as a description of himself. “You’re not evil. You’re not the source of evil. You don’t buy souls, or torture innocent people for fun, or… or… I don’t know, bathe in the blood of innocents.”

She stopped talking again—despite her rephrasing, she could see the hurt growing in his one good eye. She took a moment to think of a way to explain without hurting him more.

“It’s made-up bullsh*t,” she finally continued. “The Devil is just a boogeyman somebody made up in order to scare people into going to church. I know that’s not what you are. So either you’re something else—I don’t know, the Angel of Debauchery?—” Lucifer snorted into his glass, and Chloe chuckled with him. “—Or the ‘Devil’ isn’t…” She trailed off, the teasing smile gradually falling from her face.

She’d just realized something she should have realized a long time before.

(“Certain labels can be hard to shake, Detective. Especially negative ones. Even if those labels are not entirely accurate.”)

“...Or the Devil isn’t what everyone thinks,” she finished in a whisper. “Just like you’ve been telling me this whole time.”

Lucifer’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Detective…”

She stared into eyes so ancient they’d watched the very first star ignite and wondered how she could have denied it for so long. “You really are, aren’t you?” she asked softly.

He nodded carefully, his eyes never leaving hers. He huffed out a small breath—a scoff or a laugh, she couldn’t tell—and smiled. It was a tremulous thing, small but hopeful, and it made his eyes shine brighter. “You believe me.”

She smiled back. “I believe you.”

“And you’re not…?” He took a shaky breath. “You don’t…?”

“I don’t… what?”

He looked down into his glass. “Most people are afraid of the Devil, Detective,” he said quietly, as if he was afraid speaking the words out loud would make them true for her as well.

Chloe’s heart broke for the man in front of her—the fallen angel in front of her—finally understanding so much about her partner. Her best friend. She slid off her stool and crowded into his space, then slipped her arms under his and pulled him close, chin coming to rest on his shoulder. He froze, and then a moment later he melted into her. “You’re my best friend, Lucifer Morningstar,” she told him. “And the kindest man I’ve ever met. No, I’m not afraid of you.”

The noise he made might have been a sob.

“Are you okay?”

He reluctantly pulled back from her, wincing. “Now that you mention it, that might be a cracked rib.”

She released him immediately and backed away. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s quite all right, darling. It’s not your fault.”

“Your brother’s insane.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“He’s really an angel?”

Lucifer nodded.

“…Do all angels suck that much?”

His startled, delighted laughter felt like starlight twinkling behind her ribs. “Nearly all of them, yes.”

Okay, so she’d just stared down an actual, literal angel in defense of her partner, who she was still convinced was closer to her ‘misinterpreted cryptid’ theory than any biblical or pop-culture representation of the Devil she’d ever seen. It was like finding out Godzilla was real except he was really just Puff the Magic Dragon.

Hang on—she’d stared down an angel. And the angel had backed off.

“He could have killed you.”

Lucifer shrugged. “I doubt he would have—Amenadiel’s always been a bit of a blow-hard.”

“Right, but he could have. So why did I stop him?”

“Ah. Well, angels aren’t allowed to kill humans.”

Well, now. That was some useful information. She was spending too much time with Lucifer, though—she spotted a loophole. “Are they allowed to hurt humans?”

He hesitated, and the worried eyes looking at her over the rim of his glass were all the answer Chloe needed. “I will never let him hurt you, Detective,” he vowed.

She looked him in the eye, the Devil of ancient legend, and smiled softly. “I know.”

The penthouse was in shambles, with glass and bits of furniture strewn across the floor. Anyone walking through in bare feet would be leaving bloody footprints before they reached the other side. Chloe stared at the mess for a while, feeling a kind of kinship with the debris. Her entire worldview had been shattered just like the glass. Angels were real. The Devil was…

No, that still didn’t seem right. The big scary evil thing with horns and a tail that wanted everybody to suffer wasn’t real. Never was, never would be. It made her wonder what else religion had gotten wrong. Probably a lot of it, she suspected. Lucifer, the ‘Devil’, was a hedonist who just wanted everyone to have fun—except the bad guys, whom he wanted to punish. Amenadiel, the angel, who was presumably in good standing with their Dad, was a self-righteous dick who’d tried to blackmail a corrupt cop into killing his brother before taking the matter into his own hands.

