Chapter Text
By the following afternoon, Chloe had a ton of notes and thoughts and questions written out. She’d returned to her project after Maze and Trixie had gone to bed, then woken up this morning with more things that’d come to mind as she slept. She wouldn’t say it was an obsession, but pouring everything out onto paper was making her feel so much better. So it was all she did that day, pausing only to eat a quick sandwich on the little island space she had left. Everything had gotten…. spread out, with paper left out everywhere.
When she talked to Lucifer later, she’d be able to ask him questions with a clear direction in mind, instead of bumbling through it. He’d made fun of her writing down notes on her conversation with Goddess, so there was no way she’d ever show him this stuff. But her thoughts felt more organized in her head now too.
She was underlining a new question about demon society, printouts of illustrations for all sorts of demons scattered around the breakfast bar, when someone knocked on the door. She had all of half a second to wonder who it was before she had her answer. “Detective!”
Oh crap. What was he doing here?
She froze, eyes darting from the demon pictures to the door to the rest of the papers strewn throughout the apartment. There was no way she could cover it up in time. She’d just have to talk to him outside.
The knock came again. “Detective? Look, I’m trying not to barge in here again since you keep taking issue with it, but if you don’t answer I’m going to have to assume you’re in danger and break in anyway.”
His tone was far too lighthearted for him to believe she really might be in danger. “Would you give me one minute?” she called, heart beating way too fast. She wasn’t even dressed; she was just wearing the same T-shirt and shorts she’d been using as pajamas the last couple days. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was wearing zero makeup.
There was no time to fix any of that either.
She quickly threw on the first coat her hands touched and stuffed her feet into a pair of sneakers, reaching for the door before Lucifer could make good on his threat. She stepped outside and immediately shut it behind her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
Lucifer had opened his mouth to say something, but then he paused, taking her in. “I have a couple of reasons, but they’re not as important as the reason you’re standing outside in that bizarre outfit. I’d ask if I woke you up, but it’s three in the afternoon and there’s not a trace of sleep on your face. So why are we having this discussion here and not in your kitchen?”
She wasn’t used to lying to Lucifer, so it took her a beat too long to come up with a response. “Uh. I felt like getting some air.” There. She had been feeling stuffed up in her apartment, so that wasn’t even entirely a lie; Lucifer would be proud.
Except he just raised his brows and called her on it. “If that were true you’d have let me in and suggested we talk on the balcony. Why don’t you want me going inside?”
“Who said I don’t want you going inside? Maybe I just like it out here.”
“So you’re planning for us to just hang out on the walkway all afternoon?”
“I wasn’t planning anything. You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“I think you can now surmise that I’m here to talk to you for longer than it takes to deliver a pizza, so the question still stands.”
“So does mine. For all I know we would end up going somewhere else entirely.”
“We might, but I highly doubt you’d want to do so looking like that. It’s generally customary for one to invite a visitor into their home while they prepare to leave.”
“You don’t do customary, so why care now?”
His lips were slowly turning up into a grin of pure delight. “Does that mean you would quite literally close the door in my face and make me wait out here while you get ready? Whether I care about propriety or not, that’s just rude, Detective. And here I thought you were adamant you cared about me.”
She pressed her mouth shut. They could keep going back and forth, but he had her and he knew it.
“For someone who’s so good at spinning things in her favor while talking to suspects, you’re rather terrible at this today. What don’t you want me to see?”
“Oh, so now you’re so confident I’d want you around,” she muttered. His grin only widened. “Fine. Come in. But you better keep the commentary to a minimum or I swear I will kick you out and shut the door in your face.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Even better.”
She was so going to regret this, but there was no way out. She pushed the door open and let him walk in first.
“I don’t get it,” he said, stepping inside. She followed. “Apart from the fact that it looks like an office supply store threw up in your apartment, there’s nothing noteworthy in here. Only you would manage to do work on a vacation when you have no active—”
He stopped, finally noticing the pictures of demons on the counter. This was on her, really. Trixie was going to be home soon anyway; she should have cleaned most of it up.
“What is this?” he asked, reaching for one of the pictures. He held it up, frowning. “Am I about to find out you’re secretly a huge fan of stories like—wait.” He picked up the list of questions she’d been in the middle of adding to, her pen rolling across the counter. And then he read them off. “ ‘No demons on Earth. Exorcism not real? Or does it work and there just aren’t any other demons for it to work on? Do they all look human-ish like Maze, or different?’ ”
Chloe put her head in her hand as he spoke.
Lucifer scoffed. “Well, they don’t look quite like this, but many of them are an offense to the senses, that’s for sure,” he said. The delight was returning back to his voice as he set the papers down and moved along the counter, looking over the rest. “Detective, are you trying to do research on hell?”
“Yes,” she said, face burning. Why did she want to be partners with the devil, again? “And other things. Sort of. I told you, I needed to organize my thoughts before I asked more questions, and it just kind of… spiraled into me looking things up online.”
“You can’t really think any of this nonsense is accurate,” he said, sifting through a pile of printouts on various writings about the garden, Adam, and Eve. “I mean, there’s some truth at the core, but most of this crap is embellished and fabricated and then embellished again. I mean, yet another person saying I turned into a snake?” He snorted. “Ridiculous. Utter tosh.”
So she could cross off one of her questions: Lucifer transformed into a snake?? Hard to believe. He hates reptiles.
Chloe was just relieved when he moved on without seeming to notice that particular sticky note. She said, “Of course I don’t think it’s all accurate. But like you said, the stories had to come from somewhere. I was making notes so that I could ask you what was real and what was bullshit.”
“I should have known,” he said, walking over to the kitchen table to run his finger over what Chloe thought were notes on heaven. “You investigate everything else, so of course you’d investigate this too.”
“Yeah, yeah, just get it all out of your system now.”
He glanced over at her. “Get what out of my system, precisely? This is wonderful.” He picked up one of her notepads. “ ‘Angels: what good are they?’ ” he read. “An excellent question indeed. Though you must know by now that the answer is none at all.”
