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Lucifer had known something was wrong the second that they stepped foot into the warehouse. Celestial senses charged and going through the roof, he should’ve insisted that they come back later on with the full force behind them, he’s never one for protocol but he’d stopped Chloe with a hand on her arm, suggesting they wait for some sort of back up.
But, as always, he’d succumbed to the Detective’s wishes; she’d been so passionate about this case from the start-a body found inside an abandoned van used in a trafficking gig-because of whom it involved; children, as innocent as it gets. Unusually, she’d begun following her heart instead of her head, staying up until the crack of dawn just to see through a search warrant request, making mistakes because a) after putting her whole heart into this case, she’s worn herself out, and b) she is now too involved that she isn’t taking the same precautions she’s always making him follow.
Not that Lucifer blames her. This case is one of the worst they’ve seen in a while. And it involves vulnerable children, and as she is the world’s-universe’s greatest mother, Lucifer knows it’s affecting her, and likely, reminding her of the time Trixie was taken by Malcom.
They’ve received a call from an anonymous number, and long story short, Chloe believes that the warehouse contains key evidence that is about to be disposed of. What that evidence is- Lucifer dreads to think.
As they’d arrived, he’d been able to detect a hint of gasoline, and they were following the scent of it when he’d heard footsteps. In an instant he’d reached out and dragged Chloe backwards.
The next thing they knew, the whole place was exploding.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Through a painful void in his ears, Lucifer tunes in to the monotonous leaking, splashing repetitively somewhere beside him. It’s the only thing that’s currently making sense, water droplets dripping from a burst pipe above their heads. A cold splash lands on the nape of his neck, startling him out of the abyss.
He gasps, throat dry and tongue like sandpaper. Dust swims in the air in front of him and settles on his lungs as he tries to catch his breath. It makes him cough, and when he tries to lift his hand to cover his mouth, he finds that it’s trapped.
That can’t be good.
Where is he? More importantly, why is everything dark?
He blinks once, twice, trying to make out his surroundings. The pipe slants off of the ceiling, pointing towards where he’s laid in a heap on the ground. The water has stopped dripping, but he can still hear something that sounds like liquid- but more like fizzing, or…
The smell of smoke invades his senses.
The familiar crackling sound of fire.
They’re at the warehouse. Following the trail of gasoline, Chloe had said it was probably their perp, trying to burn away the evidence until all that’s left is ashes.
Chloe.
Lucifer pushes something heavy off of his back with the arm that isn’t trapped, hauling it to one side. Metal creeks and clangs as he does so, and he shuts his eyes bracing himself…
When nothing falls further, he tries to shift his legs. They feel like two dead weights, pins and needles shooting from his feet to his ankles, which is a good thing, because if he’s vulnerable, then she’s okay. She’s still here. He just has to get to her.
Something else drops in the distance, the bang echoing through the warehouse, and with the ringing from the explosion already throbbing in his ears, Lucifer lets out a wince and covers his head with his elbow, ducking under half of what appears to be a large wooden board that’s fallen from somewhere.
A gust of flames flare up wildly as the debris lands and adds to the growing fire.
He needs to find Chloe now.
“D’ctive?” Lucifer coughs and wheezes through the smoke, the fallen rubble grinding as he tries to move.
She doesn’t answer.
She could be trapped anywhere.
Drip.
Instead of water this time, it’s blood, pouring from a wound on his forehead. It stings, but it’s not the cause of the worst pain he’s feeling at the moment. That’s coming from his arm, wedged between a large barrel and the ground and twisted in the opposite direction it should be. It throbs as he tries to move and he growls, gritting his teeth through the wave of nausea and aching.
He reminds himself to be grateful for the sensation.
Because Chloe’s still breathing.
Pushing up on his palm, he forces through his trembling and steadies himself with his elbow. He works up a sweat trying to lift himself up, but with the notion that he’s doing this for Chloe, she could be hurt somewhere and he’s over here useless, he pushes through, kicks the remaining debris that’s landed on him away, not too far, just in case she’s somewhere close by, but far enough that he can wiggle his way through the small gap between the floor and the collapsed rubble.
Now he can see the full extent of the damage- his surroundings covered in bits of broken barrels, tables, the floor board from the level above-the panic that was bubbling in him before rises to a peak, overflowing and overwhelming his whole being.
Tears sting his eyes, and he feels sick to his stomach. He forces himself to recover from them both quickly. He doesn’t have time to waste on his own issues.