They did say history was written by the winners.

If that was the case, then it was safe to assume that anything the world’s religions ‘knew’ about Lucifer and his family was little more than badly-translated fanfiction written eons after the fact.

Questions kept occurring to her, one leading to the next, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted all of the answers. Sorting through the scattered remnants of her grip on reality was going to take a while. Given that comparison, dealing with the detritus surrounding them looked like it would be a walk in the park.

“Hey, silly question, but—”

A tense smile tugged at the corners of Lucifer’s mouth, and he put down his drink. “The first of many, I’m sure.”

Chloe registered the hints of disappointment in his expression, well-hidden by practice and expectations, and filed them away in the corner of her brain that never stopped working. Then she finished the question she’d been about to ask. “—Do you have a broom?”

So much for expectations. “Do I… what?”

“A broom,” she repeated. “You know, for—” She waved vaguely at the destruction. “At least one of us is going to end up with glass in our feet if we don’t get this cleaned up.”

“We… Just so we’re clear, Detective—are you intending to stay here?”

“Well, apparently I’m the only thing keeping a deranged angel from beating you half to death, so… yes.”

Lucifer looked so flabbergasted that she started to feel self-conscious.

“Unless you don’t want me here,” she added. Hell, he probably has a few dozen human-occupied beds he could sleep in tonight.

His mouth dropped open like he wanted to say something, but he quickly snapped it closed again and swallowed down the words of whatever his first response would have been. The second try didn’t fare much better. On his third attempt, he managed, “Amenadiel is an angel, Detective.”

Apparently, neither of them were following the right script that night. “Yeah, I know—I got that.”

“Loyal son of Dad Almighty? Warrior of Heaven? Traditionally considered the good guys?”

“…Okay, and?”

He looked at her like she used to look at her physics textbook in high school. “You want to defend me?”

Chloe was going to make a new list on her computer—all the things she was going to do, now that she knew the truth. First on the list: punch every single member of Lucifer’s family in the face. “Yeah,” she said in response to his question.

He couldn’t seem to formulate a response to that. She did notice, though, that his eyes seemed to be catching more of the light. How long had it been, since someone who knew the truth about him took his side against his Dad? He cleared his throat and looked away, blinking, slipping back under his mask of confidence. “I assure you, that’s not necessary. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

Chloe fought back her habitual eye-roll through sheer force of will. “Of course you are,” she said, and slipped her phone out of her pocket.

“Calling an Uber? Your car is in the garage.”

“Texting my Mom,” she corrected him as she tapped at the screen. “Letting her know I won’t be back tonight.” She paused, her finger hovering over the ‘send’ button, and looked him in the eye. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Honestly, Detective, it’s very kind of you, but—”

“Do you want me to leave?” she repeated, more firmly.

“I…” He took a breath. “Never,” he admitted quietly.

She pressed ‘send’. “Then I’ll stay. Broom?”

He looked balefully around at his ruined penthouse. “I’ll call someone in to clean this up first thing in the morning. There are other suites on the floors below—if you truly insist on posting yourself as my guard tonight, I’m sure we can find suitable accommodations among those.”

Chapter 17: The Actual, Literal, Biblical Devil

Chapter Text

Lucifer was woken the next morning—if it could even be considered morning yet—at an absolutely un-Dad-ly hour by the raucous screeching of someone’s phone alarm. Still half-asleep, he jammed his pillow over his head. “Whoever left their alarm on, that’s very rude!” he complained. The cacophony abruptly stopped, and he sighed in relief, ready to return to blissful sleep.

“Sorry,” said his favorite voice in the world, and suddenly he was wide awake. “Mom has an early flight, so I have to get home so Trixie isn’t left by herself.”

He pulled the pillow off his head and stared at Chloe, who was sitting at the edge of the room’s second bed and thumbing through her phone. The green Sol de Javier T-shirt hung loose on her shoulders, showing off part of her collarbone. He swallowed and sat up, casually moving the pillow to his lap to conceal the effect that sight had on his very eager anatomy. “You’re welcome to use my shower before you go,” he offered.