“Yeah, I got that. That one wasn’t meant for you. You weren’t meant to see this at all. Do you really not think it’s stupid?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s stupid, no. It’s not how I would have done it, but then, I’m not you.”
“But you just called it ridiculous, and you were laughing at me for doing this with your mom.”
Now he was the one who seemed surprised. “I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“You weren’t?”
“No, of course I wasn’t. I lo—” He cut himself off. “I just wasn’t expecting you to show up with notes after dealing with my mother’s infuriating worldview, or for you to do all this. But it makes sense. I don’t think anyone else would be so down-to-earth about celestial matters when they only recently learned it exists at all.”
“Oh,” she said. The embarrassment was still there, but it was starting to fade. Maybe he really was just more amused at the stories themselves and not at her compiling all this information.
“This is perfect, really. Now I can go through it one by one and clear up all these misconceptions I’ve had to live with for eons. It’s about time the devil got to tell his side of the story.”
She smiled at that. “I mean, yeah, that’s what I was hoping for. I wasn’t planning on going through this stuff in particular, but I guess now I might as well.”
“Don’t tell me there isn’t anything on me here? I am a starring figure in your personal dealings with the divine and infernal alike. I’d expect devilish tales to occupy quite a bit of your research.”
He wasn’t wrong, but did he have to be so smug about it? “That would be the stuff over in the living room.” She headed over there to start collecting it. “Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about you—”
“As if anyone could forget about me.”
“—and as I was about to say, I’m sure you’ll be talking about yourself plenty regardless.”
“Obviously. We should still start there, though.”
She started piling those pages on top of each other. “Sure, but it’s going to have to be later. Trixie will be home soon.”
“Didn’t we already establish that she likely believes I’m really the devil? Even if she doesn’t, I doubt she’d mind. She’d just take it as a story, and she seems to love those. Especially when it comes to yours truly.”
“You haven’t been telling her any of those stories, have you?”
“Not at length, but she’s heard statements about me being the devil before. You know that.”
That was true. “Well, either way, I’m not ready to open that door yet.”
“All right, then. At least I’ll have this to look forward to later.”
She took the stack of papers back to the kitchen table and started gathering up the rest of it too. “You never did tell me why you’re here. I figured you’d be at home for the next few weeks with a hot home nurse who may or may not be medically licensed.”
His expression faltered, the same way it had yesterday. Before she could figure out why, he picked it back up again. “Usually yes, but not this time. I… I was actually doing some thinking—”
“A dangerous pastime,” she said, teasing. It was out before she could think better of it.
He huffed. “Please, Detective.”
“Sorry. I’ll be serious. What’s up?”
He took a breath. “This time I was thinking about you, and what you’d actually want from me.”
That was unexpected. “What do you mean?”
“I… I wanted to—”
The door opened again. Trixie walked in. “Hey, Trix,” Chloe said.
“Hi M—Lucifer!” She dumped her backpack on the ground and rushed forward. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Trixie, wait—” Chloe quickly put herself in between the two of them, lightly grasping Trixie’s arms to bring her to a halt. “No hugging right now, okay? Lucifer got hurt while we were gone, too, but it’s a little worse than with me. A hug wouldn’t be comfortable for him.”
The smile had already died out by the time Chloe could explain. Trixie’s eyes had caught on his face, roving over the marks there, still so much more vivid than her own. “Are you okay?” she asked, voice small.
Lucifer had no problem giving her an easy smile. “Yes, urchin, I’ll be perfectly all right. You can hug me if you must. Just be gentle.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Your mother worries too much. You won’t hurt me.”
Trixie looked up at her in question, and Chloe let go. Why Lucifer was offering like that, she had no idea, but she wouldn’t get in the way. “If he says it’s fine, go ahead. Gently, like he said.”
Trixie stepped forward and put her arms around him, and even Chloe could tell her touch was light as a butterfly’s wings. “Are things better now?” she asked him. “Dad said you were having a hard time and that’s why you left.”
Lucifer looked over at Chloe. He hadn’t really made any move to return the hug—he’d just kind of awkwardly patted her back—and he didn’t seem to know what to say to that, either. “Yes, things are better now,” he said. “I’m sure you missed me terribly, so don’t fear. I won’t be leaving again.”
Trixie finally relaxed again, stepping back to give him some room, her expression lighter. “Good. Are you staying for a while?”
“I’d like to.” He looked at Chloe again, and she mouthed, Of course you can.
A touch of relief crossed his face. It seemed to settle him after his hesitation before. She said, “Are you hungry, Trixie? I can get you a snack before dinner.”
“Yes, please.” Trixie hopped up onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “They only had meatloaf for lunch today. Gross.”
“I’d be more surprised if any food they serve at that prison in disguise is edible,” Lucifer said, following Chloe back to the kitchen. “Don’t you send real food to school with her?”
“All the time, but someone told me they wanted what they were serving in the cafeteria,” she said, giving Trixie a pointed glance.
“I thought it was chicken nugget day,” Trixie said, shrugging. “But that’s tomorrow.”
Chloe got out a box of Ritz crackers and the half-empty jar of peanut butter that Maze kept denying she dipped into. Trixie couldn’t get enough of it lately. “Want some?” she asked Lucifer, but he was already opening the fridge.
“Ooh, salsa,” he said, plucking out a container that she didn’t even remember buying.
“Please, help yourself,” she said drily.
“Oh, I shall. The chips would be… here, yes?” He opened a cabinet and pulled out the tortilla chips, apparently knowing her kitchen well enough to find them with ease. “What would you like, Detective?”
For a second she couldn’t believe that he was offering her food from her own house, but then she realized that the question was genuine. Like he was offering not the food, but to get it for her.
She hadn’t been thinking of eating herself, but she said anyway, “I’ll take an orange. On the counter to your right. And probably some of the chips, too.”
“An odd combination, but I won’t judge.” He got an orange, but instead of just handing it over, he went about peeling and cutting it for her. Then he set it out on a plate on the counter, along with the crackers and chips, so they could all share. Chloe leaned against the counter, popping a slice into her mouth. “Thanks.”
