Chapter 1: The Game Master
Summary:
Chloe and Lucifer wake in darkness in a strange place and meet their host. Sort of.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Pain shoots through her head as awareness slowly trickles back into her mind. Her body aches all over and she feels...wrong somehow. Opening her eyes, Chloe feels a jolt of panic as she wonders if she’s gone blind, but realizes it isn’t her eyesight that’s the problem; wherever she is, it is completely, pitch black. She’s never been afraid of the dark, even as a little kid, but this makes her a little uneasy. She can barely see her fingers waving six inches from her face.
The second thing she registers is that she can move her hands. She isn’t bound or restrained in any way, but that doesn’t answer any of her questions. Where is she? Why is she here? Is she alone? Focusing on her senses, she can hear a faint drip-plop drip-plop of a leaky pipe and water hitting a puddle. Other creaky sounds that make her shiver. And what she thinks might be deep, even breathing not far from her.
She isn’t alone.
“Hello?” she whispers into the dark, widening her eyes and trying to force them to adjust. Normally, her eyesight is perfect, but even she can’t see in complete darkness.
The breathing doesn’t change or move closer.
Where was she before this? What was she doing?
Her memory finally comes rushing back. She was with Lucifer, working a case. Three sets of victims, all couples, who were abducted and tortured before they were murdered. Chloe and Lucifer tracked the evidence to an abandoned house and they were arguing about something, but then, they’re always arguing about something these days. Lucifer walked off in a sulky huff and Chloe was looking around for evidence. She heard a shout and a crash, and rushed in that direction, worried for her partner and...that’s all she remembers.
Some of her nerves settle slightly. If she’s right, then the person breathing nearby is Lucifer. If Lucifer is here, they’ll find a way out of this, because they always do. The question now is, is he hurt or just unconscious?
“Lucifer?” she whispers a little louder, keeping her ears open for any other sounds. She checks her back pocket for her cell phone, disappointed but not surprised when she doesn’t find it. “Lucifer, wake up.”
The ground is cold, hard, and dirty—cement, she thinks—as she starts feeling around her. Following the sound of her partner’s breathing, relief surges when she feels a long leg wrapped in what she knows is expensive Italian wool. She carefully follows the leg up and—
And that definitely was not his leg.
Chloe yanks her hand back like she was burned, glad he’s unconscious or the innuendos and comments would be unbearable right now. Moving a little higher, she eventually finds his chest where she can feel a strong, steady heart beating beneath her palm. Higher still, she locates his face, his familiar stubble, and his cheek. She taps him a little harder than strictly necessary.
“Lucifer, wake up,” she hisses.
A sound of something skittering behind her has her whipping around and holding her breath. A rat, maybe? She hates rats. Looking around, she can’t even see a hint of light in this room. Are they underground?
Fear grips her throat and she tries to force it back. Swallowing hard, she looks down at her partner. Or where she thinks he is. “Lucifer, please,” she whispers. “I need your help on this one, partner.”
As if those were the magic words, he snorts and smacks his lips together, mumbling incoherently. A second later, he scoots closer to her, curling an arm around her waist and resting his head on her lap. Like even in his sleep, he’s drawn to her. He sighs contentedly, nuzzling her thigh. It would be super adorable and sweet if they weren’t, you know, in some sort of unknown danger and in complete darkness.
“Hey,” she whispers again, her fingers sliding through his hair. “Come on, Lucifer, wake up!”
His breathing changes finally and his body tenses. “What’m I...” he mumbles. “‘Tective?”
Chloe sighs in relief. “Yeah, yeah, it’s me. I’m not sure where we are, but I think we’re really in trouble this time,” she tells him quietly.
All at once, he’s completely awake and sits up. “Are you hurt?” he asks urgently. “Why’s my head throbbing? Bloody vulnerability.”
“Mine hurts, too, but I’m okay. I just wish I could see where we are.”
Lucifer is silent for a moment. “A basement of some sort, perhaps. The walls are padded. Can you really not see?” he says incredulously.
Chloe stares in his direction. “Wait, you can see?”
“Well, yes, of course I can, Detective. The benefits of celestial eyesight,” he says haughtily. She can almost see him tugging on his jacket lapels. “Far superior to a human’s.”
She rolls her eyes at the Devil metaphors, but lets it go. “You can seriously see?” she asks excitedly. “Then we can get out of here.”
“Ah. No can do, I’m afraid. There don’t seem to be any doors that I can make out. Or if there are, they’re built into the walls,” he says apologetically.
Disappointment rises, as does the fear and panic she’s been trying to force away. “Shit. Okay. Do you have your phone? Mine’s gone.”
The sound of rustling cloth reaches her ears, then, “No, I don’t seem to have anything on my person. Whoever has us stole my bloody flask, even.”
“Right. Because your flask is what you need to be worried about right now,” she says flatly, shaking her head. “That house we were in. It was setup like a maze almost—an obstacle course, do you remember?”
“I do, yes,” he says slowly, his voice moving as he probably looks around the room with his ‘superior’ eyesight. “Quite the arrangement our killer had. I’m assuming that’s who has us?”
“That’d be my guess,” she answers grimly. “Okay, so let’s—”
Before she can start forming a plan, a crackle makes her jump and reach for Lucifer’s hand. He stiffens briefly, though in surprise from the sound or her touch, she doesn’t know. A second later, he relaxes, scooting closer and linking their fingers together.
“Glad to see you’re both finally awake,” comes a new voice over a speaker somewhere. “I was starting to wonder if I’d pushed my luck this time.”
“Oh, you most certainly have,” Lucifer growls. “And if you do not release us from this room, I assure you—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” the voice taunts, “that isn’t how the game is played. Detective Decker, Mr. Morningstar, welcome to my house of mystery. You two are the newest contestants in my little scenario, and I have very high hopes for the both of you.”
“We aren’t playing your demented games,” Lucifer snaps. “Show yourself, you coward, and I’ll show you how I play.”
The voice laughs and it sends a chill down Chloe’s spine. “I’ll tell you what, you have three hours to find your way out, and if you manage that, then I’ll turn myself into the police. Assuming, of course, you live that long. Tell me, Mr. Morningstar, how are you feeling?”
“Pissed off. You stole my flask of Macallan ‘26. I’ll have you know that’s a priceless year,” Lucifer says evenly.
“Lucifer,” Chloe says quietly. A bad feeling is taking over her gut. “Seriously, how do you feel?”
Lucifer doesn’t answer immediately. “Not well,” he confesses under his breath, probably too quiet for the voice to hear. “Something isn’t right, Detective.”
“I’ve injected your partner with a unique poison, Detective Decker. One I believe you are intimately familiar with. Professor Carlisle was my mentor, after all.”
“Oh, fuck,” Chloe whispers. “Carlisle is dead,” she adds a bit louder. “I stopped him, and I’ll stop you, too.”
“Maybe. But will that be before or after your partner’s insides boil? Perhaps you can tell him what that feels like. You do remember, don’t you?”
Since it only happened a few months ago, yeah, she remembers. All too clearly.
“What do you want?” Chloe asks, keeping her voice even. She’s trying to see Lucifer’s face, to see if his nose is bleeding yet. Those poisons acted within twenty-four hours without the antidotes. How long have they been here?
“To see if you’re really as good as you think you are.”
“Oh, I assure you, Mister Killer, she’s far better,” Lucifer purrs. He doesn't sound the least bit concerned for himself. Because of course he doesn’t; when does he ever? “She’s the best there is, and she would have had your mentor behind bars if he hadn’t taken the coward’s way out.”
“Here are the rules of the game: You have three hours to make your way through my little house of horrors. You will have to solve riddles to get to the next room. Sacrifices will need to be made. The only resources you have are each other. I suggest you trust each other and be honest, or none of it counts. At the end of the maze, you’ll find the exit and the antidote. Nobody has ever made it past the fourth level, so I look forward to seeing the two of you in action. Best of luck to you.”
The speaker crackles again and goes silent. Chloe’s mind is whirring with memories of her own poisoning, worrying about Lucifer, and what this ‘maze’ has in store for them. What she doesn’t understand is how none of the other victims showed signs of poisoning, even after tox screens and autopsies. Were they poisoned or was this saved for Chloe and Lucifer?
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Lucifer has been poisoned and I need to get him out of here to the antidote. I need to save him the way he saved me. I owe him that much.
“Lucifer, how do you feel?” she asks softly.
He swallows a few times, and she wonders if he really is taking this as casually as he does everything else or if he’s putting on a show for her and for the killer. “I’ve been better, Detective. Lightheaded, a bit woozy. But...” He pauses for a moment. “No nosebleed yet.”
“So we still have some time. Good. Okay. We need to find a door and get out of here.”
“Right. Yes. Stay here a moment, Detective.” There’s some shuffling sounds and a muffled grunt as Lucifer stands up and wanders away. Chloe wants to get up and follow him, not to just sit here in the dark freaking out. But he’s the one who can actually see, somehow, so for now, she’s useless.
More skittering sounds, this time in front of her. Something moves across her ankle and she can’t hold back her yelp.
“Detective?” Lucifer calls urgently. “Are you okay?”
“Fine! I’m fine! Something moved across my foot. Startled me. I’m good. Sorry.”
A sigh of relief. “Good. One moment, darling.”
Pressing her lips together, Chloe gives herself just a moment to think about what will happen if they don’t find the antidote in time. She dropped pretty quickly at that party and from there, she had seizures. The pain was horrific, though the doctors kept her suitably medicated. After a while, it didn’t help. She could feel her insides start to boil as the poison coursed through her.
Nobody is tougher than Lucifer, she reminds herself. If anybody can beat this, it’s us. We’ll get out of here, and he’ll be fine.
Everything fell apart after her poisoning. Lucifer left for Vegas for two weeks, and she drove herself crazy trying to find him. She put out BOLOs for him, spent time she should have spent with her daughter checking everywhere she could think of. Sleep was hard to come by in those two weeks; every time she closed her eyes, she imagined him dead in a ditch somewhere.
And then he showed up one day like he never left, with a shiny new wife on his arm. That’s when she realized their partnership doesn’t mean the same to him as it does to her. When she understood that Lucifer would never change. He doesn’t care about her the way she cares about him, and he never will. They’re partners, and they’re friends, nothing more. Her heart still feels like it’s been stomped beneath his red-soled Louboutin whenever she thinks about it.
“Detective.”
She startles when she hears his voice, just above her, then feels his hand reaching for her. Though she hesitates, she takes his hand and lets him pull her to her feet. “Did you, um, did you find anything?” she asks, shoving back the memories of Candy Fucking Morningstar to the back of her mind. None of that matters right now; all that matters is their survival.
Lucifer pauses. “Are you all right? You sound...odd.”
“I’m fine,” she says harshly. “We need to focus and get out of here so we can get the antidote, or...” She can’t finish the sentence. She can’t say the words. Can’t even imagine them.
He sighs. “Right,” he murmurs. “I found a door, but I didn’t want to open it until you were with me. Who knows what this psychopath has planned for us. We shouldn’t be separated.”
Her heart leaps. “You found a door?”
Lucifer hums, still holding her hand and leading her across the room. Every so often, he adjusts course, helping her avoid obstacles in the dark. He takes her hand and places it against the padded wall. “Just stand there a moment, I’ll get it open, okay?”
Chloe nods, then remembers it’s dark. “Yeah, okay.”
There’s silence for a few seconds, and she gets the feeling he’s watching her. With a sigh, he starts feeling around the wall, she can hear his fingers dragging against the hard padding. It’s like something one would find in a psychiatric hospital.
“Just need to get my fingers in...there...” he says to himself. He grunts a little in effort. Chloe knows how strong he is, so how much stronger is this door if even Lucifer is struggling? “Ah, there we are.”
The door opens and a burst of dim light hits her eyes, though it might as well be like staring into the sun. She groans, and covers her eyes with a hand, squinting as she looks through the doorway. A long hallway. Wooden crates line the walls which look to be made of razor wire.
“What the hell...” she whispers, staring at the walls. “Who is this guy?”
Lucifer huffs, adjusting his cufflinks. “I’m not entirely sure, but this is twisted even for me. What do you think are in those crates?”
Chloe shakes her head as her eyes begin to adjust. “I don’t know.” She looks behind her at the room they're still standing inside. There’s nothing here but some broken furniture—chairs, a table. Nothing useful. “But if I was locking people in this place, giving them three hours to make it through, I’d set up distractions, decoys, to force them to waste their time.”
Lucifer gives her an impressed look. “Clever Detective,” he murmurs. “Shall we, then?”
She nods, eyeing the razor wire-lined walls. “Just stay away from the walls, yeah?”
With a huff that might be laughter, he takes a step forward, and they step together into the unknown.
Notes:
I know this first chapter was a bit short, but this was just the setup, and they get longer as we go along. Thanks for reading! More coming next Saturday!
Chapter 2: Ball in the Hole
Summary:
The first puzzle room seems simple enough—a tilting maze table filled with holes, get the ball in the correct one. Lucifer and Chloe find out quickly enough just how twisted their 'host' is.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Lucifer does not feel well.
He wonders faintly if this is how the Detective felt when she was the one poisoned by a mad scientist. His head is fuzzy, making it difficult to think clearly, which is annoying. More than ever, he needs to be on his guard, to keep her safe in whatever this so-called ‘house of mystery’ has in store for them.
At least Chloe seems to be unharmed.
For the first time in years, he wishes he had his wings again. He could just sweep her into his arms and fly them to safety, then put distance between them until his celestial healing burned off this poison. As it is, his vulnerability near her has never been more of a hindrance.
Moving through the hallway is slow going. Chloe suspects there may be booby-traps awaiting them, and though he made the obvious innuendo, he quite agrees. His mind conjures images of a pendulum axe swinging out from the walls and starts watching every step he takes for floor switches.
“Are you okay?” Chloe asks softly, glancing up at him with barely concealed worry.
He gives her a smile. “Always, Detective.”
She gives him a look in return. “Lucifer, you’ve been poisoned. I know what that feels like. Whoever this guy is, he’s right about one thing: We have to trust each other. We have to communicate and be honest. That includes not being a tough guy about how you’re feeling.”
Lucifer doesn’t like to think about that time—when Chloe nearly fell victim to the very poison coursing through his bloodstream. He doesn’t like thinking about how close that call was. Or seeing her nosebleed, or how small and fragile she looked in that large hospital bed. Not once did she complain, though, despite the considerable amount of pain she must have been suffering.
But he also doesn’t want her worrying about him now; his only concern is her. “I’m...as well as I can be at the moment, Detective,” he answers honestly. He suspects, for now at least, that his celestial nature is keeping most of the symptoms at bay. “You’ve my word I won’t attempt to be a ‘tough guy’ as you say.”
Chloe scrutinizes him for a moment, searching for any loopholes. If she catches the glaring one, and he’s sure she did, she doesn’t let on. For now. “Okay. This place is creeping me out, but I’m not seeing what’s so horrif—”
“Detective, don’t!” Lucifer grabs her around the waist and yanks her back before she can step on the only brick that is out of place.
“What are you...”
“Perhaps it’s paranoia or I’ve watched too many movies, but...” He looks around for something heavy enough to trigger the switch—if it is a switch—and removes one of his shoes, tossing it onto the brick. Steel spikes shoot from the walls like bullets, exactly where Chloe would have been standing. “Or not.”
Chloe lets out a heavy, stuttered breath, looking up at Lucifer with wide eyes. “Thanks,” she breathes.
Swallowing, he nods. “Of course,” he murmurs, carefully reaching down for his shoe. There’s just enough of a gap between the spikes for them to move through sideways. “Normally, I’d say ladies first, but in this case, if you’ll allow me?”
He doesn’t await her response, moving to the other side of the spikes, examining them as he goes. Dark stains cover the tips—blood or something more sinister? Either way, probably best they don’t touch them. At least Chloe is small enough that not even her baggy clothing catches on anything.
Exchanging a dark look, they stare at the short distance between where they’re now standing and the rickety staircase.
“Another trap?” she says under her breath.
Blinking a few times to get the spots out of his vision, Lucifer focuses on their stairs, searching for anything out of place. “I don’t...think so?” he says uncertainly. “Best to proceed with caution.”
Despite the circumstances, she throws him a smirk. “Words I never thought I’d hear you say,” she teases.
Huffing a laugh, he turns back to the stairs. For the first time in his life, he hesitates. What if this poison is already affecting him in ways he can’t identify and he misses something? One wrong move could lead to Chloe being hurt—or worse. Obviously, they can’t stay here, though; he will need that antidote sooner rather than later. And he needs to find this mad scientist who trapped them here and show him the true meaning of Hell for doing this to his partner.
“Ready?” he murmurs, adjusting his cufflinks.
Chloe nods beside him and he takes the first tentative step. When nothing happens after he puts his full weight on it, he takes another step, then another, hearing Chloe follow. He’s nearly to the top of the stairs when he hears a sharp crack of splintering wood and a surprised cry.
Spinning around, he doesn’t immediately find Chloe and drops his gaze. She must have found a rotted piece of wood and fallen through. “Detective!” Rushing back down, he grabs one of her hands to prevent her going any further down. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Chloe groans, wincing slightly. “Just...help me up?”
Lucifer bends, slipping his hands beneath her armpits and easily pulls her onto the step above. “You’re hurt,” he mutters. “Where are you hurt?”
“I think a piece of wood scratched my leg. I’m fine.”
Scoffing, knowing better than to take her at her word when she says she’s fine, he kneels down to examine her leg. “A scratch, is it?” There’s a six-inch gash in the side of her leg, bleeding profusely and soaking through her jeans.
“Lucifer, it’s fine. We need to get out of here and—”
He ignores her, stripping off his suit jacket and ripping off one of the sleeves. Chloe gapes above him. They both know he would never sacrifice his wardrobe for just anybody. “I can’t see any splinters in the wound,” he murmurs, tying the wool material around her leg in a makeshift bandage. “Is that too tight?”
Chloe rests a hand on his shoulder for balance. “No,” she says softly, her voice odd.
When he looks up at her, trying to discern if she’s in more pain than she’s letting on, he can’t read her expression. “I’m sorry, it’s the best I can do under the circumstances.” From his other injuries on their cases, he knows these sorts of things are supposed to be cleaned and disinfected. She probably needs stitches, but he can't tell how deep the gash is. “Perhaps there will be more light in the next room and I can get a better look?”
“Sure,” she says faintly. “Let’s get off these stairs before any more collapse, though.”
“Right you are.” Lucifer curls an arm around her waist, ignoring her protests that she can move on her own, and helps her to the top of the stairs to a small landing. A heavy metal door stands between them and the next room. “You can walk?” he asks her.
She nods, carefully putting more weight on her injured leg. “Yeah. I should be okay.”
“Should be,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Not exactly reassuring, Detective.”
“Okay, well, you’re the one who’s been poisoned, Lucifer. I can handle a scratch on my leg,” she says testily.
Sighing, he cautiously pushes open the door, half-expecting something to jump out at them. When nothing happens, he steps inside and feels his eyebrows shoot up. “What on Earth...?”
This room is much different than the one where they woke up or even the hallway of death spikes they just traversed. The walls are made of polished oak and the only thing in here is a round, wooden table of some sort. Lucifer takes a few steps towards it, leaving Chloe to rest beside the door for a moment, and gets a better look.
“It’s a maze,” he says, bewildered. “One of those tilting ones with a little ball and holes. Oh, I’m quite good at putting balls into holes.”
He hears a disgusted huff behind him. “Lucifer. Seriously?”
“Oh, come on, Detective! I’m just trying to add a little levity to our situation.”
She limps towards him and he places a hand at the small of her back, giving her some balance. Lucifer can almost see the gears turning in her mind as she examines the contraption before them. “There don’t seem to be any wires or anything,” she muses. “I don’t get how this is supposed to open the next room, if that’s what this is.”
“Well, only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Lucifer finds the hand-holds and starts to tilt the table. Chloe grabs his wrist. “What?”
“There are, like, a dozen holes there, Lucifer. We don’t know which is the correct one, and we don’t know what happens if we get it wrong.”
“Right.” Frowning, he crouches to look beneath the table, glancing at the Detective’s wounded leg while he’s in the vicinity. “Perhaps you ought to rest your leg, darling?”
She shakes her head. “I’m fine,” she mutters, shifting her weight. “I just want to get out of here.”
“So stubborn,” he huffs under his breath.
“I heard that.”
“Good. Now give me a moment.” She was correct in that there are no wires connected to the holes or any indication of which hole is the correct one. Lucifer glances at the walls, searching for a gap where a door might be hidden. Two walls are smooth, and the third— “Oh... I see.”
“What?”
Without answering, Lucifer walks over to the third wall towards their left. There seems to be a pattern carved into it, all curves and right angles, separated by large tiles. He moves a tile to the left where there is an empty space connecting two curves, and grins. After a few more tiles are moved around, he’s sure about what they’re looking at.
“I know what this is. Detective, it’s a puzzle! One of those picture puzzles where you slide the tiles around until it forms an image.”
