Chapter Text
Canvassing a neighborhood was a lot easier with Lucifer, Chloe had to admit. They opened a door, Lucifer charmed the person there, they left when it turned out the person didn't know anything. It was easy. It was getting the job down. It shouldn't bother Chloe.
It was kind of distasteful.
Maybe it was the look on Lucifer's face every time he glanced at her when he thought she wasn't looking. Maybe it was the way he grimaced slightly after talking to some of the people. Maybe it was some of the desires he was drawing out.
Regardless, it made her stomach curdle as she watched and threw in her own questions. The day looked like it was going to be a bust and she couldn't help but be frustrated by that. They needed to find this person before they moved on. It could be to Alaska, it could be to a neighboring state, it could even be to Canada and she didn't want to think what would happen if this guy crossed country lines.
It was bad enough that the lead detective had accidentally revealed that the reason why they were rushing was to get the case solved before the FBI showed up. It was why Chloe and Lucifer had been called up from LA; at least that finally made sense.
"Oh yeah," the woman they were talking to said when Lucifer asked if there had been anyone new in the neighborhood lately. "There's the guy staying with Sal."
"Sal?" Chloe asked, but the woman only had eyes for him.
It made something turn in her stomach, the way people responded to him. The way they looked at him like he was nothing more than meat. She bit her lip at that thought, glancing to Lucifer only to see him watching her. She glanced quickly away as he repeated the question.
"Tell us about this Sal, why don't you?" he asked, and the woman was all too happy to oblige.
He lived at the end of the road, and there had been someone staying with him for the past few days. The woman knew that because there was a strange car in the drive occasionally. It was there right then, too, maybe they wanted to go and talk to him.
"Thanks," Chloe said, already turning away, almost missing the piece of paper the woman slipped into Lucifer's hand before he turned away.
"What's that?" she asked, her voice low, as she made a note of the address in her notebook in case they needed more from the woman.
Lucifer checked the slip of paper then crumpled it in his hand and shoved it in his pocket. "Just her number, darling, nothing you need to be concerned about."
"Lucifer…" she started, drifting off when she realized she wasn't sure what she wanted to say to him. He just watched her as they sat in the car until she finally had to continue with, "We should go talk to this guy."
"Agreed," Lucifer said, and that was all.
They drove to the end of the street, parking a house down from the one the woman had pointed out. There was a car with out of state plates in the driveway, and when Chloe peered in the window at the driver's seat, she noticed a spot of blood on the center console.
Lucifer was already at the front door, knocking. No one answered. So, once she'd joined him, she knocked too and announced their presence. Again, there was no answer. The blood in the car gave her probably cause, so when no one responded to her third knock, she shrugged and asked Lucifer to break the door down.
The smell that met them when he did was the foul smell of rot. They shared a look, then started to clear the house. It was small, four rooms on the first floor, and the back room was the jackpot.
"Freeze!" Chloe shouted to the man frantically shoving clothing into a backpack. He looked up to see her gun on him and froze for the briefest moment before he threw himself out the window.
Lucifer was after him before she could say anything. She backtracked through the house and out the front, her pounding footsteps echoing in her ears as she rounded the side. Lucifer had the man pressed against the back fence, patting him down quickly. He turned his head to glance at her, a proud grin on his face that quickly faded.
She hated this. They needed to talk, again, and it needed to go better than last time.
After handcuffing the man—and he was very vocal about his displeasure with that—she radioed in for backup. Someone needed to find the body she was sure was in the house and they weren't equipped to bring a suspect back to the station so they needed a car for that.
At the station, the lieutenant was reluctant to let them in on the interrogation.
"It's just not policy," he said, shrugging. "Consultants aren't-"
"Oh, but I'm sure you can make an exception, just this one time," Lucifer said, smiling in an almost predatory manner at him. "Tell me, what can I do to make it worth your while?"
The lieutenant stared at him for a long moment before faltering and saying, "I just… really want a day off. That's all! I've been on duty for three weeks straight and I-"
"Say no more," Lucifer said, pulling out his phone and stepping to the side. "I'll just have a word with your captain. Go ahead without me, Detective."
She almost didn't. Watching him work his magic, now that she knew it basically was magic, was fascinating. It was like watching people's walls melt away right in front of her, and while she was glad it didn't work on her, she was just as glad it worked on other people. For their case closure rate if nothing else.