He scooped up some of the salsa and ate for a moment, and then seemed to grow preoccupied. “So, about what you said the other day, when you were telling Maze to go crazy with the Corvette. About me still needing to make up for things.”
She glanced at him. “Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, I’ve decided to do just that. I have the feeling that you wouldn’t appreciate me doing one grand thing for you to make up for it on the same scale—”
“Yeah, please don’t,” she said quickly. “I really don’t need you buying me a mansion or arranging for world leaders to declare a global Chloe Decker Day or whatever it is that you’d call a grand makeup gift.”
Where was this even coming from? He had that glint in his eye that told Chloe this wasn’t a side thought he’d had. He was here to make it a whole thing. Apparently that was the reason he’d shown up unannounced like this—he’d been thinking about how to make it up to her, even though she hadn’t expected him to do anything special after they got back. It wasn’t really something he could make up for in the usual sense.
Lucifer said, “Excellent idea, actually. I quite like the sound of that. I’ll have to remember it for later.”
“Oh no,” she muttered.
Trixie giggled. “I love it. We should totally have that! And I get the day off school so I can celebrate, right?”
“Absolutely. No wretched school on Chloe Decker Day, that’s for certain. There will only be fun in your honor, Detective. Mandatory fun.”
She looked him right in the eye. “No,” she said flatly. The worrisome part was that knowing him, he’d probably be able to make at least one country get on board with minimal effort.
“I already promised no grand gestures this time.” Chloe didn’t miss how that wasn’t a promise not to. “Anyway, that means I’ll have to do a lot of little things until it balances out. So go on. Give me a number.”
“A what? Lucifer, that’s not how this works. You don’t just keep a tally—”
He turned to Trixie. “Urchin, give me a number. Make it good.”
Trixie looked at him seriously, putting one hand on her hip. “What’s this number for? What did you do wrong that you have to make up for?”
“Ah…” For all the thinking he claimed to have done, he clearly hadn’t factored in being interrogated by a nine-year-old. He glanced at Chloe, as if pleading for help.
She decided to give it to him, if only because she was pretty sure the real issue was that he didn’t know how to explain and not that he didn’t want to admit to it. She’d asked him to keep devil talk to a minimum and he couldn’t lie, and he probably didn’t even know if Trixie was aware they’d kissed. Since Trixie didn’t know, Chloe had to think for a second, too. “He lied to me about something very important,” she said, “because he was afraid to tell me the truth about other things. Both the lie and the fact that he lied hurt me, which is why I want you to know lying isn’t good.”
“I thought you never lied?” Trixie asked him, eyes narrowing.
“I didn’t technically say anything that wasn’t true, but apparently lying by omission really does count,” he said, wincing. “Along with letting appearances do the lying for me. Needless to say I won’t be doing either again.”
“Hmm.” Trixie thought it over. “Lying when you say you don’t lie is a serious mistake. So I can’t let you off easy.”
It only seemed to make him regain his composure. “I won’t ask you to. How many makeup tasks do you think I should complete to earn her forgiveness?”
“Thirty,” she said. “And they have to be good ones.”
Apparently whatever number he’d been thinking of, it hadn’t been that. “Thirty!” he exclaimed. “As in three zero?”
“Yes. Three times ten. Six times five. Thirty.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed with your math skills?” he muttered. “Fine. Thirty it is. But getting your mother her snack counts as one already, so—”
“No it doesn’t!” Trixie and Chloe both said at the same time.
Trixie said, “That so does not count.”
Chloe added, “If that’s your idea of making things up to me, then you’re going to end up sliding backwards on the forgiveness scale. All you did was hand me my own food.”
“After I sliced it for you!”
They both shot him a look that said they weren’t impressed.
He held up his hands in surrender, but from the look on his face, he’d said it just to get that kind of reaction. “Very well. I can see you’re going to be tough on me, after all. How about the fact that I got the lieutenant to give you two weeks off?”
“Oh, so now you had an ulterior motive?” Chloe snorted. “So much for just wanting me to have time off.”
“Wait, what?” Trixie said. “You have two weeks off?”
“Yeah, monkey. I’ll be home for a while, so I can rest up after my trip.”
Her eyes lit up. “Yay! That means you’ll always be here when I get home from school?”
A pang went through Chloe at how happy that simple idea made her. She tried to be here as much as she could, but even when she didn’t have to be somewhere for a case in the evening, Trixie was home at four and she usually didn’t get back until six. With dinner and homework and any other things they had to take care of, they didn’t get to spend nearly as much quality time together during the week as they wanted. “Yep. No working late, for once.”
“All thanks to me, and I promise I didn’t do it with this in mind,” Lucifer said, seizing on Trixie’s enthusiasm. “That’s a pretty good one, isn’t it?”
Chloe relented. “Fine. I’ll count it only if Trixie agrees.”
“I’ll allow it,” she said, clearly won over by that one. “But you have to do twenty-nine more things starting now.”
“How do I know when something counts?” he asked. “Am I going to have to run everything by this little committee?”
“Nope,” Chloe said, grinning. “Trixie gets to be the sole arbiter. She’s a neutral third party.”
“No she is not,” he protested. “She’s your daughter.”
“That just means I can trust her. If it’s not good enough for her, it’s not good enough for me.” She held up her hand, and Trixie high-fived it.
“I promise to be fair and… and… important? What’s it called?”
“Impartial?” Chloe suggested.
“Yes. That. Fair and impartial.”
“Didn’t you just say her vacation counts because you get more time with her at home?” Lucifer said, giving her a skeptical look.
Chloe said, “Yeah, and that worked in your favor, remember?”
He had to concede that one. “Very well, urchin. I bow to your authority.” He dipped forward a little and then stood up again in a flash, a grimace of discomfort on his face. “Maybe not literally, but in the way that counts.”
Trixie said, “It feels like we need to make this official.”
Chloe went over to one of her piles of paper on the edge of the breakfast bar, grabbed a blank sheet and a pen, and wrote out the terms of their agreement.
Contract Between Lucifer Morningstar and Chloe Decker
I, Lucifer Morningstar, hereby agree to complete 30 (thirty) tasks to earn the forgiveness of Chloe Decker.