Chloe joins him at the wall and studies it. “Okay, but how are we supposed to know what the image is supposed to be? Do we just guess or...” She turns to look at the table maze for a few seconds. “Oh...”
“What is it?”
“Lucifer, what if the image is a map? Look at the curves you just made. They match the ones on the table. Maybe the map shows which hole is the correct one?”
Lucifer’s grin widens. “Clever Detective,” he says proudly. “What do we think the table does when the ball is in the correct hole?”
She shrugs. “Maybe it opens a door. But we don’t have time to sit and fret about it. He gave us three hours. And who knows how many of these stupid puzzles there are in this place.”
“Fair point, darling. Right, then...” Lucifer turns and studies the table for a few seconds. When he’s sure he has the image in his mind, he looks back to the wall. “I’ve got this.”
To his surprise, Chloe doesn’t protest or question him. Perhaps she’s far more worried than she’s letting on. Not wanting to add to her troubles, Lucifer works as quickly as he can, sliding tiles in place and moving them around as needed. The picture forms clearly enough the more he works at it, and though he can see it in his mind, the final result, he continues just to be sure. Were it only his well-being at stake, he wouldn’t bother, but with Chloe’s on the line...well, she is worth far more than he could ever be.
“I think...” He swaps a couple of the tiles around, then stands back to observe his handiwork. “And the Devil looked over all he had made, and saw that it was very good.”
The Detective groans, shaking her head as she steps up beside him again. “Since when did you get so good at puzzles, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m quite skilled at several tasks, Detective,” he purrs, smirking at her. “Which you would know, if you’d only give into your obvious—”
She rolls her eyes, which had been his goal. “Yeah, can we not right now?” Searching the image, she finds the tile with the hole. “Okay, if we’re right, and how can we not be, then this one is...” She limps over to the table and Lucifer grimaces. A glance down at her leg confirms the sleeve he wrapped around it as a makeshift bandage is drenched with blood. “Right here.”
Joining her, he concurs. “Would you like to do the honors, since I did the puzzle?”
She goes to the head of the round table and grabs the handles. After moving it slightly to get a better feel for the sensitivity of the slopes, she carefully navigates the ball through the metal maze.
“Careful...” Lucifer says under his breath when the ball nearly falls into a hole. Chloe corrects the tilt enough to save it at the last second.
Without warning, a loud buzzer sounds through the room’s speakers, making her flinch when the ball is too close to an edge and it falls right in. There’s a nearly inaudible click and Chloe begins to scream in pain.
“Detective!” Lucifer shouts, rushing over to her. She’s gripping the handles, her body tensing and trembling—as if she’s being electrocuted. “Oh, you bastard,” he growls, grabbing her by the waist and yanking her away from the table. Her hands are smoking as he lowers her to the floor.
“Detective?” he murmurs, pressing two fingers to her pulse. Her heartbeat is erratic—but still beating. Relief hits him so hard his vision swims. Her body is still shaking uncontrollably, eyelids fluttering. “Chloe, look at me.” He lifts her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her to keep her still so she doesn’t harm herself.
Glaring up at the ceiling, absolutely certain there are cameras in here somewhere, he growls, “When I get my hands on you, there will be no mercy for this,” and allows his eyes to flash for a brief second. Then he turns back down to Chloe. She’s pale and sweaty, but she’s stopped trembling as badly.
“Hey, there you are,” he murmurs gently, aiming for lighthearted and probably misses by a mile. His heart is beating so hard, he’s sure it’s about to leap out of his chest. “Laying down on the job, Detective. How delightfully inappropriate of you.”
A corner of her mouth twitches minutely. “Shut...up,” she breathes weakly.
Huffing a laugh that's more relief than anything, he brushes some hair from her face. “That’s much better than the earthquake simulation you just performed. Are you all right?”
Chloe groans. “Ow...”
“Take a moment, Detective,” Lucifer warns when she tries to sit up.
“Can’t. Gotta get outta here, Lucifer,” she mumbles. “You got poisoned. Need to save you.”
“Your well-being is far more important—”
“Not to me!” she snaps, glaring at him.
He pauses, taken aback by her vehemence and the tears in her eyes. From the electrocution or...?
“I can’t...” She huffs, closing her eyes for a second and wincing. Lucifer places a hand on her back, relieved when she doesn’t shake him off. “You saved me when I was poisoned. Now I’m saving you. Shut up and deal with it.”
Lucifer stares at her for a moment, uncertain how to reply. There’s a pained expression on her face he can’t determine the reason for, though he suspects it isn’t entirely from what just happened to her. After a moment, he nods. “Very well,” he says quietly. “But you sit here for a moment and catch your breath. I’ll take care of this little maze of ours.”
Chloe stops trying to get to her feet, settling back to the floor with a sigh of relief. He moves over to the table, glancing at the image on the wall again to be sure he has the path correct. Sending another glare around the room to their twisted game master, he turns his attention to the table. The ball has returned to its original starting position.
“Bloody horror movie fanatics,” he grumbles under his breath as he starts to move the ball through the maze again. This time when a buzzer sounds without warning, he doesn’t startle, having expected it. Behind him, he hears Chloe’s sharp exhalation. “All right, Detective?” he asks absently, guiding the ball around a curve with a hole in the center.
“Yeah,” she says softly. Her voice sounds stronger now and it’s a relief. “Just sore.”
“I can imagine. I’ve been electrocuted many times before and it’s highly unpleasant.”
A pause, then, “You have? When?”
Lucifer hesitates to answer, knowing she won’t believe him, anyway. “Let’s just say I’m no stranger to pain,” he says evasively. He can almost hear her mind whirring with questions that she doesn’t get a chance to ask; the ball has finally found the correct hole. As it falls, to be safe, Lucifer releases the handles of the table.
Nothing happens.
Not immediately, anyway.
He can hear the faint sound of the ball running through a tube of some sort and follows the progress below the floor. A tiny click in the blank wall to his right sounds. He turns in that direction as a small hidden door pops open—a safe of some sort?
“Be careful, Lucifer,” Chloe cautions as he moves towards it.
“It’s fine,” he says. “There’s—is that a bloody billiard ball?” Reaching inside, he picks it up. A black eight-ball to be exact. “What on Earth? Am I meant to throw it through the wall? Ask it a question? A game of billiards would be lovely at the moment, but even I know there’s a time and a place.”
Chloe starts to get to her feet and Lucifer rushes over to assist her, ignoring her when she waves him off. “Let me see?” She nods at the ball. He hands it over and she examines it, testing the weight of it in her hand. He wants to make a ball joke, but she doesn't seem in the mood. “Doesn’t seem like anything special.”
Lucifer hums and takes it back, dropping it into his pocket. Perhaps he’ll get the chance to throw it through something at some point. Preferably their game master’s skull. A sound like several heavy locks unbolting fills the room. Chloe and Lucifer exchange a look, then stare at the wall as it opens outward—a door.
“Well, into the great unknown, Detective?” he says cheerfully, holding out his crooked elbow for her.
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she links her arm with his. “Lead the way, partner.”
Lucifer does, pulling the door open and stepping into the next room.
Notes:
So you may or may not have noticed this fic's chapter count increased by one. I had an idea I couldn't let pass and did some revisions.
Anyway. Thank you for reading. This was probably the tamest chapter aside from the first one. Next week is when it really starts to hurt. 😈
Chapter 3: Confession
Summary:
The next room is decorated like an abandoned church, complete with a confessional that demands something from both Chloe and Lucifer.
Notes:
This is one of the chapters that earned the fic rating. Buckle up...
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Though she’s trying to hide it from Lucifer, Chloe’s body feels wrecked. She isn’t sure how strong that electrical current was in the last room, but her muscles are still tingling and occasionally spasming, her hands feel like they’re on fire, and her right arm is a bit numb. Flexing her fingers, she’s relieved they still move, and even more relieved Lucifer was able to break her away from the table.
Of all the situations she has found herself in being a detective with the LAPD, this one is definitely the most twisted.
She keeps stealing glances at Lucifer as they move through a narrow, dark hallway, waiting for his nose to start bleeding as the poison consumes him. So far, he hasn’t shown any symptoms, but she’s worried nonetheless. No matter the status of their partnership, she’ll always worry about him, just as he does for her. The look in his eyes when she came to in his lap was the same one he had after her own poisoning, when the leads for the formula were drying up. That same fear and concern.
“How are you holding up, Detective?” he asks softly. Fifteen feet or so ahead of them, a door finally comes into view. “Still feeling stimulated?”
Chloe cracks a smile. “I’m fine. Really,” she adds when gives her a disbelieving look. “I’m sore, and my leg is killing me, but I’ll live.”
He nods. “Any idea who our Game Master from on High is?”
She shakes her head. “Not a clue. I was under the assumption Carlisle worked entirely alone. There was no indication of an accomplice or protégé or anything like that.”
“And we further believed the formulas for the poisons and antidotes lived only in Carlisle’s mind.” His expression darkens and pain shivers across his face for barely a second before he masks it and clears his throat. “Wish I’d known someone else had that formula; would’ve saved quite a lot of bother.”
One of the mysteries about Lucifer Chloe still can’t solve is how he obtained that formula for her. According to Dan, they had nothing, no hope of finding it, and then Lucifer came bounding up to him saying he was going to get it. It wasn’t a possibility or an uncertainty; Lucifer was absolutely sure of what he was about to do. Dan didn’t ask questions. And then when he next saw Lucifer, the consultant looked like he’d been through utter Hell. Pale and shaking, exhausted looking, barely standing. Dan thought Lucifer would be the next one in a hospital bed, but he’d come through. Chloe woke up hours later, already feeling a little better, to find a nurse standing over her with a smile telling her she had one hell of a guardian angel. Then the next time she woke, Lucifer was next to her.
“Well, look who’s back. Guess you didn’t die, after all. That makes one of us.”
She almost wants to ask him now how he got the formula, but they have other things to worry about at the moment. That conversation can wait.
The door at the end of the corridor is the same as the others, solid steel with no visible doorknob.
“Now what?” she asks.
A dull thunk like a lock being undone makes her startle and she inwardly curses herself. She’s too on edge; she needs to calm down. Get her head on straight and focus. It’s the only way they’ll make it out of here.
“You were saying?” Lucifer grins at her, leaning into the door with his shoulder and pushing it open.
Their eyes widen in unison as they look into the next room.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Lucifer grumbles indignantly.
Under different circumstances, Chloe might laugh at the irony of ‘the Devil’ stepping into a room decorated like an abandoned church. Long and narrow, with dilapidated pews lining the aisle, someone went to a lot of trouble for this.
“It’s like walking onto a freaking movie set,” she says, shaking her head.
The walls even have stained glass windows, though there is nothing behind them. Several are broken or cracked, revealing more steel walls. She wonders how big this building is—a warehouse, maybe? The killer must have moved them when they were unconscious. She files that away for later.
The floors are rotted and stained, covered in dirt and dust. What she assumes are pages from the Bible are scattered all around. Chloe pauses when she sees a few are highlighted.
James 5:16 – “Confess your sins to one another, and pray for another, that ye may be healed.”
Numbers 32:23 – “...be sure your sin will find you out.”
Revelation 12:9 – “That old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world...”
Lucifer catches her looking at the last one and scoffs. “Deceiver, is it?” he mutters bitterly. “I do wonder who exactly has been deceived.”
Chloe swallows at the dark look on his face. “Lucifer...”
He shakes his head and keeps moving forward. “They always blame me for their lies.”
She frowns, unsure what to say, glancing from him to the half-burned verse. “You mean...religion?”
Without looking at her, he gives a small, humorless smile. “Oh, I mean everything, Detective.”
Something in his tone makes her chest tighten. He isn't being sarcastic or putting on some performance; that pain is real. And she isn't entirely sure what to do with that. Before she can ask or push, he's halfway down the aisle, examining the space around them.
The whole room smells of decayed wood, old books, and incense. And it’s colder in here than the other rooms, like there’s a draft somewhere Chloe can’t identify. She shivers and rubs her arms for warmth, wishing she’d been wearing her leather jacket today.
What looks like a confessional is against one wall towards the front near an altar. Behind that is a broken cross covered in what she really hopes is fake blood, but given who has them trapped here, and what they’ve already been through, she isn’t so sure.
“Well, this is properly creepy, even for me,” Lucifer comments, twisting his cufflinks as he looks around with a raised eyebrow. His eyes land on a broken organ in a corner, lingering for a few seconds, then scan to the right and he goes completely still.
“Lucifer?” Chloe stops and turns back to him. “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer, staring at a dark stain on the floor beside the organ. She follows his gaze. She's seen enough crime scenes and dried blood to know what that dark, coppery pool is meant to represent. Blood doesn’t usually bother Lucifer, though, and she can’t imagine why it would now.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asks, her voice gentling. Placing a hand on his arm, she leans towards him.
Snapping out of it all at once, Lucifer shakes his head and forces a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “Nothing,” he says tightly. “But I’m sincerely beginning to wonder who our host is. Quite rude of him to not introduce himself properly, isn’t it?” He walks past Chloe without another comment, avoiding the organ and the blood stain.
She wants to push, to ask him what he means and why that stain bothered him so much, but they’re on a time limit. “Okay, so what’s the point of this room?” She spies other doors on both sides of the ‘church’. “Think those lead somewhere?”
“Only one way to find out.” Lucifer seems to have shaken off whatever was going through his mind before and strides towards the doors. “Locked,” he scoffs. “As if that will hold me.” He turns the doorknob a second time, then frowns down at it. “It won’t open.”
“Probably because they aren’t real doors,” Chloe says, trying the other one. “Here. Try your unlocking trick on this one.”
He rolls his eyes as he joins her. “It isn’t a trick, Detective,” he mutters, doing as asked then shaking his head. “The same. I think you’re right; they’re decoys.”
A rush of cold, whistling wind makes them pause and look around. Chloe wraps her arms tighter around herself. Lucifer notices and steps closer without a word, offering his body heat as the temperature in the room drops further and a whisper fills the air.
“You hide your sins behind the veil, yet walls remember, shadows wail. Step inside and speak your sins or be condemned the walls within.”
“Speak your sins?” Chloe repeats. “What the hell?"
Lucifer shakes his head, staring at the confessional. “I don’t know, but the voice came from within the confessional,” he says grimly. He raises his voice. “And which sin would you like confessed, Game Master? I’ve several myself that would put you to shame.”
“Chloeeeee....”
The low whisper, barely audible, sends another shiver down her spine, though not from the cold this time.
“Oh, nice try, but the Detective is truly good,” Lucifer says firmly. “If you desire a sin, you’ll take it from me.”
The voice repeats her name with a growl, growing more insistent.
“Lucifer, let’s just find a way out, okay?
“That isn’t how the game is played, Detective,” he argues. “Our captor wants a pound of flesh, and he’s already taken enough from you. I won’t allow you harmed any further.”
She wants to strangle him sometimes. The protective streak is sweet, but she can handle herself. “And what are the chances he lets us out of this room in time to get your antidote? Look, I’ll just...” She eyes the confessional, wondering exactly what’s waiting inside. “It’s fine.”
It isn’t fine. Nothing about this is fine. She wants to go home to her kid and forget about this, and know that Lucifer isn’t about to die from poison. She wants to wake up from whatever nightmare she’s currently living to find everything as it should be.
“Detective, wait!” Lucifer calls urgently when she starts to march towards the confessional. “You don’t know what is in there!”
“And we don’t have time to waste!” she snaps at him. “You are dying, Lucifer! Don’t you get that? You remember how quickly the poison started working on me, and while you’re hiding it very well, I know it’s already affecting you!” She can see it in the marked pallor of his skin. The sweat shining on his forehead. Lucifer doesn’t sweat; he never shows signs of fatigue. But right now, she can see the physical effects of the poison shining through. “I’m doing this!”
He stutters and stammers through protests that she ignores, but despite her bravado, her nerves have never been higher. As she approaches, the rotted wood door of the confessional opens with a sinister squeak, just a crack. Tensing her jaw, she opens it further and steps in, feeling Lucifer’s fingers brush her arm as he tries to grab her to yank her back.
The moment she’s in the confessional, the door slams shut and she’s in complete darkness again. “Shit,” she hisses, turning back to push the door open. “Lucifer!”
“Detective!” He’s pounding on the door, but it doesn’t budge. Apparently, the rotting wood disguises another steel door, because of course it does. “Detective, are you all right?”
“Fine!” she calls back. “I’m fine.”
“What do you see? What’s in there?”
She shakes her head, feeling around carefully. She’s seen enough horror movies to know she just made a stupid mistake. The confessional fills with a ghostly laugh as her hands move across the walls. “Nothing!” she tells him. “I can’t see a damn thing. It’s pitch black in here.” Her fingers brush against a broken mesh metal window, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else in here.
“I’ll get you out, Detective!” Lucifer promises. “I’ll—”
“Confessss...” The ghostly, sibilant voice rings out, though not inside the confessional.
“Confess what?” Lucifer growls. “What do you want?”
“She waits in dark, her patience thin, your silence crawls beneath her skin. The time has come, no more delay—tell her why you ran away.”
Chloe freezes, eyes wide. “What...?” she whispers. Resting her hand against the wall, her mind whirs. The voice wasn’t speaking to her; it doesn’t want her confession. It wants Lucifer’s. And there’s only one time in recent memory when he ran away from her.
Vegas.
How long has this asshole been watching them?
“I beg your pardon?” Lucifer says incredulously. She doesn’t think the meaning of the words escaped him. There’s an edge of nervousness in his voice that she only picked up on because she knows him. Knows his tells. He knows exactly what confession the Game Master wants.
The wall she's leaning on gives way with a sudden, mechanical shudder. Before Chloe can catch herself, the panel opens and she pitches sideways, her arm sliding through the gap.
Something clamps down instantly.
Chloe gasps, a sharp, ragged cry torn from her throat, as steel bites into her flesh. It's not smooth metal, but serrated, jagged rows of teeth sinking into her skin, sending white-hot, blinding pain through her entire body.
She cries out, thrashing instinctively and yanking backwards, but the harder she pulls, the deeper the jaws dig. A metallic screech accompanies her movements, grinding against bone. Her breath saws in and out in panicked bursts, her chest tight and her ears ringing.
“Chloe!” Lucifer’s voice sounds panicked as the pain worsens and her screams get louder. “Chloe, what’s happening!”
Her mind betrays her with a sudden, vivid picture: a monster crouched inside the wall, its iron jaws clamped around her arm, feeding on her panic and fear. The image feels so real she can almost feel it breathing against her skin.
“Tell him, Lucifer! Just fucking tell him!” she shouts, trying to yank her arm away. The teeth tighten around her, tearing the more she struggles. “He wants to know why you went to Vegas! Just tell him!”
The smell of copper fills her nose, her blood slicking the inside of the trap, and her fingers twitch uselessly, going numb past the point of impact. Her knees buckle, and she slams her free hand against the wall, frantic, desperate, trying to find leverage as her voice cracks in a raw scream.
She hears Lucifer curse, his desperate pounding on the confessional walls as he tries in vain to get to her. “Chloe!” She’s never heard him so afraid, and she tries to stymie her cries; he needs to just fucking say it. “You bastard! Release her now!”
“Confesssss....”
“Lucifer! Tell him!” She doesn't even care about the real reason right now, she just needs to get out of her before this contraption rips off her arm. “Please! Tell him!”
Lucifer lets out a frustrated shout. “Because I needed to give her back her life!” he blurts. “Because with me near her, she would never be free! But I came back because I couldn’t bloody well bear being away from her! Now release her!”
“Confeessssssss...”
“What more do you want! I told you the Dad-forsaken reason and I do not bloody lie!”
“Candyyyyyy...”
Outside the confessional, Lucifer goes completely silent and for one terrible moment, Chloe thinks he left or got hurt somehow. “Lucifer? Lucifer, are you okay!” The jaws tighten, digging into muscle and bone, and she can’t hold back her pained cries. She can feel the blood pouring down her arm. This thing is going to tear it right off her shoulder if it digs in any further.
“Fine,” he says, his voice oddly calm.
She doesn’t think he’s talking to her. When he speaks next, it’s in a rush, like he’s trying to get whatever it is out and over with.
“My marriage to Candy was a deal. She needed help with her debts, and in return, she agreed to marry me and return to Los Angeles so that I could work out my mother’s plans and put a rift between the Detective and myself. So that I could have her as my partner, but she would believe I wasn’t someone worth caring for. Now, bloody release her before I find you and rip your fucking head off, you monster.”
The jaws release immediately and Chloe pulls back her arm, cradling it to her chest. Tears streak down her cheeks. She can feel her ribboned skin beneath the blood. The door to the confessional opens and Lucifer bursts in, wrapping her in his arms. She barely notices him.
“It’s all right,” he murmurs into her ear. “I’ve got you, Detective. You’re okay.” He lifts her easily into his arms and carries her out, setting her onto the floor. “Let me see, love.”
Chloe looks at her right arm, and immediately wishes she hadn't. Long gashes from her bicep to her elbow, all pouring blood. They’re deep enough she can see shredded muscle and bone shining through. Leaning against her partner, she cries as he scrambles for something to use as a bandage.
