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It starts as a joke.
A case, a suspect, a clue—a note written in Urdu. He translates it without thought, and the Detective looks up at him slantwise.
“You can read that?”
“I speak all languages,” he reminds her, not for the first time. “Every,” he slips into Mandarin, “last,” and into Swahili, “one.” And then, because he can, he adds in Swedish, “When you finally allow me between your thighs, you’ll find my tongue equally up to that task as well.”
Because she’s the Detective, she can tell that he’s said something inappropriate, and because she’s Chloe Decker, she doesn’t actually disapprove that much, her mouth forming a straight line but her eyebrows arching sardonically.
After that it’s a bit of a game, isn’t it? Slipping some bit of inappropriateness into their daily investigations. Using dozens of languages, both living and dead, to tell her his extremely positive observations about her body and what he would like to do with her whenever she’s in the mood. It’s a new form of high, saying that he wants to find out if she can orgasm from nipple play and having her look up at him humoringly, unable to prove he’s stepped out of line. He goes from only doing it while they’re at work—to heighten the naughtiness factor—to trying out a new language during every conversation they have. And then one day she returns from a long weekend where she took the urchin away to some theme park literally crawling with sticky, screaming spawn. He opens his mouth to tell her in Manx that her ass looks particularly delectable in today’s pair of skinny jeans, but—
“I’ve missed you—three days is far too long. You must take me with you next time.”
His heart stops. Surely he did not just offer to spend 72 hours surrounded by grubby, grasping children? The Detective doesn’t take it amiss, however, giving him that same sly, knowing smile she always gives him when he uses other languages on her, equal parts fond and exasperated.
Their conversations change after that.
Not that she knows it—she still treats him as though he’s feeding her exotic forms of sexual innuendo, and while that does account for quite a lot of what he says to her, he also tells her other things. Sometimes it’s nothing—a minor irritation at LUX, the details of a disagreement with Maze, a remark from Amenadiel that he doesn’t know how to feel about. Things he’d deem too unimportant to share with her normally, but which she’ll find at least passingly entertaining if delivered in theatrical Dutch.
Sometimes it’s not nothing.
Sometimes he needs to tell her that seeing her has become the highlight of his days, that their time together is precious to him, that when she hugs him or places her hand along his back or joins him for post-case whiskey, relaxing with him in his home while the last rays of sun turn the world golden, he feels things he’s never experienced in his very long life.
And sometimes it seems like she understands him. She’ll lean closer, touch his arm, soften her smile. He can’t be certain, but he believes she’s started to laugh more. She tells him new things—not the sort of things he tells her, but new none-the-less. Small things, about her mornings, her frustrations, her insecurities—startling, to discover just how many of those even a woman as brilliant and capable as the Detective has. He offers to remove her frustrations, but that only makes her grouchy. She likes when he reassures her in the face of her doubts, though, so he does that, in both English and whatever other language comes to mind. Sometimes, she says she’s glad to see him, glad to know him.
He stops having sex.
One night, he’s the meat in a three man sandwich, and then suddenly it’s five weeks later and the only action he’s gotten comes courtesy of his own hand, his only inspiration fantasies of the Detective’s lithe form and well-pleasured face. He starts to forget that when he tells her he wanked himself nearly blind thinking about the way her breasts swayed under a particularly low-cut tee, she’s not smirking up at him in shared sexual excitement. That she’s not actually responding to his words when she tilts her head to gently nudge his shoulder after he tells her his first thought every morning is of her, of how grateful he is to get to see her. And then it happens.
A new case, a scenic crime scene. A park, early morning, views of the beach. She’s there before him, as always, looking back at him with a warm greeting as he jogs up behind her.
“Good morning, Detective.” And then, in Sumerian, “You look beautiful as ever. I used to think a morning BJ was the best way to start the day, but getting to watch your brilliant mind at work is a much greater thrill.” Without thinking, he leans down into her space, breathes in the scent of her hair, kisses her temple.