“Chloe!” He yells, his voice more clearly this time, but all the more desperate.
He closes his eyes and listens, blocks out the crackling fire and the distant smoke alarm going off, and tries to hear her breathing, her heart beat even.
Thud.
Thud.
Lucifer snaps his eyes open, turning in the direction he hears her pulse the loudest. It’s worrying, beating extremely slow and shallow, but finally, he manages to make out blonde hair poking out from beneath a particular large piece of broken floorboards.
He wastes no time in grabbing the weight on top of his left arm, trying with everything he has to lift it off of his arm, just enough so that he can escape its trap.
He grimaces as his bones grind painfully, he’s no doctor, but even he can tell that the arm is probably broken in at least three different places. It doesn’t slow him down, he pushes on and begins crawling his way through the damage and to the Detective.
He coughs and splutters, thick phlegm stuck in the back of his throat as well as a layer of dust, it reminds him of being back in Hell, having ash and smoke coating his lungs and attacking his senses. He should be used to it, he supposes, but being close to the Detective means he’s more affected, his eyes sting a lot harder, and his throat feels like he’s swallowed a bag of razor blades.
Finally, Lucifer reaches her side.
“Detective can you hear me?” He makes quick work of the floorboards, lifting them off of her limp form and throwing them into the far corner.
She startles at the loud crash, body jerking. “Mmf..”
Lucifer cradles her head, thumbs brushing back her hair, “Detective?”
Ever so slowly, her eyes flutter open, and she registers him, and where they are, and what has happened.
“We-“ she coughs and he lifts up her head, the crook of his elbow a makeshift pillow, “we need t’call for help.”
Lucifer rummages his pocket for his phone, and like he’d assumed, it’s completely broken.
Chloe leans forward slightly, he helps support her with an arm around her back, and pats her pocket for her own phone, the screen’s damaged, but it looks as if it’s still working. Their hope is shot though, when she just manages to dial the precinct’s number and the screen shuts down and won’t turn back on.
“No, no no…” Chloe smacks it against her thigh, hoping to nudge it into action, but the screen just stays black.
She lets it falls beside her.
“It’s alright, Detective-“
She glances at him in disbelief and then closes her eyes, hand rubbing her forehead with a wince. He notices the blood behind her ear then, and the dried flakes of it on his shirt from where she’d been resting. He’s not sure how bad it is but he doesn’t want to look, or for her to look, in case it is a deep injury, it’ll just scare her.
For now, he focuses on moving the rest of the rubble off of her legs, and carving a space for them in the midst of the debris.
“Lucifer look out!” Chloe’s shrill warning pierces his ears as the floorboards above them crumble and collapse.
It plummets to the ground, along with a load of other heavy items, and they’re too late-
They can’t move. Half her lower body is still stuck under a large block of wood, he can’t just drag her out from it in case she’s hurt.
“Go Lucifer!” Chloe yells, pushing his hands away from her.
He’s not leaving her.
She grabs him and forces him away, the ceiling creaking and grinding more insistently.
Lucifer scrambles back, caving over her, “I’m not leaving you!”
Her eyes sting with tears, “you’re gonna get crushed!”
“So are you!” He blurts out, wincing at the harsh reality of it all. There’s absolutely nothing he can do to save her. Nothing. He turns his head, watching a chunk of the wood plunge to the ground in the distance. Then he looks back at her, arms bracketing her view, “don’t look, alright?”
She shakes her head, panic stricken, “we can’t die here-“
He brushes a hand over her cheek, “shhh, look at me.”
Her eyes focus on the collapse over his shoulder, chest rising and falling with a shudder of breath.
He jostles her, “look at me,” voice desperate.
He’s terrified too. He’s never been this close to death.
It’s as if it’s clawing at them both, waiting in the shadows.
Only a matter of time.
By the looks of the ceiling, and the large, conveyor machine sloping on the edge, they don’t have much of it.
Chloe’s hands come to frame his face, drawing his attention back to her, “you’re immortal, you- you only get injured around me, I-if you left now you’d be fine.”
“Not a chance-“
Her brows furrow, “I don’t want you to die.” Eyes blurry with tears, “not because of me.”
He shakes his head, thumbs drying her tears one by one, “you’re the only person I’d ever die for, Chloe.”
She sobs, clutching the hair at the nape of his neck, “I’m sorry for shouting at you the other night- I didn’t mean it.”
He laughs softly, “it’s alright.”