I, Chloe Decker, agree to stop bringing up his mistake every chance I get once the tasks are completed.
Trixie Espinoza is to determine whether an action counts as one of the 30 tasks. She will declare when the contract has been fulfilled. There is to be NO bribing of the judge from either party (that means you, Lucifer).
Set forth this day of March 1, 2017:
And then she added signature lines for her and Lucifer. She signed and initialed where she needed to, and then told Lucifer, “Sign at the bottom and initial after your individual sworn statement.”
He read through it and clucked his tongue. “ ‘That means you, Lucifer’? Was that addendum really necessary?”
“Knowing you? Absolutely. No bribing of any form, from cash to chocolate cake to any kind of deal or offer.”
“Fair enough. I admire your foresight, Detective.” He signed with a flourish and handed the paper to Trixie. She got down and went over to the fridge, where she tacked up the contract with a blue penguin magnet.
“There. It’s official. You’d better get to work, Lucifer.”
“Yes, thank you, child.” He gave Chloe a long, slow grin.
Oh no. What had she just agreed to?
“My first—second—act will be taking care of you during your convalescence. I’ll be generous and state that that only counts as one item on the list.”
“What does convalescence mean?” Trixie asked.
“Who even uses that word?” Chloe muttered, while Lucifer answered.
“Recuperation. Healing. Rest. Your mother’s been injured and, as I neglected to take care of her during her last bout of recovery, I insist on doing it now.”
“Seriously?” She swept her hand down in front of her body. “I’m not that badly hurt. You’re the one walking around with a face more bruised than not, unable to even bend down, and you think you need to take care of me?”
“Yes,” he said easily. “Though I’m thinking of it less as a need and more of a desire. Even if this doesn’t count for one of the tasks, I’m going to do it anyway.”
She eyed him. He was making it seem flippant, but she was pretty sure he meant it. He really did want to take care of her.
Since when did he think that way? And why?
“You can’t really protest against someone pampering you, can you, Detective?”
She didn’t have any good reason to refuse. It wasn’t like he was going to carry her around and give her sponge baths. She could just make him fetch her drinks, clean the apartment, and cook. Or order out, since she doubted he knew how to make anything else besides omelets. “All right, fine. I’ll agree to a trial basis to start, but I reserve the right to fire you as my caretaker at any point.”
“Deal. Are you finished eating?”
“No,” she said, and reached for another orange slice.
He moved the rest of it aside and ushered her towards the living room. “You can eat on the couch.”
“This is ridiculous,” she said, but she went and sat down. He found a little tray and set it on her lap, along with some of the remaining orange slices, a little serving of chips and salsa, and a glass of peach tea.
“Would you care for some music? A movie? A book, perhaps?”
She considered her options. Trixie would get distracted if she picked a movie, and she would have homework. “I’ll take a book. Pick one from that shelf over there.” She indicated one of the side tables that held books she hadn’t read yet, mostly cheesy romance novels and a few urban fantasy ones that Detective Huynh kept going on about. They’d sounded sort of interesting when she talked about them, so Chloe had gotten them and then never found the time to start.
Lucifer sucked in a breath to lean down to get them. She was on her feet a second later. “Sorry, I didn’t think—”
He straightened, books in hand, and then chastised her for standing up. “What part of me taking care of you do you not understand? You’re supposed to be relaxing. I’m the devil. I can handle picking up a pile of books.”
“Excuse me for giving a—” She caught herself at the last second. “You’re going to drive me crazy by the time you leave tonight, aren’t you? Is that your real ploy? Bother me until I declare that contract over?”
“Only your offspring can do that, per your own conditions,” he said smugly. “Trixie, do you have any objection to forcing your mother to let other people take care of her for once?”
“Nope,” she said cheerfully.
“There you have it, Detective. Besides.” He smirked. “I did say I’d be doing this for your entire convalescence, not just today. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
She groaned. “Great.”
“It is, isn’t it?” He put the books on top of the table and looked through them. “The Darkest Rose, Midnight Fever, At Long Last… do you seriously like this stuff?” He picked one at random and flipped through it, then decided to read a quote out loud. “ ‘His deep blue eyes sparked with humor and longing as he gazed back at her—’ ”
“I said to get me one, not critique them. If you’re going to take care of me, that means letting me enjoy whatever entertainment I want. And do not suggest I turn to a form of entertainment starting with the letter P.”
“You really do know me so well. Fine.” He took an entirely different book and handed it over to her. “At least this one seems to have something like an interesting plot.”
It was one of the books she’d been recommended. “Was that so hard?”
Only Lucifer would look so happy to be in this position. “What else can I get for you, Detective?”
“Some peace and quiet,” she told him. “Also, I hope you realize that if I’m not allowed to do any kind of work myself, then that means you’re Trixie’s caretaker, too.”
“Yes, I gathered as much. But she’s so small, she can’t need much. Just give her some sugar, sunlight, and a bowl of water and she’ll be good to go, right?”
Chloe gave him a flat look, while Trixie laughed. Once she would have been genuinely worried, but now she knew he was just joking. “She’s not a plant or a dog, Lucifer.”
“I’ll take sugar, though,” Trixie said. “For dessert,” she added, at the look Chloe threw her way next.
“Homework first. Then dinner, and then dessert.”
“Ugh. Can’t I do it after Lucifer leaves?”
“Nope.” She smiled sweetly at him. “That’s part of the offer.”
“Very well.” He squared his shoulders. “I speak every language and I was alive before science was invented. How hard could it be?”
As it turned out, very hard. Chloe sat with her feet tucked up on the couch and her back against the armrest, stealing glances at them as she tried to read the book. Considering that they were working at the other end of the living room, it was probably a lost cause that she’d make any headway. For all his claims that he was fine, she’d made him sit down on something comfortable, and so Trixie was on the floor with her homework on the coffee table.
“What in h—on Earth is this?” he asked. “Why is there a picture of a whale next to this chart of how fast sound travels?”
“I don’t know,” Trixie said. “We’re suppose to figure out how well they hear underwater or something.”
“But this chart has the speed of sound through solid rock.”