She appeared to consider it for a moment, but then shook her head. “Not enough time. Besides, I’d just be getting back into dirty clothes afterwards. I’ll just take a shower when we get back to my house.”

“Sorry—did you say ‘we’?”

She paused in her tapping and looked up at him. “I’m not leaving you by yourself until we’ve got this thing with your brother figured out, since apparently he’s waiting for your ‘pet human’ to go away.” She chewed on her lower lip for a few seconds before adding, “If there’s someone else you’d rather stay with, that’s… that’s fine, too.” She gave him a semi-genuine smile. “I could, um, drop you off, I guess. Most of your cuts are gone, and your eye is almost normal again, so you probably wouldn’t get any funny looks.”

Did he want to stay with someone else? He probably should—want to, that is. Waking up alone, without a companion to warm his bed, was something he hadn’t often experienced since he’d retired, and if history was any indication he should be absolutely itching for some multi-person fun by now.

But that would mean leaving Chloe.

He shook his head, which seemed to satisfy her.

He wasn’t convinced he hadn’t dreamt the whole thing from the night before. Except here was the Detective, waking up in the bed next to his. Because she knew he was the Devil, and still wanted to defend him from his brother, the angel. It didn’t seem possible.

Maybe she’d gotten hurt while he was fighting Amenadiel. Could she have hit her head? She seemed steady enough on her feet, gathering up her clothes from the night before. “Did you sleep well last night?” he asked. “Considering you stayed in the Devil’s guest bedroom.”

Halfway to the ensuite, she stopped and smiled at him. “Yeah, thanks. The Devil has good taste in mattresses. You?”

“Like an angel,” he quipped, and she snorted in response.

“I’m going to get changed,” she said. “Don’t wander off, okay?”

“I don’t suppose going back to sleep is an option?” he called after her, undeterred by the closing bathroom door.

“No!” she called back.

“I need my beauty sleep, Detective!” he complained. “I used to torture souls by waking them up at this hour, you know!”

“Wouldn’t that mean you were up at that hour, too?”

“That’s not how Hell works!”

“How does it work, then?” Chloe reemerged from the ensuite, clothes from the night before back in place—soot stains included. Lucifer felt a strange lurch in his chest when he remembered how close he’d come to losing her the previous evening.

“Time works differently in Hell,” he explained. “For a damned soul, it might be four-thirty in the morning forever. By the way, you’re taking this remarkably well, Detective. You remember that I’m speaking literally, correct?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And that I’m the actual, literal, biblical Devil.”

“You’re making me late, is what you are. Come on.”

She grabbed him by his unbandaged arm and tugged; amused, he let her pull him out of bed. The sheets fell from his bare legs as he stood, resulting in a wonderfully red-faced detective who took, he noticed, a moment or two longer to avert her eyes than she had the last time she’d been confronted with his nude self.

“Okay,” she said to the ceiling, “I probably should have guessed you sleep naked. That’s on me.”

Unashamed, he retrieved his trousers from the chair where he’d carefully folded them the night before and draped them over his arm. “Coming, Detective?”

Upstairs, they carefully skirted the post-fight wreckage—not even a well-paid cleaning crew wanted to wake up that early—and Chloe quickly shooed him to his walk-in closet to get dressed.

“Let me know if you need any help!” she called to him while she waited. “With your arm being hurt, I mean.”

“Appreciated, Detective, but I believe I can manage.” He was still rummaging around in there—how long did it take to pick out some clothes? And then she heard the shower spray start.

“Lucifer, what are you doing?!”

“Taking a shower!” he replied. “I can still smell that awful smoke from last night.”

Chloe dug out her phone and checked the time again. “We don’t have time for this—Mom is going to leave in half an hour!” She walked down the short hallway, intending to bang on the bathroom door in case he hadn’t heard her (he had definitely heard her), only to stop short and whirl around with wide eyes.

“Hello, Detective,” Lucifer said, amusem*nt warming his voice. His shower door was not frosted. “Come for another look? I wouldn’t turn down a hand to help me scrub my back.”

“You don’t close the bathroom door when you shower?!”

“And let the steam damage my ceiling?”