In the interrogation room, the man they'd arrested wasn't saying anything. He glared balefully around the room, not meeting anyone's eye and ignoring all questions to him. She knew Lucifer would be able to crack him in an instant, but couldn't resist trying anyway.
"You're going away for a long time no matter what you tell us," she said, sitting down and dropping a pile of paper—mostly blank—onto the table. "We found you dead to rights in Sal Larson's home with his corpse rotting upstairs."
Nothing but a glare.
"We have footage of you lurking at three different crime scenes-" a lie, but a good bet, especially given the way he jerked "-and you're hoping, what, this will all just go away?"
Then Lucifer sailed in to the room, immediately going to circle the man and pause behind him to flash a tight smile to Chloe.
"Hello, Benny," he said, nearly into his ear, and the guy jerked away, turning his glare on Lucifer. And that was all it took. "Tell me, what is your deepest desire."
Benny, it seemed, was looking for the key to everlasting life. He claimed he was a bit of an alchemist—in the modern sense of the word, he explained when Chloe challenged him on that—and had come across a recipe that guaranteed safety from harm.
So he was testing it, moving up the coast to keep ahead of he police. He didn't mean—or need—the deaths to look like suicides, it was just a surer way of testing the formula than pushing his guinea pigs—his words, not hers—out in traffic.
"What a piece of work," the lieutenant said when they exited the interrogation room. "You might need to come back for the trial, and there's a bit of paperwork that needs to be done, but then you're free to go home with our thanks."
Translation: get the paperwork done and get out.
Lucifer glanced to the door and she sighed, tipping her head to it and catching his eye. "Go ahead. I can get this done."
He fled, just as she had expected him to do, and something in her heart seemed to curdle and go sour.
"You know what you need to do?" Maze asked for the third time. It never hurt to go over the plan again, and she was feeling something that almost might be nerves. Maybe bringing the a kid into this hadn't been such a great idea after all.
"Yes," Trixie said, with a level of exasperation that Maze thought was probably called for. "I go in, I find that guy, tell him I'm lost and need help finding my mommy. Then I get him outside. It's not hard, Maze."
"Okay, okay," Maze said, raising her hands. "Fine. Just making sure."
Trixie rolled her eyes and turned away, shifting from foot to foot, her little fists clenched. She looked like she was ready to go into a fight. Which was probably something Maze should tell her not to start.
"Don't start any fights you can't finish," she said, just in case. "Just bring him out to me."
"I know," Trixie said, turning to glare at her. "Can I go now?"
"Yeah, looks like he's-" she peered through the binoculars again "-at the table by the front window. Go get 'im."
Trixie ran down the hill and Maze lifted the binoculars back to her eyes. She wanted to be watching in case something went wrong. It wasn't that she didn't trust the kid, it was just that Decker wasn't going to be happy about the scratch on her arm, never mind if she got something worse.
She watched as Trixie went inside and was out of sight for a couple seconds before appearing by the window. She tugged on the guy's sleeve, interrupting him, and said something Maze couldn't quite catch. She was turned a bit too far away to even try reading her lips. It looked like they argued for a second, the guy saying something about not going and Trixie saying something back. Then she burst into tears—good going kid—and the guy was quick to jump out of his chair and hustle her off.
It was a great performance. Trixie was definitely getting ice cream on the way home.
They appeared out the front door and Trixie looked both ways as if she were lost before turning in Maze's direction, taking the guy's hand and pulling him after her.
"I think she was this way," Trixie said and sniffled, her voice wobbly.
The guy grumbled something and Trixie let go of his hand, turning to glare at him. "You're mean," she said, and Maze took that as her cue to step out of the shadows.
The guy took one look at her, one look at Trixie's smirking face, said, "Oh hell no," and grabbed Trixie's shoulders to hold her in front of him.
Maze stalked forward but he tightened his grip, making Trixie yelp, so she stopped. Definitely Decker wasn't going to be pleased.
"Let go of the kid," Maze said, "and I won't beat you that much."
"Nuh uh," he said, taking a step back with Trixie stumbling backwards with him. "I'm not going to jail."