“You have to read the questions and see what we’re supposed to do.”
He was quiet for a whole three seconds. “ ‘Would a dolphin hear you better if you were speaking to it in the summer or winter?’ The better question is why does this matter in the slightest? A dolphin wouldn’t understand you no matter the season.”
Chloe bit her tongue before she could ask if he really thought that was the important part of this assignment. She was pretty sure Trixie was just enjoying watching him squirm, because she never asked for help with stuff like this. But now she was pretending not to understand it.
When they finally finished with that, he said, “There. Done.”
“I have more,” Trixie said.
He sighed. “Of course there’s more. What are we learning next, how far a bird can see on Mars?”
“I wish. I have to read this story about gardening and then answer questions.”
He read the story. “This is the dullest thing I’ve ever read, and I’ve seen Daniel’s personal emails.”
Chloe did raise her brows at that. “Why?”
“I was trying to find even a sliver of something interesting on him”—trying to find new material to mock him over, more like—“but all I found were messages with his mother about what she made for dinner and attempts to encourage his improv troupe.”
“His what?”
Lucifer looked caught out. “Ah… never mind?”
Chloe was definitely going to be asking about that later.
“I don’t think you should be reading someone else’s emails,” Trixie said. “That’s wrong, too.”
He scrambled for some form of defense that didn’t involve outright insulting her father. “Well, he deserved it—I mean, it’s… look, your father and I…” He gave up. “Can you forget I said that?”
“I think you should do something nice for him to make up for that, too. Or else I might accidentally remember it when I see him next time.”
He cast a beseeching look Chloe’s way. “Oh, come on—”
“It’s only fair, Lucifer,” she said, glancing down as she turned the page.
“You really are ruthless, you know that?” he said to Trixie. “Fine, I will do something nice for Dan, even if it kills me.”
“I’m starting to suspect it just might,” Chloe said under her breath.
“What was that, Detective?”
“Nothing,” she said airily, knowing full well he’d heard it. He seemed amused enough—by all of it, really, despite his complaints.
“If we can get back to this oh-so-riveting story…” He turned to the paper with the questions on it. “Oh, joy, I have to consider the gardener’s revelatory experiences finding ripe tomatoes and making friends with worms.”
“It’s her homework, you know,” Chloe said, without looking up from her book. She wasn’t taking in any of the words. “You’re just supposed to be helping her if she needs it.”
“I need a lot of help,” Trixie said innocently. “Lucifer, could you explain this story in detail to me?”
He looked from her to Chloe. “I’m starting to think you’re the one lying now, urchin. What was the punishment for falsehoods again?”
Trixie took the assignment back from him. “Actually, I think I can do it myself.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Chloe just smiled to herself. Maybe the next couple weeks wouldn’t be so bad.
When her homework was finished, they watched TV for a while and then went to the kitchen to make pasta. “Jarred tomato sauce?” Lucifer said, as if horrified. “This won’t do. I’m going to have to make more arrangements than I thought.”
“You do that,” she told him, taking it out of the pantry. “For tonight you’re going to have to suffer.”
“I don’t think so.” He plucked it right out of her hands and shoved it back into the pantry, shutting the door so she couldn’t grab it again.
“Hey!”
“Leave that for Maze. If you’d like pasta tonight, I will have something actually enjoyable brought to you. Or I could have a chef come over and cook it here? It’s really better when it’s fresh…”
“I do not need a private chef to make me spaghetti. If you’re going to make that much of a fuss, I’ll just order delivery.”
“Or we could go out?”
That threw her for a second. He kept saying things that took her by surprise today. “You want to go out to eat? All three of us?”
“Why not?” he said, but a flicker of something like uncertainty broke the casual air he kept trying to maintain. It wasn’t so mindless a suggestion, then. “Unless you really do want to stay home to rest, or if you just don’t want—”
“Sure. Let’s go out.”
This time he was the one blinking in surprise. “Excellent.”
They ended up going to a small local Italian place that Chloe sometimes took Trixie to. Lucifer had never been. He settled at the table, looking slightly odd in his suit next to the old stone wall and rustic countryside decorations, and let Trixie talk about what she liked to eat here and if they could do more things together since Chloe had time off.
When the waitress asked for their orders, he had the two of them go first and then somehow ended up talking to the owner in the kitchen for a few minutes. Chloe could only hear a couple of words over the noise of the full restaurant, but she was fairly certain they were speaking in Italian. The owner had a look on his face that told her he was utterly taken in by Lucifer’s charm.
“You’ll be getting your meals specially made tonight,” he said, sitting back at the table. “I made sure they know you’re not a fan of oregano and to give you extra meat sauce for the bolognese, Detective. And they’re bringing French fries for the child on the house. The garlic bread should be out shortly.”
“Ooh, yay,” Trixie said. “Thanks, Lucifer.”
“I see you made a new friend,” Chloe said.
“Oh, Pietro is just a nice chap. He’s a widow from Arezzo and has three daughters who live here and help out with the restaurant sometimes. Apparently he does it for the love of food and not for the money, because if we ever feel like visiting Tuscany, we’re welcome to stop by his villa.”
“How?” she said in amazement. “How do you do that?”
“It’s called socializing, Detective. You should try it sometime.”
“Most people don’t just magically get invited to Italian villas after speaking to a guy they met thirty seconds ago. You’re just…” She tried and failed to come up with the right words. “You.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said. “Trixie, does this count for my total?”
She thought about it. “Hmm. All right. I’ll count it. But the food better be really good.”
It was. Chloe had always liked this place, but there was something about her dinner tonight that made it even better. The extra care put into making the food. Being here with both her daughter and Lucifer. Something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. All of the above, maybe.
They went back to the apartment after they were done. Lucifer hadn’t given any indication he planned on leaving; he just walked in and made himself at home on the couch as if he did that all the time. Chloe helped Trixie get ready for bed, and she asked, “Is Lucifer sleeping over tonight?”
That gave her pause. He wouldn’t go that far, would he? “No,” she said. “He’ll be going home later.”
“Then can’t I stay up until then?”
Chloe smiled. “You like having him around, huh?”