“Pressure,” she gasps. “Put pressure on it.”
“Right,” he says softly, pressing his palm to her arm. She grits get teeth against the agonized cry trying to escape, but feels a brief blast of heat run down her arm. She can't tell if it's the injury itself, Lucifer's touch, or something else. “I’ll kill him for this.”
She should probably deter him from the threat, but right now, she really couldn’t care less. And if she had access to her gun, she might shoot their captor first.
Lucifer shreds what’s left of his suit jacket like it’s made of the cheapest material in the world, pressing the wool to her arms. She cries out at the pain, and he murmurs apologies and soothing words as he works. Sitting down without jostling her, he takes off his shoes next, removing the laces.
“The least he could do is provide a bloody first-aid kit,” he complains, his voice shaking.
“That’s probably the opposite of what he’s trying to do, Lucifer,” she says weakly, holding the wool against her arm as he easily breaks the shoelaces into shorter pieces. “He wants to hurt us.” And not only physically, it would seem. Though she is trying not to think about it, with her arm shredded and bleeding out, she hasn’t forgotten Lucifer’s confession.
“...put a rift between the Detective and myself. So that I could have her as my partner, but she would believe I wasn’t someone worth caring for.”
It was all a ruse. Vegas. Candy. Nothing more than a deal.
“Friends? Yes, that’s exactly what we are! Just friends!”
More tears fall from her eyes, her heart feeling as shredded as her arm.
Lucifer seems to know exactly what she’s thinking about. “Detective, I can explain.”
“Don’t.” Her voice comes out defeated and she keeps her gaze locked on her arm, unwilling to look at her partner right now. “Not right now.”
He sighs, but subsides. “I don’t know how to administer first-aid, Detective. How do I keep the blood inside you?”
Chloe looks around the room. “It needs more padding under this.” She fingers the wool. “Something to soak up the blood.”
Lucifer gently slides her off his lap to the floor and stands, moving around the room like a caged panther as he searches for materials. She hears ripping sounds behind her. A few seconds later, he’s back with what looks to be a cloth banner of some sort.
“Perhaps this on top of the jacket?” he suggests tentatively. “I’m not sure how clean any of this is.”
She nods. “Yeah, that works,” she sniffles. “Um, wrap the whole arm, then tie the laces around it tightly. Like with my leg.” Glancing down, she eyes his belt still wrapped around her calf. “There’s only so much we can do.”
“You’re losing quite a lot of blood, darling,” he frets. “Are you—”
“I’ll be fine.” It feels like a lie, but she doesn’t have time to sit here and worry. They both need a hospital, and Lucifer needs that antidote.
Lucifer swallows audibly. “I’m so sorry, Detective,” he says softly. “I wanted to keep you safe, and now look at you. Electrocuted and bleeding everywhere. This is my fault.”
“It isn’t. It’s his, Lucifer. He’s the one who trapped us here. We’re both weakened. But we’re getting out of here. Okay?” She looks up, meeting his eyes for the first time since he ripped her out of the confessional. They’re darker than usual, shining with worry and fear. And tears. Lucifer has tears in his eyes. “Hey. I’m all right.”
“You’re not. And when I find our little Saw-obsessed madman, I’m going to rip his spine out and strangle him with it.”
“Yeah, well, let’s wait until you have the antidote. And I get first licks,” she says coldly.
A corner of his mouth lifts in not quite a smile. “As you wish.” He works quickly and silently, doing his best to cover her arm, tightening the laces to Chloe’s specifications. “I think that’s the best we can do without proper medical attention,” he says apologetically.
She nods. “I think you’re right. Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
“Yes, absolutely, but where... Ah.”
“What?”
“It seems whilst we were occupied, our Game Master opened the door for us,” he says grimly, nodding somewhere behind her. Lucifer helps her sit up. “Do you need a moment?”
Chloe huffs a bitter, wet laugh. “I need a month, but we don’t have the luxury right now,” she mutters. “Help me up, please?”
Getting to his feet, Lucifer ignores the hand she holds out to help her up, wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her upright. “Steady?”
No. She’s woozy and losing more blood by the minute. Her arm is throbbing and burning, and she can’t even wiggle her fingers painlessly. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Liar,” he mutters fondly.
I’m not the only one who’s lied in this partnership, Lucifer. But now really isn’t the time. And she doesn’t think she can handle the added mental or emotional pain from that conversation.
“Let’s go.”
He watches her for a moment, his pale face falling, but follows her direction, keeping an arm around her when she wobbles and stumbles a little. “Do you suppose there’s any sacramental wine in here? I could do with whetting my whistle, so to speak.”
Chloe scoffs. “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t eat or drink anything in the booby-trapped killer’s house of horrors, Lucifer,” she says flatly.
“Well, I’ve already been poisoned, Detective. What’s a bit more—oh, what’s this now?”
Before she can even glare at him for the joke, she notices his attention has wavered to an ornate looking trunk standing beside the wall. Lucifer presses his hand to the lock and it clicks open, and he lifts the heavy lid, still leaving one arm around her waist. Chloe blinks at it, then at him. Maybe it was already unlocked?
Inside is what looks to be a large rusted metal gear. Nothing else. Just that.
“Take it,” Chloe says, remembering the eight-ball from the last room. She isn’t sure what it all means, but there’s a reason the Game Master is leaving these pieces for them to find.
“And do what with it, precisely?”
She shakes her head, looking around the room. “I don’t know. You still have that billiard ball, right? He’s leaving things around like breadcrumbs for us to gather. Maybe we have to use them in another room? I’d rather take it now than have to double back later.”
Lucifer shrugs, accepting her explanation and picks up the gear. Meanwhile, Chloe is eyeing the doorway, wondering what’s on the other side. Again, it’s pitch black. “I’m really starting to hate the dark,” she grumbles.
He gives her a comforting smile. “We’ll get out of this,” he says, the promise shining in his eyes, barely covering the agonized look, as if he's the one who nearly lost an arm. “You’ve my word.”
Despite everything, she trusts him. They can deal with their own personal crap later, once they’re both safe and healthy. “I know,” she says quietly. “Let’s move. I don’t know how much time has passed, but it’s been more than an hour since this started.”
“Ninety-eight minutes. We’ve another hour and twenty-two minutes before our allotted time limit.”
Blinking and wondering how he’s even keeping track, Chloe nods. “Then onwards.”
“Onwards, indeed.”
With one of Lucifer's arms curled loosely around her waist, Chloe leads the way into the next darkened hallway.
Notes:
Sorry...?
Chapter 4: The Stars are the Key
Summary:
Despite her injuries, Chloe insists on helping Lucifer in the next room, which is a makeshift observatory. Lucifer gradually begins feeling the effects of the poison.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Guilt, grief, and fury rush through Lucifer like molten lava, setting his blood aflame. He keeps stealing glances at Chloe. Her expression is tight, and every so often, she winces, likely from the pain of her shredded arm. More than once in his eternal existence, he’s felt the desire to rip a human apart like paper, but has never given into that impulse. The rule his father set ages ago is the only one Lucifer still obeys, no matter the circumstances.
Well, he might break that rule now, once he finally gets his hands on their captor.
Poisoning him is one thing. Punishing the Detective for no reason while forcing the Devil to confess his sins...that’s something else entirely. She doesn’t deserve this—any of it. She’s been through more than enough. Now she’s in agonizing pain, her arm in ribbons, and has to continue to suffer until they’re freed. He was able to use his celestial abilities to lightly cauterize her wounds, but it wasn't enough to stop the bleeding entirely. At the very least, she won't bleed out immediately; she still requires immediate medical attention—and that isn't an option at the moment.
But she'll live. He will make sure of that.
What he really wants is to raze this building, wherever they are, to ashes. But with this poison running through his veins and his vulnerability around Chloe, he’s weakened. He couldn’t even reach her in that bloody confessional until the door opened.
And now she knows some of the truth as to why he left for Las Vegas. Why he came back married to Candy. He wants to tell her the rest, but she instructed him to wait. Either she feels they don’t have the time or she doesn’t want to hear his excuses. While he never lied to her, not outright, the deception is clear. He can tell himself all day long he was honest with her, but the real truth is that it was manipulation, plain and simple. He manipulated the woman he...cares for into thinking he doesn’t care about her at all, not the way she desires. He hurt her intentionally to hide the truth—that she’s a miracle put in his path and her feelings may not be her own.
A shield made of Candy, Amenadiel called it.
Chloe may not see it that way. She might hear him out, listen to all the sordid details, but not believe him. After all, she doesn’t believe the celestial world exists or that he’s the Devil. Why would she believe she’s a God-given miracle? Or that he was protecting her from his father’s machinations, from himself?
This could be the final nail in the coffin that is their partnership.
As they move through the narrow, winding corridor, the need to say something in his defense bubbles and intensifies. She has barely looked at him and hasn’t spoken at all since leaving the church room. He knows she heard his confession, even as something took bites from her arm, like a bloody bear trap.
“It was never about not caring for you,” he says quietly, hopefully so only she can hear him. He keeps his gaze forward, unable to look at her, but he won’t have her thinking she means nothing to him anymore. Not with the situation they’ve found themselves in. If they can’t get to the antidote and he succumbs to this poison that’s burning its way towards his heart, or if something happens to her, he wants her to understand this much at least.
“Lucifer...” She sounds enervated and weakened.
“Please, Detective, just allow me this,” he pleads. Chloe sighs, but doesn’t deter him. It isn’t permission to continue, nor is it barring him from speaking on this subject. He continues, “I left to protect you, and I hadn’t planned on returning. But...well, I missed you. Quite a lot more than I anticipated.”
He was consumed with missing her; Chloe was all he thought about—whether she was recovering from her poisoning, if she was getting on with her life or missing him in return, if she would be okay without him. Lucifer told himself that she would be fine; she would move on from him, put him from her thoughts, and be better for it in the long run. Any hurt she might experience would be temporary. Now he isn’t so sure. He can’t forget that look on her face when she first met Candy and realized what he’d done. Or the tears she tried to hold back as he explained.
“So instead of just coming back and telling me you didn’t want to be with me, you got married to a stripper.” Her voice sounds hollowed out. “Yeah, that tracks.”
Lucifer swallows hard around the lump that’s formed in his throat. “But that’s just it, Detective,” he says quietly. “I did want to be with you. But what I said on the beach is also true—I am not deserving of you or your...affection.”
Chloe scoffs indignantly. “That wasn’t your choice to make, Lucifer. You don’t get to decide what I deserve. Or who’s worthy of me. All you had to do was talk to me, and we could have figured things out. But you couldn’t handle that, so you ran. I get it—you don’t want a relationship. Or you don’t want one with me. Whatever. Now isn’t the time to discuss it.”
He suspects it’s more that she doesn’t want to discuss it. Or she can’t. “There is more to this than you understand. When we get out of here, if you still want answers, they are yours. I shall...understand if you wish to dissolve our partnership.” Though just the thought of her doing so hurts him more than this poison could ever hope to.
“I am sorry, Chloe,” he whispers as the next door comes into view. “More than you can know.”
She doesn’t respond verbally. Instead, she slips away from the hold he had around her waist, lengthening her limping strides to the door. Because she wants to reach it quicker, or because she doesn’t want to be next to him, he isn’t sure.
Unlike the other doors they’ve encountered, this is just a simple, wooden one that might be found in any household and a brass handle. Chloe hesitates to reach for it with her good hand, barely touching it before yanking back her fingers, as if checking that it isn’t electrified. She lets out a sigh of relief, tentatively wrapping her hand around it and pushing down, shoving the door open.
This room is smaller than the last two, much the size of the one they woke up in. The source of the light is unclear, casting an eerie glow almost like moonlight shining on a desk cluttered with aged papers, scrolls, and what look to be star-charting tools. The ceiling is a black dome dotted with what he thinks are meant to be stars, though the lines connecting them aren’t constellations as they're meant to be.
Telescopes stand in crooked rows across the floor, brass and wood things with cracked lenses. Strange control levers jut from the stone floor, the iron handles slick with oil—or what he hopes is oil. The room smells of dust and something metallic.
“An observatory?” Lucifer guesses with a smirk. “Oh, Game Master, you chose the wrong contestant for this room. The stars are mine, and this is a topic I know more about than you could ever dream of, you socially inept baboon.”
Chloe gives him an odd look, taking a step farther into the room. Her boot drags across the floor as her injured leg nearly buckles. She catches herself against the nearest wall with a hiss of ragged breath. Lucifer is at her side in an instant, curling an arm around her waist. But the effort costs him. His posture is perfect as always, but his steps lack their usual grace and his balance is just a touch too slow. And if his body is betraying him that much, it won’t be long before the poison is truly affecting him.
He forces himself to focus on the here and now. On what matters—getting Chloe out of here and to proper medical attention.
“I’m okay,” she mutters, blinking rapidly.
“You’re not,” he counters. “Sit, Detective.” He guides her carefully towards a dusty bench along the wall that looks it was stolen from some long abandoned lecture hall. His hand hovers, careful not to press against the burns on one arm or the swelling and cuts on the other. “Just this once, indulge me.”
Normally, she would argue, insist that she can handle it. Normally, she’d throw him that look, eyes full of fire that dares him to underestimate her. But this time, she sinks down without protest. The fact that she doesn’t fight him is more alarming than any wound he can see.
He crouches briefly, steadying her knee when her leg threatens to give way. She bites the inside of her cheek, swallowing a sound he knows is pain. His traitorous mind replays the agonized cries from the confessional of the last room as the trap tore her arm apart. Trying to block them out, and once again promising untold pain for their captor, he stands again and takes in the room.
After a moment, Chloe lifts her head, scanning it herself, her gaze moving towards a blackboard on one wall filled with equations. Dead center of the board is another riddle that she reads aloud, “The sky is watching, the stars are the key.”
She turns to Lucifer, frowning at the stone floor. “Something isn’t right.”
“Darling, nothing about this is right.” He takes a step forward and pauses, also looking down. The floor has odd divots carved into it, deep, jagged scorches, as if something burned through the stone, but when he looks up, he can't see anything that might have caused it. “Detective, perhaps we should watch our steps.”
She nods her agreement, searching the floor as if she can see hidden traps and switches. “Okay, what’s the ‘game’ here?” she asks, wincing again as she adjusts her arm. “The stars are the key. What stars?”
Lucifer glances from the telescope to the ceiling. “Those stars, I presume. But they make no sense. That isn’t the way I arranged them.”
His words earn him a sharp look. “What do you mean, you arranged them?”
“In the sky, Detective. Eons ago.” He waves her off, not wanting to get into a debate about how he isn’t really the Devil at the moment. “Never mind. Are those star charts on that desk?”
He moves forward and the floor cracks ominously. When he looks, nothing seems out of place. All the stone tiles look to be uniform, apart from those sear marks. A bit more cautiously, he steps forward, breathing a silent sigh of relief when nothing happens. He throws Chloe a quick, reassuring smile, then peruses the desk, searching for a hint as to what they’re meant to do here.
In the back of his mind, he worries. For Chloe, mostly. She isn’t complaining or giving any indication other than the occasional wince, but she must be in excruciation pain. And with all the blood she’s lost...well, how much blood can a human lose before—
“Lucifer.”
“Hmm?” he hums absently, unrolling what looks to be a star chart and examining it. It looks authentic, as close to his original design of the stars as any human has ever gotten, but still...off somehow. Something is missing.
“Look at the ceiling.”
Eyebrows furrowed, he tilts his head back and blinks.
“They look...wrong,” she murmurs, picking up on the same sight he is. She frowns, gesturing weakly towards the dome. “I mean, I’m not exactly an expert, but even I can tell that’s not how Orion looks.”
Lucifer's throat tightens. He bites back an explanation about how Orion isn’t what humans believe. It was created for one of his siblings—Zadkiel—and wasn’t even meant to look like a hunter.
Instead, he focuses on the puzzle itself. The stars are not simply misplaced; they’re mutilated. Orion’s belt is broken, now a jagged scatter of light across his midsection. Leo (formed for Amenadiel) looks empty with his heart missing, leaving a black void where brilliance should be. Scorpius curls inward, the stinger stabbing its own head. Even Gemini, created to depict himself and Michael, is wrong. The stars, Castor and Pollux, float unnaturally apart and misaligned—one twin’s position inverted, while the other is stretched out.
Really, that’s more accurate than the others these days...
But the sight of countless centuries’ work, of his hands, mocked and corrupted infuriates him more than he wants to admit. To see his stars as part of this grotesque game...well, if their Game Master's fate wasn’t already sealed, this might do it.
“I don’t get it,” Chloe says, taking in the rest of the room with sharp eyes. Even through the haze of pain, he can see her clever mind whirring. “What’s the puzzle here?”
“Clearly, we’ve stumbled into some amateur astronomer’s fever dream,” he says lightly. “Let’s hope it’s more tedious than deadly, hmm?”
She shifts restlessly, and he knows she wants to stand and help him figure it out. She doesn’t. “There’s always a pattern,” she murmurs, searching the floor for whatever clue their sadistic architect left for them this time. Her fingers brush dust from a nearby plinth, revealing tarnished brass beneath.
Narrowing his eyes, Lucifer joins her, eyeing the plaque fixed to the stand, its surface dulled with age.
“The hunter without his belt shall lose his prey.
The lion without a heart shall cease to roar.
The scorpion whose sting turns inward shall strike itself.
The twins divided shall never stand as one.
Restore them, and the path shall open.”
Chloe exhales sharply, rubbing her temple with her good hand. “Okay, so we have to...fix the stars somehow?”
“Shall I climb up there and rearrange them myself?” he asks dryly.
She rolls her eyes. “No, there's usually something in the room we’re supposed to use,” she says slowly.
For a moment, she thinks and then levers herself upright again, limping towards the nearest telescope. The brass monster groans when she touches it, mounted on rails that curve into the floor, allowing it to be rotated up or down and locked into position. Lucifer watches closely as she bends, peering through the cracked lens, then adjusts it experimentally. A mechanism above clicks in response, a faint whir as the dome shifts.
“Redraw them,” she says under her breath, piecing it together as she goes. “We need to...put the constellations back the way they’re supposed to look.” Her eyes dart to the table filled with star charts. “And those are supposed to help us?”
Lucifer drifts closer, fingers itching to pull her away in case it’s another trap. “A bold hypothesis,” he murmurs.
She shoots him a look over her shoulder. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any better ideas?”
His gaze flicks back to the dome, lingering on the mangled Orion whose broken belt taunts him. He can fix every one of those constellations with his eyes closed. He knows where the stars belong. But everything in this bloody house of horrors is twisted, and he suspects it won’t be as easy as ‘fixing’ what’s broken. There is always a catch.
And Chloe always pays for it in some way.
Not this bloody time.
“No, I don’t,” he admits reluctantly. He nods at the dome. “That particular hunter looks rather slovenly with his trousers undone, don’t you think? Perhaps aligning the telescope with the missing stars will—how shall I put it—do him up properly?”
Despite everything, her lips twitch with the ghost of a smile that makes his heart flutter. “Is this another example of your intuition?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” he counters, throwing her words back at her.
With a sigh, she leans back to the eyepiece, adjusting the scope until three faint points of light align. Somewhere in the ceiling, gears shift, emitting a metallic sigh that echoes through the chamber.
The belt is whole again.
Lucifer lets out a breath when nothing happens.
“Okay,” Chloe says, her voice steadier now. “That worked. Orion’s fixed.”
A faint glow ripples across the dome, tracing the hunter’s outline. Across the room, a line appears in the wall, moving a quarter of the way up.
They exchange a look.
“The door, you think?” he murmurs, shoulders loosening a fraction.
“Let’s find out.” She moves to the next telescope, brushing dust from another star chart and finds the outline of a lion scratched into the parchment. “The lion without a heart,” she repeats. “That must be Leo, right?”
Lucifer flicks his eyes up again, finding his lion immediately. The gap at the center signifying a missing heart glares at him in accusation. He swallows, fighting the strange, irrational tug in his chest. These aren’t the real stars, just some twisted game by an even more twisted human. It means nothing. He knows that.
So why does this bother him so much?
Again, Chloe adjusts the telescope. She frowns, biting her lip as she focuses, and tries to align the scope with where she thinks the missing star should be. A click follows, different from the last one, the sound too sharp.
Before he can stop her, the dome blazes as though catching fire.
A beam of light, brighter than anything in this room, scythes across the floor, hissing where it strikes stone. Chloe yelps, jerking back, the heat brushing past her shoulder close enough to scorch. The smell of char fills the air.
Lucifer is on her instantly, yanking her backwards with a hand tight on her good arm. The light sears a line across the floor where she stood only moments ago, reducing the stone to smoldering ash—and then it’s gone.
They stand frozen, hearts pounding. He turns her, checking for burns and finding none. Her shirt has a tear in it, the edges charred, but she's okay.
“I’m fine,” she says shakily. “Lucifer, I’m fine.” She brushes his hand away from her shoulder, glancing at the floor. “Guess that was the wrong one, huh?” she adds with a laugh that isn’t really laughter.