“I- I’m glad you’re back, I don’t care that I’m a miracle, I-“ she swallows thickly, closing her eyes as more tears fall down her cheeks, “I was just g-getting caught in the reasonings of it all. I- I just w-wanna be with you, p-properly.”
He offers her a smile, leaning down to kiss her clammy forehead, “I would’ve taken care of you, I would’ve been good to you.”
Chloe cries, hooking her arms round his neck and holding him down to press a kiss against his lips, “I-I know, w-we would’ve been amazing.”
He buries his face in her neck, committing her scent to memory.
“I don’t wanna die.” She whispers, like she did all those years ago, bleeding out on the floor of Jimmy Barnes’ recording studio, and he’d promised her then that she wouldn’t. That he’d save her, and he did.
This time, he can’t. And it aches.
He can’t even tell her that it’s going to be alright, that she’s going to see the offspring again, and her friends, and that soon, they’ll have a proper date to make up for all they’ve lost before.
When he doesn’t say anything, it dawns on Chloe how close death really is.
She’s actually about to die.
Her heart constricts, her lungs struggling for breath, “I’m scared.”
“I know-“ It pains him that he can’t do anything about it. “Me too.”
She offers a shaky smile and he moves back a little to look at her, to take her in, “Lucifer Morningstar, scared?”
He swallows thickly, “doesn’t happen often I assure you, Detective.”
In the distance, Lucifer hears sirens. There’s that back up he’d mentioned.
He looks down at Chloe, who’s closed her eyes, and in panic, he shakes her shoulders, “Chloe!”
She jolts awake, eyes blinking, “hmm?”
His hand finds her cheek, his fingers casually grazing on her pulse point, it’s fading by the second, “help is coming, I can hear the sirens, just wait a little longer, for me?”
She nods once, “I’ll try, promise...”
In the mean time, Lucifer tries speeding up the process of freeing her, once help and back up arrives. Carefully, he positions himself over her, moving the large barrel beside them out of their way, he throws it as far into the back of the warehouse as possible, so it doesn’t cause anything nearby to fall.
The ceiling above them, the part that’s still left, groans loudly.
Chloe pats his shoulder with her hand, prompting him to look up.
Lucifer sighs, stomach clenching. He sends a prayer to Amenadiel, he’s currently minding Hell for him, so he may not be able to hear, but he begs him for more time, or, rather, slower time.
“What’s Heaven like?” Chloe asks quietly, eyes slowly slipping shut and then opening again, as if she’d remembered her promise to him again.
Lucifer busies himself with lifting a large metal pole and throwing it in the same direction as the barrel.
He can’t answer that.
She can’t go there.
He bites his cheek, ignores the stinging in his eyes and continues moving the rubble, however fruitless his attempt is. She’s trapped, and the ceiling is about to come down on them any minute now.
He keeps throwing bits of debris, the crashes getting louder and more impactful as he lunged them through the air.
Chloe swipes his hand, “Lucifer-“
He avoids her touch, keeping up the momentum of clearing the area.
“Lucifer!”
He screws his eyes shut, a stray tear escaping-
Chloe grabs his hands, “Lucifer stop please, stop…”
A sob rushes through his body, head falling with shame and hurt and desperation.
“I can’t save you-“ he hisses, clenching his teeth together until it hurts, “I can’t-“
Chloe cries silently, squeezing his hands close to her chest, “shhh, it’s alright, it’s okay…”
His gaze drifts upwards, “why are you taking her away from me you bastard ey? Is this because I’ve left my post in Hell? Perhaps your wayward son, Michael, holds the answer to the reason why I left, but I guess you already know that don’t you, Dad?”
Chloe’s breath hitches, “I-I’m gonna find your father, w-when I’m in Heaven, and punch him.”
Lucifer snorts a laugh, swiping his wrist over his damp cheeks and sweaty forehead, “I’d pay good money to see that Detective.”
A slab breaks free from the exterior roof, colliding into the collapsing ceiling above their heads and missing them by a few meters. Lucifer starts and instinctively cups Chloe’s head, bringing it against his chest and covering her body with his own.
The bang reverbs around them and Chloe winces, clutching Lucifer’s body to her own, “Lucifer you have to go.”
Lucifer shakes his head, “stop worrying about me when your-“ he trails off, turning around to look at the fire that’s slowly licking it’s way along the shattered walls and amongst the fallen debris, those flames will reach them in no time, and if they don’t then-
He looks up, stomach in knots, the ceiling will come down on them.