She stiffens, pushes him away, laughs this awful witch’s cackle while her eyes dart from him towards everyone else at the scene. “Lucifer, what are you doing?”
He ruins everything.
She doesn’t send him away, but she’s stiff around him, and he finds himself saying, doing obnoxious things, things he knows will irritate her, make her day worse. Jokes she won’t like, tampering with evidence, flirting with witnesses. He knows what he’s doing, doesn’t want to be doing it, but can’t stop himself. When she finally declares them done for the day, he turns off his phone and gets very drunk, very high. He takes three people to bed with him and spends hours getting them off in every way imaginable. He doesn’t come once, and when all three are too spent for even one more orgasm, he hustles them out of the penthouse, bundles his bedsheets into his fireplace, and takes a long, long, scalding shower.
When he braves his phone, he finds she’s texted him. Case related things only, but it means he still gets to see her. He’s not sure he wants to, doesn’t know if facing her won’t make it all worse, but he shows up anyway when she sends him an address. It’s an easy case, as these things go. An interview, a search, another interview, and a confession: a violent stalker, unable to handle his punctured delusions. Lucifer rages, but the Detective’s hand is on his chest, holding him in place before he can even reach across the interview table to give this monster the justice he deserves. Lucifer will never not yield to her hand.
After that, it’s closing paperwork. No reason for him to stay, but he does, poking around her desk, restless.
“Lucifer,” she snaps, then sighs. “I’ve got this part. How about—“ she breaks off, looks up at him, lips pursed. “Would you like to meet me for dinner? Give me another two hours here, and then get some food?”
A request, something he can do. “Of course, Detective.”
He arranges the reservation, goes home, changes into something he wasn’t wearing while irritating her. He spins through conversational topics in his head—things that will amuse her, things that do not touch upon them and the unfathomable softness of her skin under his lips. He arrives at the restaurant early, orders wine and an appetizer he knows she’ll enjoy so that everything is waiting when she arrives.
She’s gone home and changed. A sweater made from angel down, a skirt made of the night sky. It’s so short his brain turns off and she greets him twice before her words register. “I am unworthy of the sight of your legs,” he tells her in Yucatec. It makes her laugh—she can laugh at him all she wants.
She talks about work—other cases, not this latest one. Asks about LUX. Talks about the urchin. Asks about the food, things on the menu she’s not familiar with. He chose a French restaurant, fancier than she would ever choose for herself because before he ruined things she admitted she likes to be fussed over occasionally, as long as she still gets her regular dosage of processed cheese at home. She asks him to read the items in French, and he does, still running on auto-pilot because her bare legs are inches from him, hidden by the table cloth.
“Say something else in French,” she demands.
He obliges. “I apologize for my behavior yesterday.”
Her eyes narrow. “One day, I’m going to find a language you don’t know. What about Russian?”
“I only ever want to make you happy.”
“Japanese?”
“Being allowed to spend time with you is the greatest pleasure I have ever known.”
“Yoruba,” she says, like she’s being crafty.
“I promise, I won’t make you uncomfortable again.”
“Chittagonian?”
“I would do anything to know you better.”
“English?”
“I would adore you if you’d allow it.”
Her face does a thing—victory and pleasure and all the world’s sweetness. His brain turns on, catches up, too late, and he’s falling, falling—
“I think I’d like that.” She takes his hand, lifts it to her lips.
“Clever Detective,” he croons, finding himself miraculously on solid ground again, his heart still in panic but his feet steady beneath him.
“No PDA at work.”
“Yes, Detective.” Anything she wants. Her fingers stroke his wrist, and beneath the table, her bare knee—naked, naked and exposed for him, she dressed up for him—bumps against his own.
“But outside of work? Maybe you could teach me some of those things you’ve been saying the past few months.” She’s got the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, her eyes daring.
“Everything,” he says, in all the languages he knows, and when he leans across the table, she meets his kiss with one of her own.