Releasing her, Lucifer clenches his jaw. “I suppose one should always admire the efficiency of a trap. Brutal, instantaneous, and very much designed to remind us how little room we have for error.”
“Yeah, maybe let’s not...admire the psychotic killer’s tactics,” she says dryly.
“Fair enough.”
Chloe steadies herself against the railing of the telescope, shoulders tense, eyes darting from the dome to the floor as though expecting another strike. Her chest rises and falls too quickly, the edge of panic threatening to creep in, but she forces herself still. The way she always does.
Of course, he notes the effort. Just as he notices the pallor in her face, the way her left leg quivers under the weight she places on it and holds her mangled arm tighter to her chest. There's only so much she can hide from him, even when she wants to, and he sees it in her eyes the most. But still, she presses forward, refusing to give up.
He hates her for it. Admires her for it. Fears what it will cost her before this is all over. And he also knows better than to call her out on it at the moment. Because if he’s being honest, this place isn’t only getting to her; it’s impacting him as much. The inability to fight his way out with brute strength or outwit one demented human. The inability to keep her safe. He isn’t sure how much more he has in him.
Clearing his throat, he gestures at another scope, sweeps an elegant hand towards it as if inviting her to dinner rather than a potential deathtrap. “Shall we try our luck with the king of beasts again? This time perhaps with slightly more precision? Or would you like me to have a go?”
Her jaw tightens stubbornly as she limps to the telescope. She leans heavily on the brass tube, adjusting its rusted wheel until the fractured points of Leo swim into view. “We have to give him back his heart,” she mutters to herself.
Lucifer stands at her shoulder, hands clasped behind his back to keep from reaching for her, his gaze fixed upward. “Try...three degrees left, perhaps,” he murmurs. “A little higher. Right...there.”
She follows his direction, narrowing her eye to the scope. The click is softer this time, deeper, more resonant. The dome shudders, then realigns. A single new star burns into place at Leo’s chest, pulsing faintly.
A sound like a lock turning rolls through the chamber.
Chloe exhales, relief tugging briefly at her lips. “Halfway there,” she says. “Gemini next? Or Scorpius?”
Glancing towards the wall, another line of light forms a corner—the half-finished outline of a door, he suspects.
“Let’s try Scorpius,” he says.
The next telescope looms. Above it, the scorpion twists on itself with its stinger cruelly driven into its own head. Chloe grimaces. “That’s gotta hurt,” she mutters.
“Indeed,” Lucifer agrees quietly, his voice more strained. He braces a hand on the telescope mount, the cool metal grounding him as his vision swims briefly. The poison is tightening its grip, and he reflexively reaches a hand up to check his nose—no blood still.
As she bends to the scope, Chloe’s balance falters. He catches her elbow again, steadying her. She glances at him, startled at the firmness of his grip.
“You’re shaking,” she says, eyebrows knitting.
He releases her at once, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and slips his mask back into place with a crooked smile. “Am I? Perhaps the ambiance is getting to me. Dreary décor, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t look the least bit convinced, but she doesn’t call him on it. He hovers, directing her in soft tones, his words careful, but vague enough to sound like educated guesses rather than the cosmic knowledge they are.
But his body betrays him. When she adjusts the alignment a fraction too low, he moves to correct her, too fast, too clumsy. His hand slips on the rusted wheel, the telescope jerks, and the mechanism above snaps into place with a violent clatter.
The dome screams.
A fissure of light tears across the ceiling like lightning, glass panes shattering free in a storm. Razor-sharp shards rain down, catching the dim glow of the false stars as they fall.
Lucifer freezes, dizzy, too slow—
Chloe lunges. Despite the agony in her limbs, she hurls herself against him with enough force to knock them both clear of the largest cascade. They hit the floor hard, his back slamming against stone, her body half-sprawled over his.
A smaller shard slices across his shoulder, opening skin with a wet rip. He clenches his teeth against a pained gasp, and ignores it, curling his arms over her head to shield her until it’s over. She buries her face in the crook of his shoulder.
When the wave of dizziness passes, he rolls to his feet, dragging her upright. He feels his eyes flare crimson for half a second before he forces them back to normal again. Just in time for her to look up at him.
“You okay?” she asks, and now it’s her turn to fret. Her eyes widen on the blood seeping from his shoulder. “Lucifer...”
“I’m fine,” he says, his eyes locked on the fresh cuts on her hands and cheek. Fury tears through him—at himself, at this place, at the pathetic human who engineered it—but he keeps his voice low and tight. “Detective...”
She leans back against the wall, pressing her hand against his wound. Her eyes snap to his, a knowing glint there he doesn’t like. “We need to be honest with each other,” she says quietly. “Now more than ever. And right now? You’re not fine.”
He goes still. Every instinct he has screams to deny, deny, deny, if only for her peace of mind. “I assure you, Detective—”
“Bullshit.” Her voice cracks between syllables. “Lucifer, I know how this poison works, and while, for whatever reason, you’re not showing the usual symptoms, I know it’s affecting you. You nearly collapsed just now, and that...that isn’t you. Whatever you’re doing—protecting me, or living in denial, whatever it is—just stop. Be honest with me. For once.”
Dropping his gaze, he sighs as guilt twists through him. All he’s doing is making things more difficult for her. But he doesn't know how to tell her the poison is working differently with him because he’s a celestial being. He doesn’t have the strength for the argument.
Instead, he turns back to the dome. “We need to finish the scorpion before it takes another bite at us,” he says, helping her up.
Her expression hardens, but she says nothing, ignoring his hand and standing up on her own.
Chloe’s arm burns where it was torn down to bone, but she forces herself to push it back. She watches Lucifer walk back towards the telescopes, knowing the poison is affecting him more than he’s letting on. He’s pushing through it, the way she had when that exact poison tore through her insides.
She wants to call him on it again, but the reminder that their time is running out—literally—keeps her on task. And they have no idea how many more of these rooms they’ll run into.
So she turns back to the telescope below Scorpius, swallowing down her frustration and pain. If he doesn’t want to talk, fine, she’ll drag him through anyway and find that damn antidote come hell or high water. She bends to the eyepiece, adjusting the scope carefully in the hopes of avoiding triggering another trap.
“The scorpion’s tail should curl outward,” she mutters, half to herself. “Not...stabbing itself in the brain.”
Lucifer steadies himself on the opposite wheel, his hand white-knuckled against the iron. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him waver again, clearly dizzy. Which means the fainting spells might kick in soon. If that happens, she isn’t sure what she’ll do. He’s too heavy for her to drag on a good day—and this is far from a good day.
“Correct,” he murmurs roughly. “Two degrees east. A bit higher. Yes. There.”
They work together, her directing the adjustments, him confirming with uncanny certainty. Slowly, painstakingly, the scorpion realigns, tail curling outward again as the stars snap into their rightful place one by one. Across the room, a long line of lights on the outline flares to life, but there's still a quarter of them missing, keeping the door closed and locked.
“Gemini now?” Chloe asks. “The twins divided shall never stand as one.”
Lucifer scoffs under his breath. “Truer words never spoken,” he mutters darkly.
There are two telescopes they haven’t tried yet. Either one could be a trap, or they could both be part of the puzzle.
“I think this one wants both of us,” she says quietly. “Standing as one. It’s a hint. We have to work together.”
He glances between the scopes, then up at the dome with a furrowed brow. “You may be right,” he concedes with a sigh. “Shall we?”
Chloe steps up to the nearest telescope while Lucifer claims the other. The Gemini constellation above flickers in its broken state—two figures pulled apart, one inverted, their light strained and uneven. The riddle seems clear enough: they have to move the scopes in tandem or not at all.
“On three,” she murmurs, her voice cracking from pain. “One...two...”
In unison, they turn the wheels.
The dome groans as the stars shift, sluggish and reluctant, beams of pale light spilling like searchlights across the chamber. Chloe flinches reflexively when one cuts across the floor, too close to her feet. The memory of those lasers are still fresh in her mind.
“Steady, Detective,” Lucifer says in a low voice. “Not too quick. The trick is balance, yes?”
Her arms tremble against the weight of the scope, and her leg aches from the awkward stance. She forces herself again to focus. Anything but pain. “You talk like you know the stars, like you’ve done this before.”
He huffs humorlessly. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Really? Because you don’t really strike me as the astronomy type. More the...cocktails, music, sex type.”
“Oh, I am.” He turns his wheel another fraction, the motion graceful despite the visible tremble in his hands. “And yet, here I am, aligning the heavens. Some things never change, I suppose.”
Chloe’s lips twitch with the weak attempt of a smile. “So how do you know? All these corrections...like you memorized star charts.”
Lucifer glances up at the constellation above, his face strangely open and raw. When he speaks, his voice carries none of the usual flourish. “Because...I put them there.”
The words hang in the silence, stark as the grinding of the dome’s gears.
She blinks. “You...put them there.”
“Yes. Well, not there, but in the actual sky.” His hands keep working the wheel, but his eyes are far away, reflecting starlight. “Each spark, each pattern, I placed them, Detective. I arranged the hunter’s belt, though originally, he wasn’t a hunter at all. I carved the lion’s heart, and I bent the scorpion’s tail. As for the twins...well.”
He shakes his head. “I gave the mortals stories to find in the dark, not that they ever found the ones I placed. Still...” A faint, bitter smile touches his lips. “One of the few labors of my father’s that I never regretted.”
For a long moment, Chloe just stares at him across the chamber, feeling the cold metal of the telescope beneath her palms. He looks completely, deadly serious. Maybe the poison is eating at him faster than she thought. Maybe he’s delirious. Or maybe this is another one of his grandiose metaphors, one she doesn’t have the strength to untangle.
She swallows hard, fighting the urge to argue. To tell him to stop dodging, stop spinning strange tales. But she’s too tired, too burned, too broken open by this house of horrors to care.
“Okay,” she says softly, and turns the wheel in sync with his.
His head lifts, startled by her lack of challenge.
Chloe only shrugs. “If you say you made the stars,” she goes on, her voice flat with exhaustion, “then you made the stars. Doesn’t matter to me right now. Just...don’t stop moving that thing, because if another beam of light slices across this room, I’m not diving for cover.”
A slow breath leaves him, his eyes flickering slightly. He gives her the smallest nod. “As you wish, Detective.”
Together, they guide the scopes, inch by inch. Slowly, Gemini’s broken twins draw closer, straightening, their light merging into balance again.
The dome sighs as the constellation knits itself whole, the twins standing side by side at last.
Chloe slumps against the telescope, heart hammering, not sure whether it’s from the effort or the pain or the absurdity of what he said. She wants to ask if he really believes it—that he’s the Devil, that he created the stars. If he’d tell her the truth without wrapping it in riddles. But her body is trembling, and her arm is killing her, and she has no fight left to spare.
So she lets it go, just this once. They can talk all they want once they’re out of this place. Once Lucifer has the antidote in his system, and Chloe has been stitched together again, like the twin constellations above them.
“So...what now?” she asks, looking at the door, waiting for the rest of the light to appear. “Why haven’t we—”
Lucifer takes a step towards her and stumbles slightly, bumping into the rusted wheel. The dome screeches loud enough she claps her hands to her ears. But she doesn’t miss the laser shooting down from the ceiling—going straight for him.
“Lucifer!”
For the second time, she lunges forward to grab his arm and yank away. The light is faster; it tears into his side, blood spurting across the floor. He roars in pain, but seems frozen in place. Chloe drags him away so forcefully they crash into the wall. He collapses against her mangled arm, pulling a cry from her throat.
“Detective,” he pants through a groan, pressing a hand to his side. “I’m sorry, I—”
White-hot pain sears through her and for a moment, she can’t even hear him. Faintly, she feels her knees buckle. Lucifer catches her before she hits the floor.
“Breathe, Chloe,” he murmurs against her ear. “Just breathe, darling.”
Chloe focuses on his voice, the low, soothing timbre, and lets it pull her back to reality. “Ow,” she breathes, her eyes clenched shut.
A trembling hand brushes hair from her face, then she feels Lucifer press his forehead to hers, grounding her. “I’ve got you, love,” he says softly. “It’s all right.”
Gradually, the world comes into focus again. She lifts her head with effort, finding Lucifer watching her again, concern knitting his brows.
“M’okay,” she mumbles.
He sighs, but doesn’t contradict her. “We should go,” he says instead, nodding towards the wall.
She turns to see the door open. “Right,” she says tightly.
“Also...” He reaches to the floor and picks something up—a piece of steel, maybe a foot long, that looks like a metal Hot Wheels track.
“What’s that?” she asks, blinking rapidly.
“Our prize, I assume. The door opened, and this slid from a chute in the wall.”
“So we have the billiard ball, a gear, and a track?”
Lucifer hums, steadying her on her feet. “Are you all right to move on?”
She isn’t, like at all, but they don’t have time for them to wait until she is. Lucifer doesn’t have time. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Notes:
Halfway through the nightmare. Thank you for sticking with this one. I know it's difficult, but I do appreciate the support. ❤️🩹
Chapter 5: Truth or Drown
Summary:
Chloe and Lucifer get wet, courtesy of the Game Master—and not in the fun way.
Notes:
This chapter had been in my head since I started writing this fic. I apologize ahead of time.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Chloe tries to remember the last time she was this tired, in this much pain, and comes up empty. The only period that comes close was the poison, but that was another level completely. She’s still losing blood, though not as much as she should be; the makeshift bandages Lucifer fashioned can only do so much.
Her eyes flick over towards Lucifer as they move down the corridor. It feels like it stretches forever, a narrow throat of concrete and steel that funnels them forward. Every step is another reminder of what this place has taken from them—her arm, her leg, Lucifer's side from the laser, the poison coursing through his veins. Lucifer's steps are steady, but not as strong as they should be.
Not to mention Lucifer's confession in the church room about Vegas and Candy. Even now, his frantic, furious voice rings in her head.
“Because with me near her, she would never be free! But I came back because I couldn’t bloody well bear being away from her!”
She has no idea what he meant by that, that she would never be free with him. Not even a theory. It’s ridiculous, and something only Lucifer could come up with and convince himself of. She wants to ask, but isn’t sure she can handle whatever answer he comes up with. Not now. Not in this place.
“Are you okay, Detective?” he murmurs, his arm grazing hers.
Chloe nods absently, keeping her gaze forward. “I will be.” It’s as honest an answer as she can give right now. “You?
“Dandy,” he says dryly. One of his hands brushes beneath his nostril and his gaze flicks to it before the hand drops again.
Checking for blood.
The realization makes her stomach twist.
Before she can say anything more, static crackles overhead, sharp and jagged, making her wince. Then comes that voice again, that smooth, gloating one she hates more than any other.
“Marvelous.” The word drags out, full of false delight. “You’ve survived longer than I expected. It’s almost...touching, watching you claw your way forward. But you’ll break soon. You both will. Because they always do.”
Chloe’s fingers curl into fists. Fury flares, bright and hot, but she bites it back. There's no use screaming at empty walls. That’s exactly what this sadist wants—their panic, their anger, their fear. She won’t give him the satisfaction. So she shoves her fury down and keeps moving, even as every nerve in her body begs her to rest, to stop, just for a moment.
But she doesn’t dare stop. Not when Lucifer needs her to keep moving.
She risks another glance at him. His face is pale, and there's a sheen of sweat at his temple, his movements slower. He’s holding himself tall, shoulders squared, but she can see the strain beneath the mask. The poison is taking its toll. She knows because not so long ago, she felt it herself and remembers all too well how that strain to keep going until she couldn’t pulled at her. He’s fighting to hide it, but she knows. And that terrifies her more than anything.
Before she can speak, Lucifer's voice cuts through the corridor, sharp and venomous. “When I find you,” he snarls, his accent sharper now, harsher, the sound echoing with a guttural promise. For a second, she swears his eyes gleam red, but it has to be her imagination. “I will peel you apart, piece by piece, until your last breath is spent begging for a mercy I will never grant.”
The words send a shiver down her spine. Because she knows he means every last one. There's no doubt in her mind. It isn’t about what’s been done to him, either; he’s furious on her behalf.
The Game Master laughs. Not nervous laughter, not even mocking; this is amused, genuinely entertained laughter. “Oh, that’s rich. The big bad Devil, locked in a cage of my making, threatening me with his horns.” Static hisses again, underscoring his amusement. “I think I rather like this dynamic. But you see, you’re no king here. Just another rat in my maze.”
Lucifer's lips curl back from his teeth, more animal than human for a heartbeat. Chloe sees his hand tremble before he clenches it into a fist.
Her heart hammers, not just from the Game Master’s cruelty but from her partner’s tone, the raw venom in it. That’s a side of him he rarely lets her see, reserving it for the criminals they catch. That he's starting to slip now is more evidence he's being stretched thinner and thinner. He can’t afford to lose control, not now. She can’t afford to let herself break, either.
So she forces herself forward, dragging her bad leg along, cradling her mangled arm, locking her jaw tight. She's just stubborn enough to fight through the pain, if that's what it takes for her and her partner to survive.
She hates the sound of the Game Master’s voice. She hates the way Lucifer's anger sounds like it’s poisoning him as much as the venom in his veins.
And most of all, she hates that for the first time since this nightmare began, she isn’t sure how much farther either of them can go.
But she keeps walking, because stopping isn’t an option.
The corridor eventually spits them out into another chamber, and for a moment, Chloe thinks it might be a reprieve. The air is cooler here, still sterile but less suffocating. The room is vast with metallic walls polished smooth as if scrubbed clean even of fingerprints. She looks around for levers or gears or some hint of the next puzzle, but there's nothing. It’s just...empty.
Suspiciously empty.
“What the bloody hell is this supposed to be?” Lucifer grumbles, moving to the other side of the room.
The hairs on the back of her neck rise, her instincts prickling in warning that something is about to happen. Before she can suggest they stay together, a sound rings through the room, making her stomach drop—an immense clang like steel slamming shut.
She turns in time to see a glass wall slam down between them, cutting her off mid-breath. And her partner is on the other side.
“Lucifer!” She pounds against it, but the surface doesn’t budge. Not even a tremor. It stretches seamlessly from the floor to the ceiling.
On his side, Lucifer's head whips around. He crosses the area in one stride, eyes narrowing as he examines the wall. For a second, his hand presses against where her fist rests, but she can’t feel even the warmth of his touch through the thick glass.
“Stand back, Detective!” he calls, his voice muffled to the point she barely hears him.
Chloe steps back on instinct. He runs a hand along the barrier, testing it, and then balls his fist and strikes. His knuckles split from the impact, leaving behind a bloodstain. The glass doesn’t crack. Growling, he steps back, lifts his foot, and kicks out, hard enough the glass should shatter. The sound reverberates in her ears, but nothing happens.
Her pulse spikes as panic claws up her throat. She can see it mirrored in his eyes. He's trapped—or maybe she is—and they can't get to each other.
Lucifer opens his mouth to speak—
And the floor beneath him hisses.
A square panel slides open, revealing an embedded tank—clear walls rise up, shrinking the space and creating a cage around him. In a blink, it seals, locking into place. The chamber is airtight and flawless.
Lucifer spins, slamming his fists against the sides. “Really?!” His voice rings out, raw with fury. “Is this your grand trick, you pathetic, mewling little coward?”
As if in response, water gushes from vents at his feet, filling the space so fast that within seconds, it swirls around his ankles
Chloe’s breath stutters. No, no, no. She scans the walls around her, searching for a lever, a panel, anything—but all she sees is flat, gleaming steel. No seams, no handles, nothing. Her chest tightens in fear and realization. There's no puzzle here. No clues. It’s just a death trap.
The Game Master’s voice crackles overhead again, smug and terrible. “Oh, don’t look so lost, Detective. This time, the game is yours.”
Her stomach drops. “Let him out!” Her voice cracks, rage and terror tangled together. “You bastard, let him out now!”
“Not so fast. Not until you’ve played your part. You killed my mentor, you see, so the least you can give me is answers.” Static buzzes like laughter. “Lucifer gave his confession. And now it’s your turn. I want the truth.”
Chloe feels her blood turn to ice. “What are you talking about?” she demands, staring at Lucifer as he searches for a way out.
With a low hum, the wall to her right slides open, revealing some kind of machine. A crude setup of wires and blinking lights with a seat bolted to the floor, and a panel with a jagged red line twitching across its screen. A lie detector, she thinks, makeshift but functional. Or so it appears. For all she knows, it’s just for appearances and show.
Her throat goes dry.
“Have a seat, Detective Decker. Now, for every lie,” the Game Master drawls, “the water will rise faster. Tell the truth, and perhaps your partner lives. Lie to me...” The water surges higher in Lucifer's chamber, swirling around his calves now. “...and watch him drown.”
Chloe feels her heart ratchet up, thudding frantically now. “Don’t,” she whispers.
Lucifer slams his palms against the glass, his voice a muffled thunderclap. “Don’t you dare—”
“Lucifer.” She presses her palm flat to the barrier against his much larger one, her eyes locking on his. He looks furious, frantic, pale from poison, the lasered slice in his side, and strain. She tries to steady her voice. “Hey, it’s fine. I have to.”