Chloe grabs him roughly, “Lucifer please, please leave, you’ll end up back in Hell! Wouldn’t you rather be here? On Earth, with our family?”
“You’re my family-“
“Trixie will need you.” Chloe coughs, gasping for air, she has to say this, she can’t have him dying here, not because of her mistake, and her-
Stop. She can’t think like that either. This isn’t her fault, her guilt won’t drag her down to Hell because this isn’t her fault, she didn’t know what was going to happen, she just slipped up.
“She needs you, her mother!”
Chloe’s eyes fill with tears again, the first few cascading down her cheeks and leaving a streak on her grey skin, “I’m not making it out of here Lucifer, look at me!”
She knows it’s harsh, but the fact of the matter is- the ceiling is going to collapse any minute now and crush whatever’s in its way, she’s trapped, her body is wedged under a load of materials and a large trolley from the warehouse, she can’t be pulled out without being crushed even more, and the weight being moved only makes the pain worse. Lucifer is out of his entrapment, he’s injured, on his head and his arm is hanging limply by his side, so it’s probably broken in a few places, but he’ll be fine once he’s far enough away from her. And he can be, he can walk out of here right now. He can go and be with their family and take care of them-
He doesn’t have to end up down in Hell.
But yet again, Lucifer declares, “I’m not leaving you.”
Lucifer lays beside Chloe, on top of the broken bits of rubble, an uncomfortable position, but he grins and he bares it, because as time passes, her breathes get slower, and her skin colder, and though the sirens get louder, probably about 10 minutes away now, Death gets closer.
“Do you remember when we first met?” He asks softly, cradling her upper body, head tilted to look at her.
Chloe’s eyes slip backwards, half an eye roll, “I r-remember you being a pain in the ass.”
“You love my ass-“
Her hand taps his chest, an attempted slap, “I think it was you who loved mine, seen as though you followed me around constantly.”
Lucifer clicks his tongue, “but aren’t you so glad I did?”
She stares at him, eyes soft and warm, like they’ve always been really, even in their toughest times.
He gets lost in them for a minute, barely registering her when she replies, “yeah, I am.”
Both think about their journey, where they’d started; years ago, a short interrogative witness statement over his piano, which lead to Chloe getting shot in Jimmy Barnes’ recording studio, which resulted in their first case being solved. Together. As partners, even though they weren’t officially that until a little later, when he’d proved himself to her, and she’d come out of her shell. From then, they’d toed the line of a relationship, deeper than Lucifer had ever experienced before, and more intense than Chloe had ever felt. But then mistakes were made. They grew apart, for a while, but then they gradually found their way back to each other, fate pulling them back together. Except this time, neither resisted, well, until Chloe had found out she was a miracle.
Chloe swallows a dry cough, “w-we wasted so much time…”
Lucifer furrows his brows, she’s right, they have done, and now-
Now that time is almost up.
His hands move to cup her cheeks, thumbs swiping at the stray tears lingering on her skin. Her lips quiver as she sniffles, he wants to kiss her, but he’s not sure if, after everything with his brother and her finding out she is a miracle, the Detective would want the same.
She seems to read his mind. She reaches for him, hand trembling, “kiss me.”
He doesn’t wait another second before pressing his lips to hers with a soft exhale of breath, relief.
While they have kissed before, every time feels like the first.
Excited, anxious tremors ripple through to Lucifer’s finger tips as he brushes back her hair, resting his hand at the nape of her neck. It’s warm and wet, blood he thinks, but he doesn’t tell her that, she’s scared enough as it is.
Chloe captures Lucifer’s bottom lip, tilting her head to gain a better angle. She inhales the scent of him, nose squashed against his cheek as they kiss. She’s missed him, he no longer smells like he did when she’d first hugged him after he’d returned from Hell, like ash and brimstone, he smells like him again; just the right amount of expensive cologne, sandalwood and whiskey.
A loud wail makes them pull apart, Lucifer turning his head quickly-
Chloe’s eyes bulge in panic at the sight, “Lucifer….”
He squeezes her hand, “close your eyes Chloe.”
She shakes her head, trying to free her palm from his, “go Lucifer please!”
The ceiling groans, echoing across the warehouse.
The sirens creep closer by the second.
Lucifer drops his chin, bracketing her body, “it’ll be over soon-“
“No!”
He closes his eyes and accepts his fate, at least he’ll be with her, right until the end.
Chloe screams when the ceiling drops-
He grimaces and prepares for the impact, at least he will take most of it.