“Yeah. He’s fun.”
She kissed the top of her head. “I’m glad you think so. How about this? You go to bed, and I promise we won’t do anything else fun without you.”
“Okay,” she said.
Chloe had barely shut the door to her room when Maze got home. “What are you doing here?” Maze said bluntly, looking at Lucifer.
“Hello to you too, Maze.”
“Is Trixie asleep?”
Chloe said, “Not yet. Just went to bed.”
“Cool.” She went over to Trixie’s room and disappeared, while Chloe joined Lucifer on the couch. She could hear her telling Trixie good night, and to “slay any monsters that come for you in your dreams.”
To which Trixie replied, “They’ll never get me.”
“Good girl.”
Keeping her voice low, Chloe said, “So, um. You’re not planning to stay the night, are you?”
He raised his brows. “No. Unless that’s an invi—” He broke off. More quietly, he said, “No, Detective. I’m not.”
She bit her lip. He kept almost making jokes and innuendos like that before catching himself, when they barely used to go five minutes without one. It wasn’t like she missed it, but she missed how much simpler things used to be between them. She hated the awkwardness, the way their kiss and that stupid miracle fact kept getting in the way. They could ignore it all they wanted, but it was always there in the corner of their minds.
Maze came back out and took the chair. “So what are you doing here?” she asked, in more of an easygoing tone.
“Am I not allowed to visit the detective?”
Maze looked between the two of them as if searching for an answer to a question she hadn’t asked. “Forget it,” she said. “I can’t deal with this anymore unless you hand me some vodka first, and I’m too lazy to get it myself.”
“There’s nothing to deal with,” Chloe said. “We’re just talking.”
“Did you share your investigation with Maze yet?” Lucifer asked.
“What investigation?”
Chloe shot him a death glare. It didn’t deter him in the slightest. “She’s been researching me, hell, my family… and you. Or at least demons in general.”
Maze snorted, half amused, half offended. “Where could you possibly be finding information on hell on your own? It’s not like any other humans know what it’s really like there. Even Linda doesn’t get it.”
“She has pictures of demons from the internet.”
Maze snorted again. “Amateur hour. Nothing you find online will convey what it’s like to deal with a lesser demon who’s convinced he suddenly has mind control powers, or Beliol holding a concert with a voice that would instantly kill a human baby, or Gorm’s putrid cape made of woven skin and fungus.”
“Oh, that really is the worst,” Lucifer said. “The smell is second only to Dan on gym day.”
“Thanks for that imagery, truly,” Chloe said, wrinkling her nose. “Obviously I know it’s not a factual, one hundred percent accurate account of… well, anything, but as I already explained to Lucifer, I want to know how it’s different.”
“Well, I’ll leave all that crap up to him. When you want to know how to fight like a demon, you let me know.” One of her favored blades was suddenly spinning in her hand. “I’ll train you like I am Trixie.”
Just as fast, the blade disappeared again as she stood up, reached behind the TV stand, and straightened with a bottle of vodka dangling from her fingers.
“Night, Decker.”
“Are you kidding me?” Chloe watched openmouthed as she went up the stairs.
“Oh, hiding contraband where you wouldn’t think to look for it. Why didn’t I think of that?” Lucifer said.
She shook her head. “This is my own fault. Somewhere in my life I made some very wrong choices and now here I am.” Then she winced, glancing back at Lucifer. “I didn’t… I just mean…”
He didn’t look bothered. “I know. I’d say it’s all right, except I’m fairly certain you intended to insult Maze and me, so there’s really no good response to that.”
She slumped back against the couch cushion and looked at him for a moment. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she didn’t know how to actually say any of them, and probably it wasn’t a good time to try.
“You look tired. Being exasperated only with Maze will do that to you,” he said lightly, as if trying to get an exasperated response of his own. “Would you care for a nightcap, Detective? A blanket? A feather pillow to rest your weary head?”
She picked up the pillow at the end of the couch and whacked him with it, though she put almost no force behind it. He jerked back, laughing even as he said, “Ow. What was that for?”
“You know what it’s for.”
He just laughed again, setting the pillow on his other side. “Best to move any weapons out of reach until you’re a little less cranky.”
If fire shot out of her eyes, she wouldn’t be surprised. “You’re lucky you’re already hurt, because otherwise I’d make you regret that.”
The laughter died down, but mirth still shone on his face. “Seriously, though, what do you want right now? Do you need anything else tonight?”
She studied him for a moment. “Okay, really. Why are you so insistent on this whole ‘taking care of me’ thing? Because by all rights those roles should be reversed, and you know I don’t need you to take care of me anyway.”
“I do know that. But what I told you before was the truth. I…” He hesitated. “I should have been there, when you were recovering in the hospital—when you got home, too—but I wasn’t. I just told myself that because you would live, that was enough, and I tried to forget about the rest. I regret it.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Those texts you sent… what you asked me in the car the other day… The fact that I left as soon as you woke up is part of why you thought I didn’t actually care about you, isn’t it? Not just from leaving, but from leaving when you were going through that.”
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Yeah, that was part of it. I thought… at one point, I thought maybe me getting poisoned was just some inconvenience to you, one last problem to deal with before you could drop me and get out of there.”
He sucked in a breath. “An inconvenience,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear. His jaw worked for a moment, but he didn’t add anything else. He’d already told her how he’d really felt about it; he didn’t need to say it again. But she needed to tell him this.
She pulled her legs up to her chest, looking away. “Those first few days, it was like some slow realization that you already regretted starting something with me. That hanging around a hospital was too boring and that you couldn’t be bothered to visit, and so what would that mean for the rest of it? And then after I got home and you still didn’t answer, it just started to make me angry. I’d almost died and you didn’t seem to care. I was sick for days and you never wanted to ask how I was doing, even though I was asking you that. And then I found out that I’d been worrying about you while you weren’t even here—”
She took a deep breath, trying to push away the hurt rising through her again. Even though she knew why he’d done it and that he really hadn’t been okay himself, it didn’t suddenly make everything better. She wanted to move on. She wanted to forgive him for it. But right in that moment, she was feeling it all over again.