He shakes his head violently, another flash of that crimson in his eyes. This time, she’s sure she doesn’t imagine it. “No. You don’t have to give that bastard a damned thing. Not for me.”
The Game Master chuckles. “Shall we begin?”
Chloe’s legs feel like lead as she turns towards the chair. Her stomach churns, her injured arm trembling as she lowers herself onto the seat. The cold metal bites into her skin, and she straps the band around her good arm with stiff fingers. The red line on the monitor twitches to life.
Water hisses again, already to Lucifer's knees.
Forcing herself to swallow, she keeps her eyes on Lucifer. He’s still pressed against the glass, a look in his eyes like he blames himself for all of this. She tries to give him a reassuring smile and barely gets her lips to twitch. He nods once, minutely, just for her.
The Game Master’s voice drops to a low, almost intimate whisper. “Now, Detective, tell me the truth. A test run, if you will.” A pause. “Is your name Chloe Decker?”
“Yes,” she says through gritted teeth. Her eyes flick to the panel on reflex—the line stays straight.
“Good. Are you a detective with the LAPD?”
“Oh, for Dad’s sake!” Lucifer snaps impatiently. “You know bloody well she is.”
“This is merely a demonstration of the technology, Mr. Morningstar,” the voice says smoothly. “But as you wish, we can get on with the game.”
Her eye twitches. Some game. Her palms are slick. Her body aches all over, her leg still dragging from the gash she sustained on the stairs in the beginning, her arm raw from the confessional. But none of that matters compared to the sight in front of her—Lucifer, prowling his glass cage as water churns up to his thighs.
“The first real question,” the voice says.
Chloe clenches her jaw, focusing her gaze on Lucifer. Don’t look away. Don’t let him see how scared you are. He’ll just get more agitated.
“Is Lucifer Morningstar really the best partner you ever had?” The voice is mocking.
The words hit like a sucker punch. Of all the questions, this one sounds almost benign, but she knows better. There's venom under the softness. Immediately, she remembers Perry Smith’s trial and her own testimony, knowing her father’s killer was about to walk, but refusing to throw her partner under the bus. She remembers the amazement in Lucifer's eyes when she said those words.
“Yes.” The word flies out, sharp and sure, before she can even think. “Of course he is.”
The machine’s line stays steady. For a single second, relief loosens her chest.
The water surges higher.
“What?” Chloe gasps, twisting towards the glass. It’s bubbling up towards his hips now. “That’s the truth! I told you the truth!”
Lucifer barks her name, his palm slamming the barrier so hard the sound rattles through her.
The Game Master’s chuckle grates in her ears. “Oh, it’s true, is it? Then why does he still drown? Because you didn’t give me all of it. You forget, Detective—I want the whole truth. Mind, body, and heart. All of it, or he pays for your cowardice.”
Chloe’s throat closes. Her answer was instant, unwavering. Of course he is her best partner, her best friend—no one understands her like he does, challenges her to think, infuriates her, supports her in equal measure. But the voice is right. There are parts of her—dark little corners she keeps locked away—that she walls off from him. He hurt her too many times. He lies by omission, despite his assurance that he always tells the truth—point of pride, Detective. For fuck’s sake, he left her and came back married to someone else just to push her away.
She presses her lips together until they burn. She will not let this asshole see her break.
Lucifer ignores the water at his hips, blood from the gash in his side mixing in now, his eyes locking on hers through the glass. Desperation flickers there, clear as day. “Don’t listen to him, Detective. Don’t you dare doubt yourself.”
Her heart squeezes. He’s trying to reassure her while standing in a tank filling fast with water. Typical. Always trying to protect her, even now.
And that only reaffirms her answer.
Gripping the edge of the chair hard enough to bruise her fingers, she tilts her chin defiantly. “Lucifer Morningstar is the best partner that I have ever had,” she repeats, louder this time, as if sheer force of will can make the machine believe her.
The line flutters, and then steadies. The water slows—just barely.
But it doesn’t drain.
Chloe swallows hard, her heart jackhammering against her ribs.
The voice over the speakers crackles again, humming as if in disappointment. “Next question. Do you trust him, after everything he’s done to hurt you? With every piece of yourself?”
The line blinks, waiting for her answer.
Chloe freezes.
Her first instinct is to say yes. Of course yes. She trusts him more than anyone, trusts him with her life every time they step into danger together. But with every piece of herself? Her mind flashes back without permission to that moment in the precinct when she first saw Candy. Meet Candy Morningstar. My wife. After Chloe’s poisoning. After she thought they were on their way to more. In that moment, she felt heartbroken and like the biggest idiot to walk the Earth.
She thinks about all the other times he disappeared without explanation. All the ways he still keeps her at arm’s length.
Her chest squeezes until she can barely breathe. “Yes,” she forces out. Her voice cracks on it, but she holds Lucifer's gaze. She needs him to see that she still believes in him.
From the look in his eyes, though, he sees the lie. And so does the machine—it buzzes, the red line spiking.
The water rises even faster now, up past his waist, lapping at his ribs.
“No!” Chloe shoots to her feet, her bad leg nearly giving out. “That’s not a lie! I do trust him with my life!”
“Not all of you,” the Game Master says, his crackling voice sickly sweet. “Not where it truly matters. You said it yourself—you trust him with your life. But your heart?” A low chuckle. “Well, that’s another story entirely, isn’t it, Detective?”
The next exhale from her lungs is ragged. Her gaze snaps back to Lucifer. His face is set, fury burning through his features as he fights the rising water. “Don’t answer him!” he shouts, his voice muffled. “It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters!” Chloe cuts him off, her throat raw. She leans as far forward as she can, pressing her hand against the barrier again where water surges just below his chest now. “It matters, because it’s the only thing keeping you alive!”
Her vision blurs and she blinks hard, refusing to cry. She hates that the voice is right—her heart still falters where Lucifer is concerned. She doesn’t know how to reconcile the man who chose distance, who hurt her, with the one who stands before her now, suffering because of her. The man who’s still there when she needs him. Who protects her with everything that he is.
Fingers trembling against the glass, she shakes her head. “I—” Her voice breaks. “I trust you with my life, Lucifer. But my heart...I don’t know if I can give you all of it. Not anymore.”
The line on the monitor stabilizes, and the water slows again, hovering high on his chest. Near his heart.
Chloe sags against the glass, her whole body trembles. Relief wars with guilt in her chest. She told the truth, but saying it out loud left her scraped open and raw. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Lucifer presses his hand flat against hers on the opposite side of the thick barrier. His brown eyes are darker than usual, but they soften, even as water churns higher. She can see the devastation flicker across his face, the acceptance, the stubborn defiance that comes after.
“It’s all right, darling,” he murmurs, barely audible. He forces a tight smile. “I get it. I wouldn’t trust me either.”
Her breath hitches. She isn’t sure what hurts worse—watching the water creep towards his throat, or hearing him so accepting. “I do trust you,” she whispers. “You know that.”
He doesn’t respond, but his fists clench and unclench while water overtakes his collarbone.
The Game Master’s voice returns over the speaker before she can say anything else. “The third question. Does the revelation that Lucifer married a stranger—when the two of you were so very close—change how you feel about him?”
Chloe feels her heart drop to her feet. The worry she felt over his disappearance, followed by hurt and anger. The relief when he called her name at the precinct and the fury when he shushed her. The realization that she meant nothing to him, even after all they’ve been through.
Friends? Yes, that’s what we are, just friends!
She felt humiliated on top of everything else. And now she finds out the whole fucking thing was some business deal. An elaborate ploy to push her away. To avoid having to tell her he didn’t want her—not like that. In bed? Sure. He probably still wants that. But anything else...
Her throat goes dry.
The line twitches impatiently across the screen. The water hisses louder, surging to Lucifer's broad shoulders. He braces against the glass, jaw tight with defiance even as he pales further. “Detective!” His voice carries through the barrier, muffled but sharp. “He wants your pain! Don’t give it to him, do you hear me?”
“Oh, come now, Chloe. Don’t you remember how it felt? Watching him with another woman when you thought he might finally be yours? And all it took was two weeks away from you. He never cared about you—”
“Shut your mouth,” Lucifer snarls towards the ceiling. His gaze flicks back to her. “That isn’t true, Detective. It’s never been true. I know you won’t believe me, but everything I did...was for you. I only came back to Los Angeles because of you. He knows nothing about us. Nothing.”
Chloe wants to believe him. But the pain of it still lives in her chest, raw and unhealed.
No matter what, though, if she knows one thing to be true, it’s that Lucifer doesn’t lie. He twists the truth. He tells part of the truth. And yes, he broke her heart, but she can see now that for whatever reason, he really believed he had to leave.
He’s right about something else—the Game Master doesn’t know a damn thing about them.
She presses her hand harder to the glass, her injured arm shaking. “No,” she whispers, holding Lucifer's gaze. Then louder, surer, she adds, “No, it doesn’t change how I feel about him.”
The machine buzzes, wavering. The water rises higher, flooding to the base of his throat.
“No—no!” Chloe staggers forward, her breath hitching. “That’s the truth! It doesn’t change it! He’s still—he’s still the most important person in my life aside from my daughter. That hasn’t changed! Nothing changes that!”
The line steadies, smoothing into calm waves. The water slows, hovering just beneath his chin.
Lucifer stares at her, a look that’s an odd mix of awe and devastation in his eyes. She sags against the console, sweat dampening her temple, her whole body trembling. Relief wars with her own devastation in her chest. It’s a truth that leaves her ripped open. Most important aside from Trixie. That is the truth. No betrayal can erase it.
Even when she might want it to. When it would be easier, for both of them.
In the tank, Lucifer presses his forehead to the glass, ignoring the water. His eyes are even softer now, and he mouths something she can’t quite make out—three faint syllables, swallowed by water.
She doesn’t have time to think about it before the Game Master’s voice speaks again. “Question four: Do you believe he’s the Devil?”
Everything seems to go still all at once—except the water. Chloe feels her blood chill.
What the hell kind of question is that?
Her gaze shoots to Lucifer. He stands rigid, chest heaving as water laps higher. His jaw locks, and his eyes bore into hers, unreadable.
The answer is obvious. She’s heard him call himself that dozens—hundreds—of times, spinning it into jokes, metaphors, bravado. She dismisses it, files it away as part of his odd affectations. While she’s seen him do some...weird shit, she believes in people above all else, in evidence, in what she can see and prove.
“No,” she says, her voice steady despite the tremor in her chest. “I don’t believe he’s the Devil.”
The machine flashes once, calm. The water doesn’t move.
She exhales shakily, relief washing through her, even as Lucifer's gaze flicks away.
But they aren’t finished. “Interesting. And what if he were? What if every word he’s spoken was the truth, if the Devil himself stands before you now, would it change how you feel? Would you let him die?”
The bottom falls out of her stomach. Of course she’s wondered. So many times, she wondered what if it were all true? But every time, she snags on one fact: Lucifer Morningstar is many things, but evil isn’t one of them. She’s never seen a single shred of evidence to say otherwise.
Would it change things? Could it? The thought makes her dizzy. She doesn’t believe in that mythology—but if it were real, if he were truly...that, could she still feel the same?
The silence stretches. The machine whines. The water surges, crashing up and over Lucifer's head, punishing him for her hesitation.
“NO!” Chloe screams, slamming her palms against the glass. Blood leaks from the bandage around her right arm, electric pain shooting through her body, and she ignores it. “Stop! Don’t—he can’t—”
Lucifer's body jerks as the water closes over him. Bubbles burst from his mouth frantically as he thrashes against the walls. His fists hammer the glass, desperate, but she can see the poison in his veins is stealing his strength. He forces himself to calm, to hold his breath, but even that can’t last for long.
Ice fills Chloe’s veins when he reflexively takes a breath and inhales nothing but water. Panic grips her tight enough she can't breathe either. She turns towards the ceiling, shouting until her voice breaks. “I don’t know! I don’t—how could I know? I don’t believe in that stuff, I never have! But—” She chokes, her throat raw. Her gaze whips back to him, his body twisting under the water, his eyes wide and wild. No matter how he tries to calm himself, his body is panicking from the lack of oxygen. She's hurries on. “But I know one thing: Lucifer is still Lucifer. No matter what he is, he’s him! That is what I believe, what I will always believe!”
The line steadies, and the water slows its rise—but it still doesn’t drain.
Chloe watches, powerless, as Lucifer's movements grow sluggish, his fists slower, the bubbles fewer. Her vision blurs as tears burn hot in her eyes.
“Please...” she whispers, unsure if she’s begging Lucifer to stay with her or for the Game Master to stop.
“One last question, Detective,” the voice says, low and hushed.
Her heart stops as she listens.
“Are you in love with Lucifer Morningstar?”
Before a single thought can fill her mind, the answer rips from her throat, from her heart. “YES!”
The word echoes through the chamber, fierce, raw, ragged. She doesn’t care that it’s wrenched from her, doesn’t care that it’s the last card she has to play. It’s true, and it’s been true longer than she wants to admit.
The monitor stabilizes, the line flat and calm.
The water doesn’t drain.
Again, she whispers, her voice breaking. “Please.” She presses her hand to the glass, fingers splayed over the place where his face is submerged. His eyes flutter, his body limp now. “Please, don’t take him from me.”
The machine clicks off. She rips the band from her arm without looking away from Lucifer. A second later, the glass walls shudder, then begin to sink. Water bursts over the edge to the floor, surging into her chamber in a violent flood. Chloe stumbles back on reflex, then forward, diving as Lucifer's body is swept towards her.
She catches him awkwardly, his dead weight dragging them both down into the knee-deep flood that drains through grates in the floor. Her injured arm screams in pain, but she hauls him upright as much as she can, water streaming from his hair, his face slack and his lips tinged blue.
“No—no, no, no.” Her voice cracks as she lowers him to the slick floor, pushing two fingers to his pulse point.
Nothing.
No pulse.
Without thinking, she presses her palms to his chest and starts compressions, her good arm doing most of the work, her mangled one shaking violently with each push.
“Come on, come on, come on!” She tilts his head back, pinches his nose, and breathes into him, her chest aching as she forces air into his lungs. She draws back and presses again. Over and over, until her arms shake and her breath comes in sobs.
“Please, Lucifer,” she begs, tears streaking her cheeks, dropping onto his soaked skin. “Please don’t leave me. Please don't—”
She breathes into him again. His chest rises with the air, but nothing happens. Two fingers at his neck confirms still no pulse.
“Damn it, Lucifer! Don’t do this! Don’t you dare leave me again!”
No matter how many times she repeats the motions, Lucifer remains unconscious. Not breathing. His heart not beating.
Chloe’s head falls forward, her hair forming a curtain around her face. Another sob rips from her chest. “Lucifer. Please. Please stay,” she breathes brokenly. “I need you.”
A cough rips from him, violent and wet. Water spews from his mouth, splattering her cheek. He convulses, his arms flailing. Chloe gasps, helping him roll onto his side as more water surges out of his lungs, his body wracked with choking coughs.
With a broken sob, relief crashing through her so hard she nearly collapses beside him, Chloe steadies him, her hands trembling on his shoulders. “That’s it, that’s it. Breathe, Lucifer,” she urges.
Somewhere behind them, she registers a door opening, but for now, keeps her focus on her partner.
Lucifer drags in a ragged breath, coughing, then rasps, his voice rough but laced with the faintest wry edge, “Detective...if you wanted...t’kiss me...you coulda just asked.”
A wet, choked laugh bursts out of her before she can stop it. She presses her forehead to his shoulder, shaking, half a sob and half relief. “You idiot,” she whispers, brushing hair from his forehead.
He turns his head slightly, leaning back against her legs, a faint smile on his lips.
The Game Master’s voice cuts back in, sharp and cruel as ever. “Touching. But the clock is still ticking. Forty-six minutes left, Detective. Make them count.”
With a metallic clink, a smaller door slides open at the far end of the chamber. A key gleams in the recess, another token of their torment. Chloe ignores that too. She stays kneeling in the draining flood, her hands steadying Lucifer as his breathing evens out. She can’t bring herself to look at his face, not yet. Not after everything she confessed. But she can feel his gaze on her, heavy and searching.
And she knows. He heard every word, unconscious or not.
She doesn’t realize how tightly she’s gripping his shoulders until he shifts, a low groan rasping out of him.
“Detective,” he says, his voice raw and cracked from coughing, but still distinctly his. “You can stop shaking me, darling. I promise I’ve no intention of drowning twice in one day.”
Chloe jerks her hands back, heat burning behind her eyes. “Shut up,” she mutters, half-laughing. “Just...shut up.”
“Very well.”
She leans back on her heels, dragging her good hand across her face. Her mangled arm throbs with every beat of her pulse. But she can’t let herself break, not now.
Lucifer struggles upright, bracing himself against the floor. Water streams down what’s left of his suit, now plastered to him like a second skin, outlining lines of muscle. He should look absurd—soaked, battered, shaking—but even in this state, there's something untouchable about him. Something stubbornly radiant.
The Game Master’s last words echo through her mind. Forty-six minutes left...
Chloe’s stomach churns. Forty-six minutes to what, exactly? Until the place collapses? Until the poison finishes him off? Until whatever endgame this psychopath has planned comes crashing down?
“We should go,” she says quietly, pushing herself up. Her leg screams in protest, but she forces the pain down. Every step sloshes with water. She snatches the key with her good hand, gripping it so hard the metal cuts into her palm. They still don’t know what these little trinkets are for, only guessing that they’ll be useful, but she isn’t leaving one behind now.
Lucifer watches her from where he leans against the wall. His eyes follow her every move, aware despite the exhaustion dragging at him. She can feel the weight of his gaze even when she refuses to meet it.
“Detective.” His voice is softer now, stripped of everything.
She freezes, the key clenched tight enough to bite into her skin.
He knows. Somehow, he heard every word. Every admission, including that last one, every crack in her voice, every truth she wouldn’t have spoken aloud unless forced.
She swallows hard, shoving the key into her pocket, and turns back towards him. “Are you good? We don’t have long,” she says flatly. Her voice doesn’t sound like her own.
Lucifer tilts his head, studying her with those impossibly knowing eyes. For a heartbeat, she thinks he might say something—something sharp, or teasing, or worse, gentle. But he only pushes himself off the wall with a grimace and moves towards her, slower than usual, unsteady on his feet.
Chloe reaches for him instinctively, steadying his arm with her good hand. His skin is cold beneath her touch. He doesn’t pull away.
“Are you okay?” he murmurs as they leave the chamber.
Part of her wants to laugh. He just freaking drowned, and he’s worried about her?
“Fine,” she mutters, keeping her eyes forward.
Every step they take, she can feel his gaze on her, but she doesn’t look back. Instead, she remembers how she screamed that last answer without hesitation, without meaning to. Or maybe she had meant to, maybe it’s been waiting all along, festering beneath her ribs until the pressure forced it out. And now it’s there, out in the open, impossible to take back.
Somehow, him looking at her after that is worse than the feeling of skin being ripped away from her arm. Because despite whatever she feels, he doesn’t feel the same way. How can he? She’s just...her, ordinary Chloe Jane Decker, and he’s Lucifer bloody Morningstar.
They reach the end of the short corridor. Another sealed door looms before them. Another room with another game that they’ll have to beat. Maybe this time both of them will be hurt. Maybe this will be the end.
What she really wants to know is how the Game Master knows so much about them. He knew exactly what buttons to press, not just with her, but with Lucifer as well. He knew what answers would hurt them most to hear out loud.
Some of it, like her testimony during Perry’s trial, is public record, but other things—Vegas and Candy and feelings neither of them has admitted to anyone? None of that is anyone's business but their own. And this prick is using it against them.
How?
Why?
All she knows for sure is that the clock is ticking. They’re running out of time. She chances a glance at Lucifer as the door swings open into darkness.
“Ready?” she asks quietly.
“Always,” he mutters, squinting into the room as if he can’t quite focus. When they woke up in this nightmare, his eyesight was so above perfect he could see despite it being pitch black. He got them out of that room. Now that eyesight is failing him.
Ahead of them, in the dark room, a single spotlight switches on with a sharp snap. They exchange a look and step inside.
Notes:
Only two more of these chapters before the final one/epilogue. Thanks again for sticking with me! ♥️
Chapter 6: Eenie Meeny Miney Mo
Summary:
Chloe and Lucifer's next 'challenge' forces them to make a choice neither is willing to make.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The room they step into feels wrong the moment Chloe crosses the threshold.
It’s small—ten feet by ten, maybe less, the dimensions so tight, so condensed she can feel them pressing against her. The walls are matte black, swallowing the thin spill of light that follows them in. It’s quiet in a way that doesn’t feel natural, especially if this place really is a warehouse, the kind of quiet that feels designed. As if the walls are padded, built to keep screams from carrying.
She shivers, and not only from the cold.
At the exact center of the room is a sleek, metallic pedestal that stands about waist-high on Lucifer. A single spotlight hangs above it, a harsh white circle cutting through the darkness, drawing their attention towards it.