Chloe heard splashing, and she tried very hard not to imagine what Lucifer might look like moving around under the spray. Time to try a different tactic. “You’re not supposed to get that bandage wet!”

“Oh, I already took that off! Don’t worry,” he added, cutting off her protest before she could voice it. “The burn is nearly healed.”

Benefits of being the Devil, she supposed. “How much longer are you going to be in there?” she asked. “I really need to get home. Like, now.”

“You can’t rush perfection, Detective.”

Annoyance flared up in Chloe’s chest. “I’m sorry, I’m just trying to keep you alive and out of Hell! Which is, apparently, a real place!” She checked her phone again and cursed. “Look, I have to get back to Trixie. I’m texting Maze so she can keep an eye on you in the meantime.”

“I don’t need a babysitter!”

“The remains of your living room say otherwise! Your call—either Maze plays bodyguard, or I’ll have no choice but to come right back here once I grab Trixie.”

For a drawn-out moment, there was nothing but the sound of water falling in the shower. “You wouldn’t.”

“Sticky child hands, touching everything you own,” Chloe taunted him.

“Evil woman. Fine!”

“Good! And just… I don’t know, text me so I know you’re still alive, okay?”

“If you insist. Am I permitted to use those emojis you’re…”

The elevator doors closed behind her, and she didn’t hear the rest.

Chloe stared at her phone, heat growing in her cheeks. He just meant he was on his way to her house, right? Sure, she could probably convince herself of that. Or he was messing with her. In fact, he was almost certainly messing with her. The best thing she could do would be to just ignore him.

Not that that had ever helped before.

His injuries were gone.

He knocked when he arrived, while she was on her third cup of coffee. It seemed wrong, somehow. In retrospect, it finally made sense why he acted like he had a right to go wherever and do whatever he wanted—as King of Hell (emphasis on ‘King’), that would have been exactly the case.

She welcomed him into her home and stared thoughtfully at his back as he walked inside. The King of Hell, in her house. Shouldn’t she be freaking out about this? Maybe she would later, after she’d finished processing everything. She needed a lot more information, first.

“Stop staring at his ass and move, already.”

Chloe jumped half out of her skin at the sound of Maze’s voice behind her. “Sorry, yeah,” she said, moving inside to let the woman inside.

Maze gave her a thoughtful—and surprisingly non-hostile—look as she passed. “Not too bad on the extortion, by the way. Respect.”

“I was just—”

Maze wasn’t listening. She pulled a small, curved blade from… somewhere… and laid it on the kitchen counter in front of Lucifer. “Here. Next time you see that overgrown pigeon you can send him back to Daddy.”

Lucifer nodded once and tucked the blade into his jacket.

Maze walked back towards the door. “All yours,” she told Chloe. “Call me if Amenadiel shows his face.”

Chloe watched her go, then joined Lucifer in the kitchen, where he was poking through her cupboards. “What are you looking for?”

“Bottle of… Ah-hah!” He pulled out his prize and held it up. “I left some Macallan here yesterday. Drink, Detective?”

“I’ll stick to coffee, thanks,” she said with an amused eye-roll, refilling her mug from the carafe. “At least now I know how you can drink so much without keeling over from liver failure.”

He poured himself a glass and winked at her. “One of the many perks of being the Devil.”

“So…” she started. This is going to be awkward no matter what—might as well just jump in. “I guess I do have some of those ‘how does it all work?’ questions you were probably expecting last night.”

“I had a feeling you might. Should we sit?” Lucifer walked to the living room and gestured towards the couch, taking a chair for himself. “So? What will it be? All the grisly details about Hell? A list of the famous damned?”

She settled into the couch, feet tucked up underneath her. “I was actually thinking more along the lines of—is there anything else Amenadiel might try that I should be aware of? Please tell me you’re not vulnerable to holy water, or Latin chanting, or anything like that.”

Lucifer scoffed. “Absolutely not. I don’t know where you lot came up with that drivel.”

“Okay, good. And Amenadiel? Does he have the same kind of powers as you?”

He realized, with a start, that Chloe was doing her detective thing on him. As if he were a witness getting put under police protection. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “The general things, yes—similar strength, hearing, sight, memory. Unfortunately, he is invulnerable to everything but a demon blade, and he still has his wings so, obviously, he can fly.”