Everything’s black, and yet-
The crash never comes.
There’s a weight behind him, he can feel it, making the hairs stand on the back of his neck, but his heart still thuds rapidly in his ears.
He’s alive.
Slowly, he dares to open his eyes-
“Chloe…”
He tracks her arms, held above the both of them, fingers splayed-
She’s got her eyes shut, a grimace on her face.
Lucifer turns and sees the ceiling, collapsed, but… just hovering. In the air. Above them both. Inches away from his back.
It’s as if some invisible barrier has formed around them.
…His brows furrow with realisation.
The Detective’s hands are slightly glowing, a faint silver colour, so faint that to a normal eye, her palm would appear it’s normal pinkish colour, but Lucifer can see and feel the celestial energy radiating off of her. She’s practicality full of it. In a way that he’s never seen before.
He touches her shoulder gently, “darling, open your eyes-“
She shakes her head, eyes screwing shut, “I can’t-“
Lucifer encourages her softly, “trust me, you’re fine, we’re fine.”
Her lids flutter open, “how are we-oh my God…”
Lucifer’s breath catches in his throat, a sharp laugh, “well yes I suppose it’s half down to him-“
She raises her head, “what? He saved us? Why?”
Lucifer shakes his head, “he didn’t, you did.”
She trails her gaze to her arms, only just realisation that they’re stretched out above the two of them, her miraculous hands creating a protective barrier for them both and literally holding up the ceiling away from them.
Chloe blinks, once, twice-
“Am I dead? Are we dead?”
Lucifer snorts, “no, we’re very much alive, thanks to you.”
“I don’t understand…”
He thinks back to an earlier conversation they’d had, a grin creeping onto his lips, “well, they may not be laser beam hands, but it turns out, you do have powers.”
She laughs, breath hitching, “are you sure we’re not dead?”
Sirens reverb in the warehouse, a few muffled voices seeing through the damaged walls, “hear that?”
She strains her hearing, and then sees the blue flashing lights reflecting on the piles up debris. She nods her head, swallowing thickly, “how am I doing this?”
Lucifer frowns in thought. Since his powers are woven into his make up, he assumes hers are too. Granted, they haven’t ever been uncovered until now, though they would’ve been useful in many of the scrapes they’ve been in before.
Perhaps Amenadiel’s theory about self actualisation is correct-
He’s not really given it a thought until now, he’d thought it was absurd when he’d first said it because they all know that Dad controls everything.
And yet… it could be true, couldn’t it?
Chloe is a miracle, despite being human, she clearly has celestial energies running through her veins. She’s never known about her identity until a few days ago, and while she’d been angry at first, hurt and slightly betrayed, by her own maker and by Lucifer’s concealment of the truth, she’d just told him that she’d accepted it. Who she is. Or what.
She’d been desperate to save him, so much so that she’d wanted him to leave. To save himself instead of being with her at the end.
She hadn’t wanted to die.
And more so, it seems, she’d wanted him to be okay.
And then- this.
A protective shield wielded by her own hands.
“A miracle indeed.” Lucifer voices aloud.
Chloe coughs as she inhales some of the smoke from the growing fire in the distance, and when she does, the whole foundation of broken material around them shakes, as if reacting to the slight movement of her arms. He’s the Devil, and yet, he’s never seen anything like this. He now understands how the Detective and Linda had felt when uncovering this otherworldly information about their friends, Heaven and Hell.
“You think it’s because of that?” She asks, “because I’m a gift.”
Lucifer shrugs subtly, he truly doesn’t know. “I couldn’t say, I could speculate but-“ he trails off, thinking about something else he can’t explain either, “it’s strange, you’re the only person that makes me vulnerable, and yet here you are, the only one strong enough to save the Devil too.”
Chloe looks at him in shock and awe.
“LAPD!”
A chorus of shouts, some familiar, others not so much, rings in their ears. Lucifer leans forward, whispering in Chloe’s ear, “I’ll take the weight until they pull you out…”
She shakes her head defiantly, he may have super strength, but she’s pretty proud of her own abilities as well, she’d literally saved them from a massive avalanche of ceiling-
It’s pretty badass, she’s sure Trixie would say. “I’ve got this.”
Lucifer smirks, he’s always loved her determination, it makes her all the more sexy.
He looks through the gap of debris, and sees a bunch of unis and firefighters making their way over, “how will we explain, all of this?”
Chloe bites her lip, “not sure, but we will, like we always do.”