Under it sits a gun.
It’s just a simple handgun, black and glossy, not unlike the kind she carries at her hip every day. The sight of one here, though, hits Chloe viciously in the stomach. She doesn’t see anything else in this room—no puzzles or clues or sick games. Only the gun. So she focuses on it and immediately notes that there's something off about it. She squints, then frowns. The magazine is fused into the grip. Welded shut. Purposefully tampered with. Which means it shouldn’t fire. It shouldn’t do anything.
In this place, she’s quickly learned not to take anything that looks like safety for granted. And she knows immediately that this room does not intend to play fair.
Behind them, the door slides shut, and the lock clanking into place makes her flinch. The sound is absolute. Final. A punctuation mark. Lucifer reacts immediately, a subtle shift to place himself a fraction ahead of her, his body angled in that protective, infuriating, instinctive way he always denies having. Chloe doesn’t comment. She’s too tired, too raw, too carved open by everything that’s happened. But she notes it, filing it alongside every impossible thing he’s done tonight and every shattering thing they’ve been forced to admit.
Her pulse thuds painfully in her leg wound, in her arm, in her throat.
Lucifer's gaze is fixed on the gun, wary and calculating. Maybe the poison has dulled his edges, but not his awareness. His breathing is still too shallow from drowning. His skin is still too pale. He tilts his head slightly towards her without looking back. She feels the question before he asks it.
“Detective—”
Before he can finish, the intercom crackles to life. The sound is distorted at first, just static and grinding in the dead air of the room, until that voice settles into clarity, as smooth and satisfied as every other time they’ve heard it. It’s the voice of a man who thinks he’s smarter than he is. A man who enjoys the reflection of his own cruelty in the mirror.
“Well,” the Game Master purrs, “the two of you have already made it farther than I expected you would. Barely. How are you feeling, Mr. Morningstar? It seems even drowning can't defeat the Devil.”
Chloe’s throat tightens. The spotlight feels hotter, the room smaller, and she’s no longer sure the effects are just her imagination. Lucifer doesn't bother to respond, but his expression darkens enough to send a shiver down her spine.
The voice chuckles softly, letting the anticipation stretch. “And now,” he continues, “we come to the test that matters the most.”
Lucifer flexes his jaw once in warning. A silent brace yourself, Detective. Chloe curls her fingers into her palm, a sinking feeling she already knows what’s coming. And she isn’t even a little ready for it.
The intercom hums for a beat, like the Game Master is savoring their silence and anxiety before he sinks the knife. Every one of Chloe’s instincts are screaming, but she says nothing; she isn’t sure she’d manage a single syllable if she tried.
“In the last room,” he croons, syrupy sweet, “our...intrepid detective made quite the bold claim, didn’t she?”
Her stomach drops, breath stuttering in her chest.
“A confession of love, wasn’t it?”
She goes rigid. Next to her, Lucifer flinches, nearly imperceptibly, more fury than fear. It’s a flicker in his expression, a tightening around his eyes, barely there but she sees it. She always sees him, even when they’d both rather she didn’t. Blood rushes in her ears and for a moment, she can’t feel her fingers.
Through the intercom, the Game Master tsks like a disappointed teacher. “Well, we can’t just take her word for it, can we? Not in a game like this.”
Lucifer mutters something under his breath, too low for her to catch, but she suspects it’s pure profanity.
“So we’re going to test the theory,” the Game Master purrs. “In five minutes, one of you dies. Or poison gas kills you both. Whichever comes first.”
A soft metallic click sounds behind the walls, then a digital display flickers to life on the far wall.
4:59
4:58
4:57...
“We are not doing this,” Chloe snaps before she can think.
“Yes, well, whilst I am inclined to agree—” Lucifer starts, but he’s cut off by the Game Master’s delighted hum.
“Tick tock.”
Growling under his breath, Lucifer steps forward, scanning the room with the intent of someone who’s analyzed a thousand dangerous scenarios before breakfast. His eyes flick to the vents in the ceiling—sealed, for now. The walls are smooth and unbroken. The pedestal is bolted down, and the door is airtight. Chloe can practically feel his conclusions forming. There's no trick here. No clever bypass. No hidden code.
There is just a gun with a welded magazine—and an ultimatum.
Her right arm is shaking now, tremors running up her shoulder in sharp, brutal pulses. Pain shoots through the shredded muscles, leaving her feeling hot and nauseated. She grits her teeth to keep the groan in her throat from escaping.
Lucifer notices, because he always does, apparently attuned to her every reaction now. He shifts subtly again, barely even a movement, but enough that the pedestal—and the gun—are between him and her. A defensive move. A protective one. An unconscious one.
Chloe’s chest tightens at the gesture. She doesn’t tell him there's no protecting either of them from this one. He can’t shove her out of the way of a threat. She can’t shout answers she’s denied for over a year to keep him alive. They can’t outsmart their captor this time.
The timer ticks louder in her head than the sound of her own pulse in her head.
4:32
4:31...
Her breaths come fast and shallow before she can stop it. The room feels smaller and smaller every second. The gun gleams under the harsh spotlight, even more threatening than before, as if it’s waiting for them to come to a decision.
Lucifer turns his back on the weapon and takes a step closer to her, close enough she can feel the tremor in his breath he can’t hide. The poison’s symptoms have held off this long, but she knows it’s tearing through him faster, since the adrenaline rush of drowning and being brought back. She can see it in his slight sway, the way his hand subtly braces against the air as if reaching for stability that isn’t there.
That timer isn’t only counting down to when they’ll be forced to make a decision; it’s counting down on his life.
Chloe forces herself to straighten, even though the motion sends white-hot pain down her arm. “No one is dying,” she says, more to herself than to him. “Not today, and sure as hell not like this.”
He doesn’t argue, but his silence is worse. It’s a silence that says he's already done the math, and hates the answer. His eyes catch hers for a full two seconds. Two seconds that feel like an eternity, and then he pivots to start prowling the room. This is the predator in him, always assessing, always searching, waking despite the fevered poison, despite the near-drowning.
She watches him, the tiniest crease of worry tugging in her gut. He moves deliberately, pacing, inspecting the walls, testing the seams of the metal doors. Trying to find a way out of this. She wants to reach out, to steady him, but her own injuries have been aggravated and she can’t seem to move.
Finally, he stops at a corner. His knuckles brush along the edge of a door, then the wall. From here, she can see the metal is seamless, the gaps too thin for even her fingers. She notes the faint hum of mechanical locks. Not just locked—sealed. Every surface in this room is continuous, every corner designed to hold them in.
He exhales, almost a whisper, “Nothing. No weak points. No hinges, no cracks.”
Swallowing, Chloe shifts and finally looks back to the gun. She doesn’t touch it, doesn’t dare. The cold, dark metal gleams under the spotlight, as if it was polished right before it was left here for them. Her eyes track every curve, every edge, the barrel, the trigger, the welded magazine.
She tilts her head, studying the chamber. Is there even a bullet in here? The Game Master said this is a test, so maybe that’s the catch. There's no way to tell for sure, though. None. Not without taking it apart—and even then, it could be a trap. She lets her eyes travel down to the pedestal. Surely, there's something. A pressure plate? A motion sensor? A concealed shock mechanism? Some cruel twist that will reward a simple touch with death? She crouches slightly, inspecting angles, shadow lines, the pedestal’s base. Nothing jumps out. At least, nothing obvious.
For a moment, she debates snatching it up and firing at a wall—but apart from those walls probably being steel behind the padding, she suspects the Game Master would simply pump the threatened gas into the room and kill them both. Even if there is no gas, they need their captor to open the next door; he could just leave them locked in until the poison in Lucifer's veins kills him and Chloe starves.
Not an option.
“You see anything?” she asks quietly.
Lucifer is now walking with his head tilted back, studying the vents in the ceiling, his gaze sharpening despite his pallor. “There are narrow pipes running to the vents,” he murmurs, his lips barely moving. “And spouts aimed downward. I suspect this is where the supposed poison gas will be pumped through. But they’re too high to reach.”
Chloe glances up. The ceiling is a good twelve feet above the floor. Definitely too high for her to reach. Too high for him, even. Maybe if she was on his shoulders, but she suspects they’re both too weak to manage it. He jumps once anyway, then again, testing his own limits. The second time, his legs buckle just enough that she can see him wobble. Reflexively, she rushes forward, her good arm outstretched, supporting him before he can fall.
“Careful,” she hisses, breath ragged. Her leg aches in protest, that pain flaring again with every subtle motion, but she ignores it. “You’re already weak. Don’t risk falling.”
Slowly, he straightens, using her support more than either of them wants to admit. Because admitting that he’s weakening further would also mean admitting their time is running out in more ways than one. His fingers brush her wrist, almost unintentionally, but the touch grounds her in a way nothing else has tonight. He inhales sharply, the sound low and ragged.
“There may not be another choice,” he murmurs, barely audible—like he doesn’t want the Game Master to overhear. His eyes flick towards the gun, then to her.
Her chest tightens. All of her instincts scream to push back, to challenge, to defy. “There’s always a choice,” she says firmly, forcing her voice to stay even despite the fear pulsing through her. “We find another way. There has to be another way.”
Rather than agreeing, he shakes his head once in a way that’s faint and exhausted, but not defeated. “Maybe not,” he mutters. Then he swallows, voice tightening. “Time...it’s...”
Turning to the wall, her eyes track the timer. 3:58... The numbers seem to scream at them, relentless, merciless.
Time is running out.
Chloe steps closer, hands hovering near him, though she can’t quite touch him yet, not without risking the agonizing flare up her shredded arm. Ignoring the duller ache in her leg, she plants herself firmly, rooting herself to the floor. “Then we make one,” she says, meeting his gaze. “We always make one, Lucifer. We just haven’t found it yet.”
Lucifer gives her one of those long, searching stares where it feels like he’s seeing a whole lot more than what’s on the surface. His normally bright, dark brown eyes are raw, the pupils dilated. For a moment, she can see the unspoken war behind those eyes, the calculation of survival, the fear he won’t have the luxury to choose. And just the barest hint of softness that hardly lasts a second.
Exhaling slowly, he leans back from the vents. There's a faint hiss of a gas system in the ceiling, which all but confirms Lucifer's suspicions about what is meant to come through the pipes. His eyes sweep the room again, flicking from the pedestal to the spotlight to the wall. He’s looking, probing, desperate to find weak points—but the room refuses to yield.
Swallowing again, Chloe keeps her gaze on him, her heart hammering harder. “We’re not giving up,” she says, almost to herself, almost a promise to the air, the room, the Game Master. To Lucifer.
When he straightens fully, he moves back to the center of the room, his fingers flexing at his sides. He doesn’t argue, but he also doesn’t come up with some last-second Hail Mary the way he sometimes tends to. Although he tries to mask whatever thoughts are going through his head, Chloe has gotten good at reading him, especially in this place—and she can see the faint tinge of fear in his eyes. He’s restless and fidgeting, his mind moving a mile a minute—but he’s got about as much as she does: absolutely nothing.
3:00
2:59...
For a moment, they just stand there, breathing, calculating, leaning on each other without touching, facing the impossible together. Chloe feels the air in the room thickening, like the walls are closing in, but she knows it’s emotional, psychological, all in her head. But it’s enough that she can’t think with her usual rationalization and logic.
Lucifer stands beside her with tense shoulders, his gaze fixed on the walls like he’s trying to burn a doorway through them by sheer force of will. His breathing is becoming more uneven, both too shallow and too fast. She can’t look at that. Not right now, not when the seconds are slipping away like sand between fingers.
Her anger spikes hot, searing through the fog in her head. She straightens suddenly, ignoring every throb of pain it sends through her. “Hey!” she shouts towards the ceiling. “You said these rooms were puzzles!”
Lucifer startles, turning his head to look at her.
Chloe presses on, louder, firing each word like a bullet. “They’re supposed to have solutions—ways for us both to get out alive. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? Solve them. Survive.” Her voice trembles, but not from fear. She’s pissed. “So where’s the puzzle here? Huh? What’s the trick? What are we supposed to solve?”
A beat passes in silence as thick as humidity. Then the intercom crackles to life again, and she can practically feel the smug delight coming through those speakers.
“Oh, Detective,” the Game Master croons. “Do you really think everything has to be riddles and locks? Symbols and clues?” He laughs mockingly. “Sometimes the challenge...is simply choice.”
She feels her stomach twist. “A choice isn’t a puzzle.”
“Isn’t it?” His tone turns giddy, like he’s explaining a magic trick to a child. “You think the earlier rooms had solutions. That you solved them. But tell me—did you? Really?"
Her jaw clenches. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”
“Oh, absolutely. You’re alive.” He couldn’t sound happier about that fact. “But that doesn’t mean you won the puzzle. Maybe it just means the puzzle wasn’t ready for you yet.”
Feeling lightheaded, Chloe closes her eyes for half a second. Her entire body is screaming from agony and exhaustion. But she isn’t even close to being done. “This isn’t a puzzle,” she says coldly. “This is murder.”
“Semantics,” the Game Master scoffs.
Lucifer shifts slightly beside her, which could just be his usual fidgeting, or it could be him trying not to lose his balance. At his side, his hand shakes before he gets it under control. As he’s trying to do that, though, he lists to the side a few inches—Chloe shoots out a hand to grab his upper arm, steadying him.
“Tell us the actual challenge,” she demands. “Tell us what we’re missing.”
“Everything,” he sings. “Or nothing. Doesn’t matter. The clock’s ticking either way.”
2:45...
The numbers seem to blink brighter, harsher.
Lucifer shakes his head once, small but decisive. “Detective,” he murmurs, “it’s no use.”
She turns to him, breath catching. “Lucifer—”
“He won’t give answers,” he says, softer, meant only for her ears. “He’s only responding at all because he wants to run the clock down. The only game here is his own.”
Chloe shakes her head, refusing to conclude that one of them is meant to kill the other just to leave this room. “No. No, there has to be something. He said puzzles, he said—”
“Yes,” he interrupts gently. “And we played along.” He gestures to the seamless door, to the vents, to the gun staring back at them from under the spotlight. “But not this time. This room isn’t meant to be solved. It’s meant to corner us.”
“We are not cornered.”
“We are.” He says it simply, quietly. And she hates how completely resolved he sounds beneath the rasp in his throat.
She looks around, feeling helplessness start to creep in. She searches for something, anything, that they might have missed so far, in their panic. But there's just walls and the clock still ticking down. “So...what? We just accept this?”
More seconds tick down in silence. A muscle leaps in Lucifer's jaw as he watches her rather than the clock.
“No,” he murmurs, “we don’t accept it. We acknowledge it.”
2:30...
Before she can even begin to work out what he’s actually saying, the Game Master’s voice slinks back through the speakers. “Well, Detective? Devil? Your time is halfway up. One of you needs to pull that trigger.”
Chloe clenches her jaw so hard pain sparks in her temple. “We’ll find a way out,” she says, steady as she can manage. Which, under the circumstances, isn’t very steady at all.
Lucifer turns towards her fully now. Even poisoned and weakened, he manages that infuriating gentleness he reserves for her. Without him opening his mouth, she knows he’s trying to soften the blow of whatever he’s going to say next. “Detective.” He shakes his head slightly. “There isn’t one, darling. Not this time.”
“There has to be,” she says, her voice weaker than she wanted it to be.
His gaze falters, something unbearably sad flickering in his eyes.
2:18
2:17...
He steps closer, his hand resting against her good arm, bracing and steadying both of them. “Detective,” he says, even softer now. “If we stay here, the gas kills you. And that is the last thing I desire.”
Her chest tightens at both his tone and his phrasing. “Then we die together,” she says.
Just for a moment, his eyes close. Like the words land too deeply. Like they hurt more than the poison. “Please don’t say that,” he whispers.
She starts to respond, but he sways again, and her hand shoots out instinctively to pull him closer again. Pain bursts like lightning through her shredded arm, dragging a gasp from her lungs. He reacts instantly, catching her good elbow, keeping her balanced.
“Easy,” he says, eyes scanning her face for signs of collapse. “You’ve lost too much blood and with all the energy you’ve expended—”
“And you’re dying,” she fires back.
A corner of his mouth twitches in response, though not in amusement. He just looks exhausted and resigned, as if he’s already given up hope on himself.
Chloe tries to pull him towards the wall, towards the floor. “Sit. You need to conserve your strength.”
He resists, muscles going taut. “No.”
“Lucifer...”
“If I sit now, I may not get back up,” he says with a terrifying calm. “And we cannot afford that right now.”
“So you’re just going to stand here and pass out? Great plan,” she snaps, masking her fear with anger now.
The look he gives her says he’s already made a decision he knows she’s going to hate. He takes her good arm, gently, careful not to touch the mangled one. “Detective,” he says, soft but urgent. “I need you to stop and listen to me.”
Behind the words, she hears the meaning. The plea. The farewell coiled in the center. “No,” she whispers, panic in her voice she can’t hide. “No, don’t you dare act like you’re already gone.”
His grasp tightens a fraction around her elbow, while she tries to think of anything that could keep him fighting.
1:54
1:53...
“I meant what I said back there,” she blurts before she can stop herself. “I meant the—what I said in the water room. Maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly, but it—”
A sharp sound crackles over the speaker—amusement, delight and venomous. “Oho. Is this a lovers’ quarrel? How touching.”
Lucifer stiffens, a corner of his mouth curling in a snarl as fury flashes through him, but Chloe presses on, paying no mind to the man behind the speakers. “But it wasn’t a lie. And either we both get out of here,” she says, shaky, “or neither of us does. I’m not choosing. Do you hear me? I won’t choose.”
Swallowing hard, Lucifer nods once, a shuddering exhale leaving through his nose. “No. No, you don’t have to choose.”
Chloe opens her mouth to ask what he means, whether he’s come up with a plan—even though she suspects he hasn’t. But he moves before she can take a breath. He steps back, letting his hand fall from her arm. With the other hand he reaches towards the pedestal, his fingers closing around the gun as though it weighs a hundred pounds. Her breath stutters, her body going rigid as something primal and terrified flares through her chest.
“No,” she whispers, not knowing which possibility she’s denying.
But at least they know there's no pressure plate or hidden mechanism. It isn’t the relief she hoped it would be.
He doesn’t raise the weapon. He doesn't point it at her.
He turns the barrel towards himself.
Chloe feels her heart free fall. “Lucifer.”
Without taking his gaze from her face, he steps closer. She notes absently that he’s much warmer than he normally is, which is saying something—the poison boiling his insides?
And then he puts the gun in her hand.
All the blood in her veins turns to ice instantly, and Chloe stops breathing entirely, even as her fingers curl reflexively around the grip. She tries to reject it, to drop the damn thing, but his hand covers hers, his thumb stroking lightly over her knuckles. He lifts her arm with his, guiding, until the muzzle presses flush to the center of his chest. Directly over his heart.
Point-blank. Zero hesitation.
For a split second, her vision blurs before snapping back into unnerving clarity. “Lucifer, no,” she says as firmly as possible. She tries to pull free of his grip, but he’s holding on just tightly enough that she can’t. He isn’t hurting her in the slightest, but he isn’t being gentle either. “Let me go.”
“I’m already poisoned,” he says in a low voice, an apology edging his tone. “You know what that feels like, Detective. You know the time constraint. I can feel it spreading.” His breath hitches; she feels the way his chest expands beneath her hand, the way it shudders. “If you...if you do this, then you survive. You walk out of this room, and you’ll have the chance to go home to your child.”
“No.” She shakes her head so violently her wet hair whips across her face. “Lucifer, no, no, no—I didn't save your life with CPR just to shoot you now.”
She tries to stumble backwards, but she loses her balance. Of course, he’s right there to catch her. His hand lands on her hip, stabilizing her as gently as if she were something breakable. Right now, she is. She knows she is. But so is he.
“Lucifer, please don’t make me—”
His eyes brighten slightly, turning glassy at the edges with pain she doesn’t think is entirely the poison’s work. Or even his near drowning. “Detective.” There's a tremor in the single word. “I won’t let you die for me. I just—I can’t. Not when there's a way out.”
“This is not a way out,” she snaps, her voice splintering. “This isn’t a solution, Lucifer. This is suicide.”
“Yes, well, I can assure you, I’ve done far worse for the sake of keeping you safe.”
Chloe sputters. “I won’t kill you.”
He looks like he’s been struck. A flinch so small she almost misses it—but she doesn’t. She feels it in the way his body leans into the gun instead of away from it. When he drags his gaze up, his eyes are filled with an agony she’s never seen in him before.
“I am not worth this,” he says through gritted teeth, the words ripping out like they’ve been festering. “I’m not worth you.”
The ache in her chest twists so sharply she nearly doubles over. “You are,” she whispers raggedly. “To me, you are. You always have been, even if you can't see it.”
The look in his eyes wavers, breaks, then reforms into something sharper. “Detective,” he breathes, as if pleading now, as if begging her to understand the calculus he’s already accepted. “I will not watch you die. I can’t.”
“And I can’t kill you.”