“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes as she said it, though he didn’t know why.

“Oh, and I almost forgot,” he added, taking a sip of his scotch. “Amenadiel can stop time.”

She coughed, spraying coffee across the cushions. “Sorry, he can—?”

“Stop time, yes. Press ‘pause’ on reality, so to speak. It’s very annoying.”

“So I’m useless! He could kill you in the middle of a crowd and I wouldn’t even know until it was too late!”

“Not at all! You saw our fight, Detective—it would be far too risky to the humans around us.”

Chloe settled back into her seat, nodding absently as she absorbed that information. After a moment, though, she shook her head and huffed out a low chuckle.

“What is it?”

“It’s just… the Big Bad Devil is worried about collateral damage.”

Lucifer shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Like I’ve told you before, I—”

“I know, you’re not like the stories,” she said quickly. “That’s my point. Don’t get me wrong, finding out that Heaven and Hell are really real is breaking my brain a little. I never believed in all that stuff, and now I guess I have to. But, I mean… it turns out you’re the one in charge of what’s supposed to be the worst possible outcome? It’s kind of reassuring, you know?”

Someone had stuffed something soft and warm inside his chest, and it was making it hard for him to get air into his lungs. It took him a few tries, jaw all but refusing to cooperate, before he was able to swallow and suck in a proper breath. “That—” He stopped to clear his throat. “—That may be the first time someone has ever had that particular reaction.”

He couldn’t quite decipher her expression—a strange combination of a smile and a frown, while she chewed on her lower lip. “Do you want me to back you up?” she asked, seemingly apropos of nothing. He co*cked his head to the side, and she clarified, “When you tell people you’re the Devil. I mean, I’m sure you know that nobody really believes you when you say that, even though you say it all the time, but I could help. You know, ease them into it? If you wanted.”

A single voiceless laugh punched out of him. “Detective…” His hands itched to reach for her, but he wasn’t sure if that was allowed, so he settled for a soft smile instead. “No. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, I’d hate to see you ostracized even further.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure. Now, come on, I’m sure you have much more interesting questions. Have at me, Detective.”

Half an hour later, she’d learned about his favorite trip to Earth before his retirement (a Bacchanal during the early Roman empire), what he did to pass the time in Hell (amuse himself with the pale imitations of Earthly delights in the less-horrifying Hell Loops, mostly), and a selection of the more obscure skills he’d picked up over the millennia (nearly all to do with producing alcohol and/or hallucinogens). Sadly, they were interrupted in the middle of a description of his favorite recipe from Ancient Egypt by the ringing of Chloe’s phone.

“We’ve got a case,” she told Lucifer once she’d ended the call.

“Excellent!” he said, his eyes lighting up. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to let me drive this time?”

Chloe quirked her lips and stood up. “What do you think?”

“I think you drive like an elderly turtle,” he said as he followed her.

“I drive the speed limit! Anyway, it’s my car.”

He walked out of the house first, then waited as she locked the door behind her. “Is it? I thought it was the department’s car.”

“Which still doesn’t make it yours,” she reminded him with a smug smile.

He put his hand to his chest. “I am a valuable member of the department, Detective. I think that should entitle me to get behind the wheel now and then. Come on, let me take you for a ride.” He leered playfully at her. “Unless you’re afraid you’d like it too much.”

“You just want to race around downtown with the siren on.”

He pressed his lips together, since he wouldn’t lie, but the mischief and merriment dancing in his eyes told Chloe everything she needed to know.

“Tsk. Disappointing,” she teased him, trying and failing to cover her laughter with a stern expression. “I thought the Devil was supposed to be the master of temptation.”

“I’ll have you know, I am irresistible. It’s not my fault you’re some sort of freak of nature.”

“Mm-hmm. Says the guy who used to have wings.”

“What if I said ‘pretty please’?” he tried, giving her his best puppy eyes.

Chloe laughed and got into the driver’s side of her car. “Sorry. Not today, Satan.”

He sighed dramatically, but climbed into the passenger side. He even clicked on his seatbelt. “The things I do for you, Detective.”