Lucifer didn’t say anything right away, but she could feel him contemplating her words. All the levity had fled.
“What was it like for you?” he asked. “The truth. Not some edited version so you won’t make me feel bad, or whatever front I know you must’ve put up for everyone else. If… if you’re okay with it. I want to know.”
She looked at him. He meant it; he was holding her gaze with a raw sort of openness, one she’d seen a lot of when they were first sorting things out between them in Vegas. He wasn’t hiding from this now, either. “Are you asking so you can punish yourself with it?”
He looked taken aback. “No. I’ve done enough of making it about me. I already feel bad for it. But even… even that, it…” He blew out a breath. “Look, I don’t know how to explain. I’m just… I’m just trying to be better about it now. Being… being partners, I mean. Outside of work.”
It was a statement that sounded simple, but it held so much weight.
Maybe he really did just want to know because it was something important that she’d gone through, and he hadn’t been there to see what it was like.
She twisted her fingers together, looking at them instead of him, still all but hugging her knees to her chest. “It was… it was hard. Really hard, Lucifer.” She squeezed her eyes shut, those memories of being in the hospital descending on her again. Her automatic response was to shove them away, but this time, she had to let them sit with her. “I was so sure I was going to die. Not that I didn’t believe in you, it just… it just seemed so hopeless. I was thinking that even if you did find the antidote, it would probably be too late. My body was already breaking down. It already hurt—it already… it already felt like…”
She shook her head. She didn’t know how to describe how it’d felt. The nosebleeds, the bouts of lightheadedness, the slowly building cramps in her belly, the way she’d known poison was twisting through her and that she couldn’t get it out. One moment of weakness had turned to many, until weakness was all there was. She’d barely been able to hold Trixie as she’d passed out yet again.
All of it had hurt—sharp pains in her stomach, muscle aches, her pulse pounding a little too hard as it counted down her last hours. And she’d known it was never going to get better. It was only going to get worse and worse until she died.
She didn’t remember much in the time after Lucifer must have returned with the formula, and that was a small mercy. She’d been told she was having seizures, and she did remember how sick she’d felt all over, shivering and shaking and wanting to vomit but not having any strength to do so. She’d been flitting in and out of consciousness for a while. Until she’d finally felt like the worst of it was subsiding, the pain sliding away, the control returning to her body. Still weak. Still aching. But very much alive.
“By the time I talked to you, I was mostly just relieved that I wasn’t going to die. But I had a lot of time after that to lie there and think about what’d happened. How close it’d been. I’d hold Trixie and think about how I’d almost been hugging her for the last time, that I’d almost left her like my dad had left me, and she’s still so young. I’d look out the window and see the sun gilding the buildings and think about how, if you’d been an hour later, I might not have ever seen the light of another day. I’d think about our kiss and how I’d almost never gotten to see where it might have gone with us.”
She did wrap her arms around her legs then, pulling them even closer, ignoring the current aches from her healing knee and the lingering bruises on her abdomen. It sucked. It all sucked so much.
When she glanced at Lucifer, she saw he was still just sitting there, watching her. Letting her talk. His expression tightened a little, but mostly it was carefully blank. He really didn’t want to make it about him.
So she went on. “What you said, about putting up a front… yeah. It was pretty accurate. I couldn’t let anyone see how hard it was, because they were just as scared for me, and we all needed to move on. Dan, Ella, my mom… I couldn’t tell them how I really felt. I had to comfort them, too. Linda offered, but it seemed too big to tell a therapist, even if she wasn’t asking with therapy in mind. Maze wouldn’t have known what to do even if I had told her. And Trixie could never have seen me as anything other than happy.”
“Would you have told me?” he asked. “If I’d been there. Since you’re telling me now…”
She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I really don’t. I didn’t try to tell you that over text, I didn’t try to call you so I could dump that on you… I wanted us to be okay, too, even before it became apparent that something was off. I’m not used to doing that with anyone, and I wouldn’t have wanted to scare you away. I’m only telling you now because of everything else we went through—because I know how bad it was for you, too. So, I guess… I guess it would’ve just depended on what you did if you were there.”
His gaze turned distant, looking at nothing in particular. “I don’t know what I would have done,” he said. “I wish I could say I’d have done all the right things, but I still barely know what that is. It took us getting kidnapped by a lunatic for me to start seeing things more clearly.”
She smiled a little. “It’s probably a moot point. I’d had no idea there was more to the story—we could never have just hugged it out over me getting poisoned even if I had told you how I really felt.”
“There is that,” he mused. “My father screwed you over that much more with the timing. Actually, that blame probably belongs more with my mother, since she’s the one who told me at the worst possible moment. Though…” He tilted his head. “She couldn’t have known, so I think I’ll go back to wanting to strangle my father for it.”
She laughed, more out of relief than anything, some weight being lifted that she hadn’t even known she was carrying. “I’m okay with that.”
“What else?” he asked softly. “You didn’t get to go home for a few days, and then it was a while before you went back to work…”
“Yeah. The antidote stopped the poison, but it couldn’t undo the damage already done. No magic healing for me. I had to stay in the hospital until they could be sure I wouldn’t have any more seizures and that there were no permanent effects, and then it was like recovering from the flu. Probably I should have taken another week off, but I pushed to get clearance to go back to work. I wanted things to go back to normal so I would stop thinking about how I’d almost died, and… well. I needed a distraction from how upset I was, too.”
He nodded slowly, as if coming to terms with it. “I should have asked already, but you’re okay now, right? Apart from the obvious.”
“Yeah,” she said, holding his gaze. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He nodded again, looking down to where her arms were still wrapped around her legs. His hand lifted. Hesitated. And then he folded his fingers over hers. She let them twine together, loosening her hold on her legs and giving him a small, sad smile as he said, “I’m glad. I dearly hope that nothing like that ever happens again, but if it does, I’ll be there. I promise.”
That statement held so much weight, too. More than it should have.
He let go. “And you don’t ever have to pretend with me. If you’re not okay, I’d rather know about it. I don’t… I don’t like the idea that you'd be so unhappy and I’d just… not know. Worse, I’d think everything was okay. I… ah.”