Maze laughed, fingers gripping one of her knives, ready to take it out and throw. She wouldn't hit Trixie, but-
The guy screamed and Trixie darted over to stand behind Maze, blowing a raspberry at him and calling, "Take that you bully."
There was a knife—a little one, child-sized really so it wasn't like it had gone that deep—sticking out of the guy's leg. He jerked it out with a groan and brandished it at them, only for Maze to throw a knife at him to knock it out of his hand. He turned to run, but she was already on him, taking him down to the ground and grinding his face in the dirt.
"That's for trying to take a kid hostage," she growled in his ear and got up, dragging him after her while Trixie cheered.
She cuffed him and sat him down on the pavement, calling the cops to come pick him up while he went back and forth between spouting obscenities at them both and groaning over his leg. Humans were so soft.
While Trixie went after the two knives, Maze glared around at the small crowd of gawkers growing. They scattered when she growled at them as Trixie came back with the knives and handed them over.
"Good job," Maze said, smacking the guy across the back of the head when he started to talk again. "Next time, remember not to leave the knife in the guy's leg, okay? You don't want to give him a weapon he didn't have before."
Trixie was beaming when she said, "Okay!" and "Can we get ice cream on the way home?"
"Definitely," Maze said. And then Decker called.
She and Trixie shared a panicked look before Maze answered the phone, kicking the guy in the side when he tried to say something again.
"What was that?" Decker asked, sounding exhausted.
"Nothing, just the TV," Maze said, hoping that the cops were coming with their sirens off. In fact, she could see them in the distance, so she said, "Here's your kid," and handed the phone to Trixie.
"Hi, Mommy!" Trixie said, moving away when Maze shooed her. She was quiet for a moment, listening, and then said, "We're outside."
Maze wanted to cover her face with her hands. The kid needed to learn to lie better.
"Uh," Trixie was saying, "it's a loud TV?"
The cops pulled up before she could say anything, and Trixie moved farther away. Then she was focused for the next few minutes on handing over the guy and getting rid of the cops before they realized she had let a little kid help her catch him.
"Maze," Trixie said, and handed the phone to her. "Mommy wants to talk to you."
"Hey, Decker," Maze said, with an exasperated eye roll for Trixie. "What's up?"
"Don't let Trixie watch too many violent movies, okay?" Decker said, sounding distracted. "They give her nightmares. I gotta go, but we'll probably be home sometime tomorrow, alright?"
"Yeah, sure," Maze said, an unnecessary amount of relief flooding her as she hung up. Their ruse was a success, and all they had to do was go home now and make sure Trixie wasn't going to talk about this to anyone.
"Hey kid, ready to go get ice cream?" she asked, and Trixie dashed for the car.
Lucifer didn't disappear after they reached the hotel, but things were silted and awkward in the worst way. Chloe ended up putting on the TV after a very strange conversation with Trixie—what on earth were she and Maze getting up to?—and vegging in front of it for a while. Nothing good was on and Lucifer—drinking something from the minibar and reading a book in a language she didn't recognize—didn't have any commentary.
When she was ready to go to sleep, she offered to sleep on the pullout again. Lucifer's eyes shuttered and he turned away from her.
"If you're uncomfortable-" he started, but she was having none of that.
"I'm not uncomfortable," she snapped. "I'm just offering since- Oh, never mind."
She went and got ready for bed, and resolutely had her eyes closed when Lucifer followed some time later. Sleep was a long time coming, but eventually, she drifted off.
When she woke, it was to warm comfort and something she hadn't felt in ages: contentment. She drifted for a while, half asleep, half awake, enjoying the feeling. When her mattress moved, she grumbled a little and there was a soft, sad chuckle above her.
That seemed to be enough to wake her the rest of the way, because she stopped drifting and slowly became aware that she was laying cuddled up close to Lucifer, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder. And for a moment, she forgot everything that had happened since they got to Seattle and smiled up at him softly.
"Good morning, Detective," he said, just as soft, but there was an infinite sadness deep in his eyes that brought her back to the present.
"I'm sorry," she said, pushing herself up and away until she was sitting against the headboard.
"It's quite alright, he said, pushing himself up too and not looking at her. "You can't be blamed for your tendency to sprawl across the bed."
"I do not-" she started, then stopped, shaking her head a little. "That's not what I meant."