Flicking his gaze to the clock on the wall—1:00—he looks back at her and pushes again, curling her finger around the trigger. Panic floods her system now, and she yanks her hand away like she’s touched fire, and his grip loosens enough for her to let go. The gun finally drops from her palm, hitting the floor with a flat metallic crack that echoes through the sealed room.
On some level, she gets his twisted logic—they don’t know how much time is left before the poison in his system burns through him entirely. And in sixty seconds, if one of them doesn’t pull that trigger, there's a very good chance this room will be pumped full of poison gas that will kill them both. So taking out the weak link between them—him—to save the strong one might not make this whole stupid thing in vain.
But even knowing that, she can’t just...kill her partner in cold blood. Not now, not ever. But especially not now that she shouted out her feelings for him in that last room. No matter what, it would destroy her. Can’t he see that?
On the digital wall timer, the numbers bleed red and merciless.
00:45...
Lucifer looks at the timer. Then at her. Then at the discarded gun on the floor. When he looks at her again, it’s with an expression that says the world is ending. But that only lasts for half a second before resolve washes over him, like he’s come to another decision—and she’ll like this one even worse.
“You deserve to live, Chloe,” he says, his voice so agonized that it’s physical. “Even if it means I don’t.”
Her lungs seize. For a moment, all she can do is stand there, trembling, as the words hollow something in her chest. Anger surges, bright and wild. Grief crashes against it. Love threads between the two like molten wire. And beneath all of that is terror sharp enough to draw blood.
“Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t say that.”
But he steps closer, undoing her plea with the gentlest touch. His fingers cup her jaw, tracing the line of her cheek as if he’s memorizing it. His hand shakes so badly she has to lift hers to steady it, holding him together because he’s coming apart in front of her. He meets her gaze, eyes flicking between both of hers, though what he’s looking for, she isn’t sure. He must find it; a corner of his mouth hitches up briefly, but he can’t seem to hold it in place.
He leans in, their foreheads brushing. “Detective...” he says, so quietly it’s barely audible, his breath ghosting across her mouth.
And then his mouth is on hers.
The kiss is brief, hardly lasting more than a second or two. It isn’t even the kiss they shared on the beach months back—or the kisses they’ve shared in her dreams since she’s known him. This is a goodbye disguised as touch. A desperate seal. A need to feel her one last time.
It isn’t romantic. It’s terminal.
She feels it—the apology pressed between their lips before she hears it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against her lips. “I’m so very sorry. I’ll find you again, Chloe. You have my word.”
Before she can react or ask what he’s talking about, before she can reach for him, before she can demand he take the words back, he pulls away from her. His hand slips from her cheek, while his eyes flicker, full of regret so deep it terrifies her more than anything in this house of horrors.
Then he moves, quick and decisive, far faster than a dying man should move. He ducks down and sweeps the gun from the floor, takes a step back. All of it happens almost quicker than she can process, and she’s left staring dumbly, numb, hollowed by the kiss he just tore himself away from.
Finally, she finds her voice. “No,” she breathes in horror, too late. “Lucifer, don’t!”
But he’s already lifting the gun to his temple.
Everything detonates in her veins.
Chloe lunges, stumbling over the slickness in her vision, over her own pain, over everything in her trying to shut down. She reaches him, shoves at his arm, anything—
“Lucifer, STOP!”
He closes his eyes.
And pulls the trigger.
A click—the dry, empty sound of a gun without a bullet in its chamber—echoes through the room.
Silence slams down behind it, but the roar of her pulse in her ears is deafening.
There's a moment when Chloe’s entire body forgets how to function. She stares, unable to breathe, unable to think, unable to feel anything except that sound ricocheting around the room. Her knees give. If not for the wall, she’d hit the floor. Her hand flies to her mouth, not to stifle a scream but because her lungs refuse to cooperate.
Very slowly, her brain kicks back online.
Lucifer doesn’t crumble. He doesn’t follow her to the floor. He just stands there, the gun still touching his temple, his arm trembling like the weight of the empty weapon might crush him.
He opens his eyes, and a shuddering breath escapes him, ragged and disbelieving. It’s the most human sound she’s ever heard from him. Relief, shock, devastation, and exhaustion all rolls over him at once. He lowers the gun slowly, fingers quivering around the grip.
“Detective,” he exhales, his voice as utterly stunned as she feels. “I thought—”
He can’t finish. Neither can she.
The timer on the wall is still ticking.
00:20...
All at once, the breath returns to Chloe’s lungs, too fast, too sharp. Relief crashes through her so violently her vision swims. Lucifer is alive. The gun is empty. The click is still echoing in her bones. Almost immediately, that relief mutates. Hardens. Ignites. Before she can stop herself, she steps forward and shoves him. Her injuries turn it into little more than a light push, but the intent lands clean.
“You...absolute...self-sacrificing, reckless, idiotic bastard!”
Lucifer actually stumbles a half-step, more from surprise than her force. He blinks down at her, wide-eyed, chest heaving, trying to process the sudden change in temperature.
“Detective—”
“No!” Her voice cracks. From emotion rather than volume. From the image burned into her brain of him pulling the trigger. From the kiss he meant as a goodbye. From the way he looked at her like she was the only thing worth saving. “Do you have any idea—any idea—what you just—”
“I rather thought I was being noble, actually,” he offers weakly, trying to summon humor. It comes out strangled and wrong. “Though in hindsight, perhaps not my finest—”
“Not your finest?!” Her hand shakes as she points at the gun still hanging from his fingers. “You scared me to death, Lucifer! If you ever do that to me again, I will murder you myself!”
The look in his eyes softens. His arms curl around her shoulders, pulling her close to his chest. “I’m all right,” he murmurs against her hair. “I’m here.”
When she feels his heart thundering against her chest, the anger drains out of her like it was never there. She rests her forehead to his collarbone for a moment, breathing him in. He’s still soaking wet from the water room, and he smells like dirt and blood—her blood—but underneath all that, she inhales him.
“Don’t do it again,” she whispers weakly.
He presses his chin to her head. “Understood,” he murmurs. “No more...dramatic gestures.” Then he stiffens, almost imperceptibly. If she weren’t pressed right up against him, she wouldn’t have noticed. “Detective...”
Before she can lift her head or ask him why he sounds uncertain, a slow, deliberate clap comes through the speakers.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Mocking applause fills the black room like a spotlight aimed at their rawest nerve.
Chloe pulls away from Lucifer, barely registering the pain in her arm as she turns towards the ceiling, every muscle going taut again.
Then the Game Master’s voice oozes over the speakers. “Bravo.”
Her stomach immediately clenches.
“Truly. I didn’t see that twist coming,” he drawls, delighted in a way that makes her skin crawl. “You two really are...something else. The drama, the tension, the sacrifices. Impressive.”
Lucifer tenses beside her, jaw ticking. Chloe feels her irritation like a static charge in the air, vibrating against her already-frayed nerves.
“But really,” the Game Master continues, “I have to commend the performance. Detective, your steadfast refusal to kill him—touching. Predictable, but touching.”
Her breath stutters, fury flaring again, hot and instantaneous. Her fingers curl into her palms. She wants to yell, to tear the speakers out the ceiling, to do something, anything—but he isn’t done.
“And you, Mr. Morningstar...” The pause is theatrical and cruel.
Lucifer stands up straighter.
“...the way you threw yourself at death with such reckless enthusiasm? All to protect the woman you supposedly care about despite ghosting her for weeks?” A low whistle filters through the speaker. “I’m impressed. Really. That was...commitment.”
Lucifer's expression darkens, something dangerous flickering behind his eyes. But Chloe knows that kind of anger, knows it’s a shield against the very real panic still ghosting through him.
The Game Master chuckles. “I must admit, I expected tears. Maybe some fighting, a bit of wrestling over the gun. Another confession, perhaps.” His tone sharpens into mock-admiration. “But a self-inflicted shot to the head? Bravo, again. You’ve outdone yourselves.”
Exchanging a look with Lucifer, Chloe’s breath turns shallow. She doesn’t want Lucifer hearing this. She doesn’t want herself hearing this. Every word is another finger pressed into a bruise.
Which, of course, is the intention.
“Anyway,” the Game Master sighs, as if bored now that the show has ended, “you may proceed. No new prize in this room.”
A heavy lock clunks in the wall behind them. Light shifts, brighter, colder, and a section of the far wall slides open, revealing a short metal walkway leading to a massive industrial door beyond it. The air from the new corridor carries a faint smell of oil and dust.
Chloe feels her pulse still racing too hard. Lucifer's breathing sounds even unsteadier beside her, chest rising too fast, too shallow. His hands are shaking—at least until he stuffs them into his pockets.
Right now, emotion is the last thing either of them can afford. They’re both held together by adrenaline and sheer will. For now, that will have to be enough.
Adjusting her stance, Chloe forces her voice to something resembling even. “Come on,” she murmurs.
Lucifer nods once, swallowing hard, gathering himself with visible difficulty. “Right. Yes. Onward.”
They step together through the door, and she’s happier to leave behind this room than most the others—second only to the water room.
The new hallway swallows them whole. It’s longer than the others, colder than the others, the air metallic and biting against Chloe’s wet clothes and exposed wounds. Every step sends a throb up her right arm, a sting through her leg, but she keeps moving. Lucifer keeps pace beside her, though his gait is uneven, listing ever so slightly to the right.
For a long moment, the only sound is their footsteps, soft and dragging and echoing off steel walls that feel too narrow and too tall.
Chloe swallows, throat tight. “Did you...somehow know the gun wasn’t real? That there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber?”
Lucifer doesn’t look at her as he answers. “No.”
A beat passes, heavy as stone.
“And you still...” She shakes her head, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. “You still pulled the trigger?”
“Detective,” he murmurs softly, “I would never ask you to shoot me.”
She looks at him sidelong as a ghost of a smirk appears on his lips for three whole seconds. “Well, not mortally, that is.” His fingers brush against the outside of his right thigh—where Chloe's bullet once grazed him.
A breathless, humorless laugh escapes her before she can choke it back. It hurts her ribs to do it. It hurts more to hear the sincerity in his voice. She has no answer. None that won’t break something open inside both of them.
So she keeps walking.
They stop in front of the massive industrial rolling door—a metal slab stretching from floor to ceiling, big enough for a truck to pass through. It looks like the kind of entrance that leads to a warehouse-sized nightmare.
Chloe and Lucifer turn to each other at the same time. He opens his mouth, probably to make some quip to put her at ease—but he stops, furrowing his eyebrows. She can feel the color draining from her face, then the rest of her.
“Detective, what’s wrong? Do I have something on my face?”
He starts to lift a hand, but she beats him to it, wiping just under his left nostril. When she draws her hand back, her fingertips are smeared with red.
Blood.
Notes:
And there it is. The poison finally catching up with Lucifer. Next chapter is the final challenge and the literal race for their lives. Thank you as ever for reading. I promise there is light at the end of the tunnel (the good kind. Not the heavenly kind...).
Chapter 7: The Last Run
Summary:
Chloe and Lucifer finally reach the last of the Game Master's challenge. But with Lucifer's nose bleeding now, it might make things rather more difficult for everyone.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Lucifer's lungs still burn from his near drowning. His heart is still racing from his attempt to sacrifice himself for her sake.
He isn’t entirely sure what happened in the room before last, if he’d truly died and Chloe brought him back, but for a moment, he dreamed of Hell. That he was walking its corridors again. Maybe it hadn’t been a dream. Either way, it’s easier to think about than what just happened in the black room.
Maybe the burning isn’t from the drowning or trying to pull the trigger at all. It could be the poison boiling away at his internal organs, its progress sped up by his panic.
Or it could be Chloe’s confessions in the water room.
Are you in love with Lucifer Morningstar?
YES!
Even as water filled his lungs and he felt his entire world come to a complete, dark standstill, he heard her shout that word without an ounce of hesitation in her voice. He felt the mix of elation and devastation war in his heart. Elation because he was sure nobody could ever love the Devil, and to have that from Chloe especially is its own form of divinity. Devastation because...well, that might just be more evidence that her feelings are being manufactured by his father. That being a miracle means she has no choice but to care for him. Not even him abandoning her and marrying a stranger was enough to smother her feelings.
See again: nobody could love the Devil.
But he’d also seen the panic in her eyes when he held that gun to his temple, when he pulled the trigger. He felt her relief as she trembled against him. Somehow, he suspects that if his father is controlling her, he hadn’t made her genuine concern for him part of the starter package.
As they approach the next room, water dripping from both of them, Lucifer tries to force his heart into some semblance of normality rather than set to jackhammer. While his lungs burn, his brain feels like jello. His vision is swimming to the point he can no longer tell what was caused by the drowning, the gun, the poison, or Chloe’s unwavering loyalty.
They stop outside the industrial rolling door, and he glances at her to find her watching him with utter horror. For one terrible second, he wonders if his eyes are burning with hellfire. Her already pale face drains of what little color it has left as she looks, not at his eyes, but an inch or two lower.
Furrowing his eyebrows, he turns to her. “Detective, what’s wrong?” he asks, his voice thinner than it should be. “Do I have something on my face?”
She doesn’t answer. She only reaches for him, fingers brushing beneath his nose with maddening gentleness. When she pulls back her fingertips are red.
Lucifer feels his stomach drop.
Nosebleed.
Unbidden, the memory comes rushing back. The night he went charging into Chloe’s apartment, determined to get answers, even as his heart felt like it’d been turned to ash. Heartbreak and devastation disguised themselves as anger as he burst into her bedroom and demanded to know if she had been aware of the miracle.
Then she turned to him, her expression one of barely concealed panic. Lucifer, something’s wrong. It won’t stop.
The moment he saw that blood, he knew. Because they’d both seen it before, quite recently, with Ashley Corbett at the party. The first physical symptom of Jason Carlisle’s cruel designer poison. Lucifer had never felt such fear before at the thought that Chloe might suffer the same fate as the other victims. That he was about to lose her forever. In that moment, miracles and his father hadn’t mattered. All that did was saving her.
Now it’s happening to him. His celestialness may have held off the worst of the poison’s effects for a time, but between his vulnerability near Chloe and the adrenaline rush of drowning a short while ago, it seems the grace period is up.
Lucifer turns his head away from her, quickly swiping beneath his nose and wiping the blood on his already ruined trousers. When he turns back, Chloe is still looking at her own fingers streaked with crimson. He wipes that away too.
“We have to keep moving,” he murmurs. “This place...full of dry air. I’m sure this is nothing.”
But even as he speaks the attempted (and failed) reassurance, he can feel the poison advancing again, turning his blood to molten lava. This is his body starting to fail.
Which means if they don’t move quickly, he’ll fail Chloe. And that...well, that isn’t an option.
Chloe stares at him. Her mouth opens as if to argue, to demand the truth. He can’t even meet her eyes.
Before either of them can speak, mercifully—or perhaps cruelly—a heavy groan of machinery splits the stunned silence. The door in front of them shudders and begins to rise, rattling on unseen chains.
Lucifer immediately seizes on the distraction. He straightens his spine, ignoring the way his body screams against the motion, and gestures towards the opening with a flick of his hand. “Well, let's see what awaits us next,” he says, and forces himself forward before she can say a word.
Every step is a performance. His gait is steady, despite how his legs want to buckle, and he lifts his chin defiantly, tasting iron in the back of his throat. The copper tang clings stubbornly, no matter how he swallows it down.
Behind him, Chloe follows in silence. He can feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull, questioning, accusing, but most of all, afraid. And he doesn’t dare look back.
The door opens fully and what lies beyond isn’t another cramped corridor, but a cavernous chamber.
Lucifer stops dead in the threshold.
The space is massive—far too massive to belong in any underground warren. His first thought, absurdly, is of Lux: the wide open expanse of his club’s main floor, multiplied a hundredfold, stripped of warmth and music. Steel rafters soar into shadow overhead. Light shafts slash down from somewhere impossibly high, catching the haze of dust through the air.
And below, between, above—everywhere—is machinery.
Tracks coil and twist, spiraling across levels and layers, intersecting in maddening tangles. Pendulums hang like guillotines. Cogs the size of carriages glint dully in the dim light. Chains span chasms. Pipes twist upward like roots made of iron.
Lucifer exhales as he takes it all in. “Bloody hell,” he breathes.
Beside him, Chloe draws in a sharp breath. “What...what even is this?”
His lips curve involuntarily, humorlessly, as both awe and dread rise. “It’s a Rube Goldberg machine,” he murmurs absently.
Her head turns towards him. “A what?”
“A pointless contraption, Detective,” he explains, his voice hushed as if even sound might disturb the monstrosity. “Overcomplicated mechanisms designed to accomplish something trivial. A ball rolls, a lever tips, a string pulls—cause and effect, endless, absurd. But I’ve never seen one of this...magnitude.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. “Right, yeah. I helped Trixie make one for the science fair last year. But this...isn’t some toy.”
“No,” he says grimly, eyes tracing the endless labyrinth of parts, “this is a nightmare wearing the skin of one.”
“So what now?”
Lucifer takes a step forward, trying to think clearly enough to give her an answer. His brain has gone from jello to soup. His vision blurs at the edges, dark motes swimming in his periphery. Heat pulses in his gut, rippling outward until even his skin feels like it's catching fire. In his confusion, he actually looks down to check he hasn’t transformed into his Devil form. But he’s still him—at least on the outside. His head swims, his feet suddenly too big for his body, and he lurches forward, nearly falling into the abyss of machinery.
He catches himself on a railing, fingers white-knuckled for balance, the steel protesting his grip.
“Lucifer!” Chloe catches his arm, ducking beneath it to give him something to lean on. Panic rolls off her in waves, though she tries her damnedest to hide it.
“Fine,” he rasps, hating how weak it sounds. He needs to keep her calm, keep her from losing her head, because he can feel he’s certainly lost his. “Just...dazzled by the view.” He even manages to throw her a crooked smile.
Inside, he can feel his organs start to simmer and boil, every breath drawing scalding air into lungs that scream against it. He can almost hear the poison laughing, racing through him even faster now, triumphant.
Chloe’s eyes search his face, not fooled for a second. “Hey. Stay with me, okay?” she says quietly. “Come on, let’s get you sitting down.”
“No, I have to—”
“Lucifer, for once, just...let me take care of you. All right? You need to get off your feet before you drop.”
As much as he wants to argue, he’s in no shape to do so. He lets her guide him slowly to a nearby wall and he slides down, landing harder than intended. Without meaning to, his eyes scan every inch of the massive contraption. Even half-blind, he recognizes the missing links. He played with the stars themselves, threaded patterns into the sky. And this machine, grotesque parody that it is, whispers its own broken constellation.
He swallows hard against the blood in his throat, forcing the words out. “Pieces,” he chokes. “Missing pieces. We’ll...we’ll have to place them.”
Chloe frowns, crouching down in front of him. “What do you mean?”
“Track. Ball. Gear. Ones...from the puzzles,” he manages. “Pockets.”
Realization dawns in her eyes and she digs through his pockets, retrieving the trinkets they were given in the previous rooms. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognizes he should have some quip or innuendo on his tongue, but right now, there's nothing. Then she turns to look at the machine.
“You can tell where they go?” she asks, surprised.
“Intuition, ‘tective.” His lips twitch. “Call it a...speciality.”
“You seem to have a lot of those.”
Part of him wants to preen at the praise, or at least make an inappropriate comment so she’ll roll her eyes. But he can’t even manage that much. He starts to slump sideways, and she catches him.
“Don’t you dare,” she says, her voice taut and fierce. “Don’t collapse on me now. Not when we’re this close.”
Lucifer wants to laugh, to tell her that close and far are meaningless when measured against eternity. Instead, he lifts a shaking hand, pointing towards the machine. “The track—third level, left side. The gear—middle spindle. The ball...” His sight swims, black edging in. “The curve. The spiral chute. You’ll see it. Do you still have the key?”
Chloe reaches into her own pocket, pulling out the small golden key from the room where they both drowned, him more literally. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got it. Just hang on, all right? The antidote has to be nearby. We’re going to get it, and you’re going to be fine.”
He bites down on the uncertainty that anything will make him fine at this point. She doesn’t need to hear that. “Go...” he whispers. Maybe she can still save herself.
Though she hesitates a beat longer, she leans forward, pressing a long kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be back. Hold on.”
He wants to answer, but his chest locks, air stuttering in and out like broken bellows. He can’t force any words past the pressure. His jaw tightens until his teeth ache. He nods instead, shallow, desperate.
And then she’s gone.
Her shoes clang on the stairs as she climbs towards the third level. Each metallic note reverberates through his skull like hammer strikes. Lucifer presses his head back against the wall, every muscle in his body trembling. Sweat soaks his hair even further, sliding down his temples. He’s burning from the inside out, but his skin feels clammy and cold.
He tips his head back, forcing his eyes to stay open. High above, Chloe wrestles with the track, jamming it into place. He can almost see the pattern realigning, the broken loop beginning to close. But all he wants to see is her, one last time.