She gave him another ghost of a smile, seeing the realization start to dawn on his face. “Now you understand what I’ve been trying to tell you this entire time.”
“Yes, well. I still don’t feel like it’s the same with me. Not for… for things like that.”
“Too bad, because it is. You’re just going to have to get used to it.” She shifted on the couch, letting her legs fall to the side, releasing the last of the tension she’d held. “I guess I never thought of myself as doing the same thing. Since usually I have no problem telling you when I’m unhappy.”
“Perhaps because you’re usually upset with me?” he suggested. “Or that useless douche of an ex-husband, and of course you should make those complaints known.”
“So helpful. No, it’s just… there are things that make me upset, or angry, or scared, but I can always point to the person doing that to me. With this, there was nothing. Not even Carlisle, because by that point, he was dead and I was going to live.” She shrugged. “I was supposed to be okay, so I tried to make it seem like I was.”
“Something for us both to work on, then,” he said, his lips quirking up. “It’s nice to not be the only one called out for an error in perception.”
“Can you hand me that pillow again? I just want to use it to rest my weary head, I swear.”
He laughed. “Somehow I don’t think that’s true.”
They were quiet for a minute, but it was a comfortable silence this time. Chloe felt lighter still. So many things for them to work out, but they were getting there, bit by bit.
He wasn’t leaving. He wasn’t running from difficult conversations. It wasn’t perfect, but he was there.
“Do you really think that doing some random thirty acts of kindness will make up for that mistake?” she asked. “Like… like it’ll just cancel out, or something, and it’ll be like it never happened?”
He pressed his lips together. “No,” he said after a moment. “No, I know it’s not so simple. I’m not really sure I understand how that actually does work, but I know this isn’t it. I just… I just want to do it anyway. Even if it doesn’t actually make up for it, I need to do something.”
“Okay,” she said. She’d been hoping it wasn’t another of his totally misguided ideas—there’d been something in the way he was hesitating before he told her why he’d come over today—but knowing him, she could never assume that.
She didn’t know how to respond to his admission that he didn’t know how this whole forgiveness thing worked, and she was suddenly too tired to try. It was more complex than anything else they’d talked about tonight, in a way, and she didn’t know exactly how to put it into words either. It could wait.
“Also…” He hesitated, as if trying to find the right words. “I just wanted to say thank you, Detective, for sticking around in Vegas and giving me another chance. For… for making sure I was taken care of, even while you were angry and injured yourself, not to mention dealing with devilish revelations…” He let out a breath. “It was more than I had any right to ask for.”
“No, it’s not,” she said. “That’s what I keep trying to make you understand.”
“Right, well, regardless. I’ve never had that before—I’ve never had someone feel that way about me, and it… I just appreciate it, Detective. Very much.”
She nodded, not sure what else to say. She kind of got the feeling that it was already an effort to say that to her, and pushing more would just make it harder for him to sit with it. “You’re welcome, Lucifer.”
Apparently that was all he needed, because he seemed to settle again. “You know, it’s odd. I’m so used to putting distance between us so I can heal, but when it stopped making a difference…” A small smile flitted across his lips. “Even healing the slow way, it was like I felt better than any other time I got hurt and healed with no problem. And worse, in a way, because I’m not used to someone… never mind. I just mean that, with you there…” He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t know how to explain except to say that even if things return to the way they were, I’d still rather have you around than not. Even if leaving right now would fix things, I’d choose to stay a while longer.”
Chloe really had no idea what to say now. She just looked at him, at how much he meant those words, and felt… a lot. She was feeling a lot of things just then. Good things, she was pretty sure, but it ached a little, too.
And even though she was probably supposed to tell him he should walk away if it meant healing, she didn’t. It wasn’t even an option now, and it would be like she was dismissing the importance of what he was really trying to say. “I’m not even taking care of you anymore,” she pointed out. He was insisting on reversing those roles, when he still needed it far more than she did. And still it meant that much to him. “It wasn’t like what you’re trying to do now.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said softly.
The ache only grew.
She held his gaze for another moment, and then she was moving before she even realized what she wanted to do. She shifted a little closer to him and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. Just this once.
He didn’t stiffen like she’d expected him to. He didn’t push her away. He just reached over and put his hand on top of hers again.
For a long minute they stayed that way, until the rest of the heaviness had bled out of the air and she felt like she could stay there all night.
But she couldn’t. “My recent claim aside, it’s late,” Lucifer said. “For you, anyway. I won’t keep you. Unless you do need something else tonight?”
She almost made a joke about helping her change into pajamas, but she swallowed it back as she straightened and shook her head. “Unless you’d like to brush my teeth for me and tuck me into bed, no. I’m good.”
He hesitated another moment, like he didn’t actually want to get up either, but then he stood. “It’s not about what I’d like, it’s about what you’d like. Just say the word, Detective, and I shall valiantly carry you up to the bed so your feet don’t even have to touch the floor.”
He was kidding. She could see it all over his face. “Good night, Lucifer.”
“See you tomorrow, Detective.”
She watched him head for the door, then said, “Wait.” He stopped. “Does Dan really do improv?”
He smirked. “Oh, yes. I found out that little secret when I shadowed him that one day. On stage, giving directions, ‘yes, and,’ the works. I don’t believe he wants you to know. At least he understands how embarrassing that is.”
“So why haven’t you blasted it all over the precinct by now?” she asked, trying to picture Dan actually performing like that. For comedy.
“We had a bit of a heart to heart, and I figured I would keep his secret for a while. It just slipped out today.”
“Sounds like you might actually be becoming friends.” She placed a hand on her heart. “I don’t know if I can survive the shock.”
“We are not friends,” he said. “We will never be friends. I tolerate his miserable presence at best. Even the devil can take pity on such a wretch from time to time.”
“Mhmm. Sure. Whatever you say, Lucifer.”
“How did this get turned back on me?” he muttered. “All right, I’m leaving before you can slander me any further.”
“Bye,” she called, and he lifted his hand in farewell.
Improv. She never would have guessed.
Maybe she’d go see for herself sometime.