Last night she had a lot of time to think about why he was angry, what she had done. Their conversation replayed in her head over and over again, and she thought she got it. She had been casually cruel, no matter that she hadn't meant it.
"Well whatever you're sorry for, it's quite alright," he said lightly and she shook her head.
"No it's not. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't care about us," she said and he jerked a little next to her. "I just- I don't understand how you-" She stopped and took a breath. "When I was little, I had a pet mouse. And mice only live for two years or so. When he died, I was sad but I- I didn't care. It wasn't a big deal, you know?"
She chanced a glance at him, only to see that he was frowning. "Are you comparing yourself to vermin?"
"No," she said. "I'm saying that, compared to you, our lives are so short that I don't understand how we can matter. You'd be sad for a bit maybe but then you-" her throat got tight and she had to clear it "-you could replace us like I did my mouse."
"If this is an apology you are doing a spectacularly bad job of it," he said, his own voice tight but with anger. "None of you are sodding pets." He spat the word and grimaced. "You're-" He swallowed, and when he spoke again, his voice was full of grief. "I dread the day you—any of you—die. You'll be going somewhere I can't follow. And that-" He looked away.
"You were the first true friends I have ever had and no one, nothing, will be able to replace you." He seemed to notice that his hands were fisted in the sheets and carefully unclenched them and smoothed out the fabric, not looking at her.
"Oh," she said.
She tried to imagine Lucifer—her Lucifer, who loved people as a whole and basked in their attention—going so long without ever knowing what a friend felt like. Without knowing the love of-
"Oh," she said again.
Lucifer let out a forced laugh, still looking away. "Yes, 'oh'."
It was a depth of feeling she couldn't fully fathom, and she had- "I'm sorry."
"It's alright," he said quietly, then added, turning a confident smirk toward her that rang hollow, "I'm sure it's quite a shock that someone as delightful as me has never-"
She laughed and said, "Please don't ruin it."
Then she disentangled herself from the blankets—much less smooth than she wanted to be—and swung a leg over his lap so she was straddling him. "Is this okay?" she asked, cupping his cheeks in her hands.
"More than," Lucifer breathed, the shock on his face morphing into something close to desperation. "Are you sure, Chloe, I-"
She didn't let him finish, instead tilting his head just right and pressing her lips to his.
His quick intake of breath, a light gasp through barely parted lips like he hadn't believed she would really do it, had her smiling into the kiss. His lips were soft and pliant against hers, and when she bit lightly on his bottom one, he opened his mouth to her tongue.
She hummed a happy little sigh as his tongue tangled with hers, stroking it and stoking the fire slowly growing within her. His answering moan had her running one hand through his hair to grip it firmly at the nape of his neck, and he shuddered against her.
She broke away, needing to breathe, and said, knowing she was probably ruining the mood, "You have to know, when I die I'm going to do everything possible to get back to you. I'll fight God if I have to."
He laughed breathlessly, responding with a long, deep kiss instead of words, his hands coming up to her waist, running under her sleep shirt and over the skin beneath. His fingers were warm on her skin as he stroked up her ribs and, for the moment at least, there was no place else she'd rather be.
Decker and Lucifer were going to be home soon. Maze was changing the bandaid on Trixie's arm—she didn't really need one anymore, but whatever made the kid happy—and coaching her on what to say if Decker asked what they did while she was away.
"We went to the park and we had ice cream and cake," Trixie repeated. "When's Mommy coming?"
"She should be here soon," Maze said and shooed Trixie over to put her plate in the dishwasher. At least they hadn't left the place trashed.
Then she could see through the window that a car was pulling up, and Lucifer was getting out and opening the passenger door for Decker.
They paused there to kiss, and Maze smugly opened the door to shout, "Go Decker! Get some!"
Lucifer flipped her off, and probably they could see Decker's blush from space. Lucifer took her suitcase and followed her into the house. For once, he wasn't the one Trixie ran to.
"What did you do this weekend?" Decker asked, between hugging Trixie and smothering her with kisses.
"We did a bounty hunt!" Trixie said excitedly, and then looked guiltily to Maze. "Oops."
Decker's gaze slowly slid over to Maze, and she had to stamp down the urge to run. "You did what?"
THE END