Forcing his eyes to focus as much as they can, he traces her outline, memorizes the way the light glints off her damp hair. Even injured as badly as she is, she isn’t stopping. That stubborn determination of hers pushing on. She isn’t giving up, still holding out hope that they’ll both survive this.
Well, he has no doubt she’ll find a way to. But him...he’s all but done. Soon, he’ll be headed back to Hell—again, much sooner than planned. He isn’t thinking about how much he’ll miss Lux or Los Angeles or even his piano and a nice whiskey. Everything he’ll miss is currently struggling with machinery parts, trying desperately to save him.
He should have told her after the water tank room. After she confessed her feelings for him haven’t changed. That she loves him. Those confessions weren’t made just to save him or advance to the next room. They were absolute truth. He tried to say it back, mouthing the words as he drowned, but he isn't sure she saw. In the last room, before he lifted that gun to his head, he took a breath to tell her everything, but even then, he didn’t have the nerve. And instead of telling her he feels exactly the same, he locked up—and now it’s too late. Even if he says it now, she won’t hear him. She’s too far away.
“Come on, come on,” she mutters, her voice carrying down through the cavernous space.
Lucifer tries to call back, to say something, but the attempt collapses into a ragged choke. His chest seizes, fire clawing his lungs. He doubles over, coughing hard enough to paint his hand red when he pulls it away from his mouth.
Fuck.
“Detective...” he rasps, though he knows she can’t hear.
His vision spins, tilting sideways. Or maybe that’s his body, he can no longer tell which way is up. The machine warps in his sight, the tracks bending into serpents, the gears into fanged maws. He blinks hard, trying to wrestle reality back into place, but the poison is merciless.
His insides boil. His veins sear. And for the first time in...well, eons, Lucifer Morningstar feels powerless in the truest sense of the word.
Somewhere above, Chloe’s voice cuts through the haze. “Got it!”
Of course she does. Clever Detective.
Lucifer sags, his body giving out. His vision blurs worse than before, as if it’s collapsing inward. Each heartbeat is another hammer blow, reverberating through organs already cooking alive. He can’t hold on much longer.
But he’ll try. Because she’s still running, still fighting, and he can’t—won’t—fail her now.
Not Chloe. Never Chloe.
Every breath Chloe takes burns her lungs, but she doesn’t stop pounding up the grated stairs. Her arm screams, the bad one barely able to hold onto the rail. She can’t stop. Lucifer's ragged cough still echoes in her ears, wet and broken, and the sound is worse than anything the Game Master has thrown at them so far. Without looking, she knows he coughed up blood. She has to ignore the way her heart screams.
The only thing that will help him now is the antidote. And her gut tells her this...machine or whatever it is will lead them to it.
She shoves the steel track into place, scraping her knuckles across the jagged edge. It resists at first, warped and misaligned, but Chloe slams her shoulder into it, ignoring the flare of agony across her ribs. The metal finally clangs into its socket, reverberating like a gong.
“One down,” she pants. “Come on, come on...”
She glances down instinctively. Lucifer is a dark shape against the wall far below, his frame hunched and trembling. Even from here she can see the faint smear of red on his hand as he coughs into it, the shine of sweat streaking his face. Her stomach turns. Lucifer should never look like that.
“Hold on,” she whispers, her throat tight. “Please hold on.”
The gear is next. Chloe sprints across the grated platform, boots slamming in time with her heartbeat. She almost slips on the oil-slick sheen pooled along one of the beams, but catches herself on the railing. She shoves the gear into place, twisting it until the teeth catch with the one beside it. The machine groans in response, as if something ancient is stirring to life.
“The ball...” comes Lucifer's faint whisper. It’s barely a breath, but somehow carries to her.
“Yeah,” she calls back. “Yeah. Two down, Lucifer. Just the ball now.”
She searches, eyes darting over the labyrinth of scaffolds and tracks. Then she sees it—the spiral chute gleaming like a beacon on the far curve. “Got it,” she whispers, gripping the eight ball in her hand as she runs. For one heartbeat, her gaze drops to where Lucifer slumps.
He isn’t moving.
“Lucifer!” Her voice breaks. No response. His head has dropped forward, chin brushing his chest, a thin ribbon of blood trailing from the corner of his mouth.
Then the seizures start.
Chloe watches in horror as his body convulses over and over, soundlessly. She has no memory of it happening to her, but she knows it did. Trixie described the incident after a nightmare. Chloe had already lost consciousness, and the only thing that stopped her seizures was medical intervention.
Lucifer spasms once more, violently, and then stills again. Panic clamps around her ribs. Every instinct screams at her to abandon the machine, to get back to him. But her brain cuts through the chaos—finish it, Chloe. Finish it or he dies anyway. Maybe you both do.
She runs.
The eight ball nearly slips from her trembling hand as she pounds across the platform, the metal rattling beneath her feet. She leaps the last gap, landing hard enough to jar her knees. Her bad leg nearly folds under her, but she forces it to hold. She shoves the ball into place, finds the shallow groove, and sets it rolling down the chute—and then comes to a gradual stop.
For a sickening second, nothing happens. Her breath catches in her chest—had she done it wrong? Is it too late?
Please. Please, don’t let this be for nothing—
Finally, she remembers.
The key.
“Shit,” she whispers, eyes scanning frantically for where it’s supposed to go. A short beam sticks out from the platform not far from her. She practically dives for it, flipping open the panel, revealing a keyhole. Without hesitation, she jams the key inside and turns it.
Around her, machinery groans to life. Gears turn massive chains, pendulums move gradually, something that looks like a giant Newton’s cradle—steel balls hanging from heavy wires—start to swing.
Then gravity kicks in.
Click
The sound is small, almost dainty, but it spreads like a crack through glass. A chain somewhere above lurches, more gears grind, and the whole monstrous contraption shudders.
Chloe staggers back as the warehouse comes to life.
The ball drops through a hidden flap, clattering into a rusted steel bowl that tips under its weight. That tilt sends a smaller ball rolling, striking the first gear in a sharp clink. The impact releases a latch. Suddenly a hidden pendulum swings down from nowhere, heavy as a wrecking ball, its iron head slamming into a panel. The panel flies open and sets free a rain of miniature steel spheres.
Despite the terror of the situation, Chloe can’t help being mesmerized.
The smaller balls cascade down narrow chutes, ricocheting like bullets, the sound a deafening clatter. Each impact triggers something new: a spring-loaded hammer that smacks against a gong, the vibration shaking the rafters, a pulley unspooling rope that lowers a great lever into place with a metallic groan.
The eight ball reappears further along, its momentum carrying it onto a tilted ramp. It spins down in dizzying spirals before slamming into the base of a line of massive steel blocks—dominoes, she realizes, each taller than Chloe herself.
The first topples.
The crash reverberates through the warehouse like an earthquake.
One by one, the steel giants fall in perfect succession, a thunderous procession that makes the grated floor quake beneath her boots. Chloe braces herself against a railing, staring wide-eyed as the last domino topples into an immense gear.
The gear turns.
Teeth larger than her arm sink into the cogs of its neighbor, and then another, until a tower of gears grinds into motion, shrieking and sparking with the strain of years-long disuse. The final gear spins a rod that releases another giant pendulum from the ceiling. It sweeps across the warehouse like a scythe, slow but unstoppable, carving the air with a hiss. Chains rattle. Sparks shower.
The eight ball, impossibly, survives the chaos. It clinks along the narrow rail she placed, rising and dropping with the machine’s motion until it strikes the release of the Newton’s cradle—five enormous steel spheres suspended from chains thicker than Chloe’s wrist.
The first ball lifts high. For a breathless second, time seems to hold.
Then it swings.
Clack
The sound is so crisp, so precise, it cuts through the cacophony like a blade. The opposite ball snaps outward, slams back, and strikes again. Clack. Clack. Clack. The rhythm is relentless and hypnotic, reverberating through her bones. All she can think is how Lucifer is always playing with the Newton’s cradle on her desk, and how fascinated he would be by...well, all of this.
If he wasn’t unconscious on the warehouse floor. Maybe even—
Stop, she commands herself.
Chloe watches as the machine groans onward. The pendulum’s sweep knocks over another lever, setting a conveyor belt into motion. Rusted chains scream as it drags the eight ball forward one last time, delivering it to a final chute that spirals down to the floor.
Chloe stumbles after it, breathing heavily. The sight of that ball is the only tether she has left to sanity—or so it feels. The ball spins faster and faster, the chute narrowing until it spits out into a brass cup. The cup tips slowly, hesitantly, sending the ball rolling into the last slot.
It lands with a sharp clink.
Everything stops.
The pendulums freeze mid-swing, chains snapping taut. The gears lock with a shudder, the Newton’s cradle stills, its last clack echoing into silence.
Chloe stands in the deafening quiet, chest heaving, sweat dripping down her temple. Her whole body trembles, her ears still ringing with the metallic symphony. The machine looms around her, lifeless once more, like a sleeping titan that has spent its last breath.
And then, from the far wall, comes the smallest sound of all.
A faint, almost delicate click, like the one that started the machine. Her eyes snap towards it. Even from here, she can see the tiny box door open, no larger than a shoebox.
She doesn’t hesitate to sprint for it, ignoring every ache, every sharp stab of pain in her body as she runs full out. “Come on, come on,” she mutters under her breath, repeating it like a prayer as she weaves through the tracks and scaffolds. She vaults over a fallen beam, ducks beneath a swinging chain that hasn’t quite settled, nearly slamming into a spinning gear before yanking herself back.
The one thing she doesn’t dare do now is look over at Lucifer. She can’t, not if she has any hope of finishing this. If she sees him slumped, still not moving, maybe not breathing again, she will lose her steam.
Her lungs scream at her. Her body begs her to stop. She doesn’t.
Lucifer. Lucifer. Lucifer. The name pounds in time with her heartbeat, the one thing keeping her going right now.
She hits the far wall at last, nearly collapsing against it. The box is bolted into place, a thin metal door standing slightly ajar. Chloe yanks it open, fingers trembling as she searches and fumbles, and inside—
A syringe.
Every part of her goes utterly still. She doesn’t even breathe.
It’s set in a molded slot, as if it’s been waiting for her all this time. Already filled, the liquid inside a faint, unnatural blueish-green. A single strip of tape labels it in jagged, unfamiliar handwriting: ANTIDOTE.
Her breath hitches.
Is it real? Is it a trick? Another trap? If she hesitates or doubts for even a second...Lucifer will die on the floor behind her. If she trusts it and it isn’t real, he’ll die anyway.
Her hand shakes as she pulls it free.
“Goddammit,” she whispers, eyes stinging. She turns, sprints back across the warehouse.
Lucifer hasn’t moved, just as she feared. She drops to her knees beside him, the syringe clattering against the floor before she snatches it up again. His eyes are half-lidded, unfocused, his lips parted as though gasping for breath that isn’t there. His chest convulses weakly against her hands as she pulls him onto his back.
“No, no, no, stay with me,” Chloe begs, her voice breaking. She brushes his damp hair back from his forehead, wipes the blood from his mouth with the back of her trembling hand. He doesn’t respond. His skin is terrifyingly hot, fever blazing through him, the poison boiling him alive from the inside out.
She stares at the syringe. Then at him. “Please let this be real,” she whispers.
She doesn’t wait for her brain to argue or for rationality to kick in. She tears the cap off with her teeth, spits it aside, and drives the needle into the muscle of his bicep through a tear in his shirt, then presses the plunger all the way down until the syringe is empty. Her hand locks in place as though sheer willpower might force it to work faster.
The convulsions still almost immediately.
Chloe freezes, staring. Her own lungs seize.
Has it stopped because the antidote worked—or because he’s...gone?
“Lucifer?” she whispers desperately. She shakes his shoulder lightly. “Lucifer, come on, you’ve got to open your eyes. Please...don’t do this to me, not now. Not after everything we’ve done.”
Nothing.
Her chest cracks open with terror. She shoves harder at his shoulder, then with both hands. “Lucifer!”
Still nothing.
Rationally, she knows it will take time for the antidote to work. But Lucifer...he always seems to react differently to everything from injury to healing. She can’t help it, though—the way panic swallows her whole. She thinks about starting CPR again, the way she did in the water room, thinks about her mangled arm and how impossible it would be to give compressions with enough force, thinks about the cruel irony of saving him from drowning only to lose him now.
The sound of a clap echoes across the warehouse, deliberate and slow. Mocking. One...two...three... The same clapping from the black room with the gun. Only this isn't over a distorted speaker. It's directly behind her.
Chloe’s head jerks up. Her heart leaps into her throat, her hand automatically going for a holster that isn’t even there. The gun she had when this case started was gone when she and Lucifer woke in that very first room. All she has is the empty syringe clenched in one trembling fist, and the weight of her body crouched protectively over Lucifer.
The clap comes again, sharper this time.
She spins, eyes scanning the shadows between the scaffolded contraptions, the dangling chains, the still-settling machine that looms above like some sleeping giant.
And then a man steps into the light.
Not a monster, or some masked phantom, not the supernatural terror her nerves built up in the hours they’ve been trapped inside this hellhouse. Just a man.
Somehow, that makes this whole thing even worse.
He’s tall, wiry rather than broad, with a close-shaven head and sharp cheekbones. His clothes are ordinary—black jeans, a dark shirt, a jacket thrown over it all. Nothing distinctive about him except for the way he carries himself: relaxed, cocky, as if none of this cost him a thing. His eyes gleam with amusement as he continues the slow clap, each strike of his palms another mockery.
“Well, well, well,” he drawls. His voice is younger than Chloe expected, different than the one they heard over those invisible speakers. It’s smooth, almost pleasant. Or it would be, if not for all of this. “Detective Chloe Decker. You’ve made it to the end. Much farther than any of your predecessors. Honestly, I was betting you’d bleed out in the confessional with the bear trap. Shame I lost that wager.”
Every muscle in her body tightens, every nerve on edge. Chloe shifts closer to Lucifer, angling herself so she blocks his unconscious body with her own.
“You,” she says, her voice low and shaking with rage and adrenaline, “sick son of a bitch.”
The man tilts his head with an expression of entirely mock offense. “Now, now. Is that any way to thank the architect of your lovely little evening? I gave you excitement. Drama. Noble sacrifices. Confessions straight from the heart. I gave you...a show.” His grin widens. “And what a show it’s been. I thank you for that. Truly.”
Chloe thought Jason Carlisle was a twisted psychopath, setting up impossible scenarios and forcing people to choose. But this guy? Well, she can certainly see the resemblance in their techniques. But he's a thousand times worse.
Her fingernails dig into her palms so hard the skin splits. Her mangled arm aches and trembles as she slowly pushes herself to her feet. “You said—” Her voice cracks, but she forces the words out like broken glass. “You said if we got through your game, you’d let us go.”
His eyes sparkle. “Did I, though?”
That casual dismissal ignites inside her. Rage, pure and molten, like nothing she’s ever felt before, surges through every layer of exhaustion and fear. She’s been electrocuted. Torn open down to the bone until she thought her arm would be ripped off. Starved of sleep. Forced to watch Lucifer drowning, seizing, bleeding out in front of her, nearly shooting himself in the head to save her. And this bastard thinks it’s funny.
She stalks forward, every muscle shaking with fury. “You’ve been hiding behind speakers, forcing us through your sadistic little funhouse. You killed three couples before us. And all because what? You get bored? You get off on this? Even your mentor had a reason for putting his victims through that pain. What’s the reason for this?”
“Professor Carlisle, while an...absolute genius, well, he thought too small. He lacked true vision.” The man smirks, spreading his hands. “Me, though? I’m thinking...everything. As for the reason? Well, someone has to keep the audience entertained.”
Her stomach lurches. Audience. The word sends trickle after trickle of ice down her spine. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Oh, Chloe.” He laughs softly, shaking his head as though he thinks she’s being naive. “Do you really think I built all of this for you two? Or even the ones who came before you? Please. You’re the stars of the episode, but the show’s audience—ah, they've been watching every step. Every scream. Every confession.” His gaze flicks towards Lucifer, still pale and motionless behind her. “I mean, come on. That little heart-to-heart about the Vegas marriage? And then your confession about how you’re still in love with him, after all he’s put you through? Then the way Lucifer here put a gun to his own head to give you a chance? That kiss? Utterly riveting. Worth the entire setup on its own.”
Chloe’s pulse thunders. She wants to tear his smirk off with her bare hands. “You’re telling me....people watched this?” she asks, her voice trembling, strangled between horror and fury.
He nods casually, strolling closer, each step unhurried. “Streamed live, actually. These folks paid good money for it too. You’d be surprised how far people will go for authenticity. And nothing’s more authentic than two broken souls tearing themselves open under pressure.”
Something snaps inside her.
“You bastard.” Her voice rings out like a gunshot, ragged with hate. “You tortured us. You nearly killed him!” She jabs a finger towards Lucifer, fury burning through the tears threatening the edges of her eyes. “For entertainment? You think this is a goddamn joke?”
The man only grins wider, pulling a gun from the back of his waistband with a casual flick. Not the fake one from the last room. Her gun. He twirls it once, the gesture almost playful, reminding her of Maze flipping her blades, and then he levels it at her chest.
“Not a joke,” he corrects softly. “A performance.”
The entire world around her narrows to the muzzle of that gun. She knows what happens next—a bullet through her heart, and then one through Lucifer's. Every instinct she possesses screams to move, to protect, to strike, but she stands her ground. If he wants her partner, he’ll have to get through her.
Behind her, Lucifer lets out a faint, wet cough.
The sound shatters her. She doesn’t know if it means the antidote worked or not.
She hears the Game Master’s grin in his voice. “Oh, don’t worry. The poison was slow enough. He’s got an impressive constitution, and he played his part beautifully. For the record? The antidote was real. Needed that last little bit of hope built up before it all comes to an end. You, though—your role isn't finished yet.”
Her chest heaves, fury shaking through her like a second heartbeat. She sees the glint in his eyes, the relish he takes in drawing it out, and makes her choice in an instant.
She doesn’t think before she moves.
A scream tears from her throat as she lunges forward, slamming into him with every ounce of her weight—which, admittedly, isn’t much, but she has determination to make up for it. The gun goes off—loud, deafening in the cavernous warehouse. The bullet ricochets off a steel beam with a shriek of sparks.
They hit the floor hard, her bad arm screaming in agony as it smashes against her ribs. She ignores it. Ignores everything but the gun in his hand. She claws at it, wrestling, his knuckles bruising her skin as he tries to wrench it free. When that doesn’t work, he punches her in the face. Chloe ignores that, too, and the stars erupting in her vision. He snarls, his strength wiry and vicious, but rage lends her a strength she didn’t know she had.
The gun slips, and her good hand closes around it. Without hesitation, without a shred of doubt, Chloe raises it. Her vision tunnels on his face, the surprise breaking through his smirk.
She pulls the trigger.
The shot cracks like thunder. His body jerks once, then falls limp beneath her.
Chloe’s chest heaves, her ears ringing, the scent of gunpowder burning her nostrils. She barely feels the weight of his body under hers as she shoves away. The gun falls from her grip, clattering forgotten to the floor.
Her gaze snaps back to Lucifer. He’s still.
Too still.
Staggering to her feet, she stumbles back to his side, dropping beside him again. Her shaking hands cup his face.
“Lucifer. Come on, please. You can’t leave me here,” she begs, her voice breaking with raw desperation. She leans down, pressing her forehead to his, not caring about the blood or the sweat. “I need you. Do you hear me? I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to.”
Her breath hitches as she forces herself to move, to leave him for a moment. She searches the dead man’s body with frantic hands until she finds something: a phone. More than she hoped for. She rips it free of his pocket, fumbles with trembling fingers to dial emergency services.
“This is Detective Decker, unit 831. I don’t know my current location, I need you to track this line and send an ambo immediately. Civilian down, requires medical assistance. Multiple injuries. I’ll keep the line open, just get here.”
She doesn’t wait for dispatch to ask questions before dropping the phone, her hands flying back to Lucifer. She collapses beside him, curling her body against his as though sheer closeness might anchor him here. To her. Her hands stay on his chest, counting every shallow rise, every fragile bit of proof that he’s still fighting.
The warehouse is silent again. No mocking voices. No applause. The only sound is her own ragged breathing and Lucifer's wheezes. All she feels is the man she refuses to let go.
The nightmare might be over, but they aren’t out of the woods yet.
Notes:
Thanks for reading! The next chapter is the last one/epilogue. That light at end of the tunnel I promised? It's way brighter now.
Chapter 8: Unstoppable
Summary:
The Game Master is dead. Chloe and Lucifer are out of the house of horrors. But that doesn't mean it's over.
Notes:
We've reached the final chapter. It's the longest of the fic, because I thought Chloe and Lucifer deserved it after all I put them through. Welcome to the light at the end of the tunnel...
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The first thing Lucifer feels is heat, searing and metallic, trickling down the slope of his lip. Something sticky and foreign that clings to his skin. For an instant, he thinks it’s the poison again, that liquid fire bubbling up through his veins, boiling him from the inside out. Then he tastes a more familiar tang of blood on his tongue.
He wants to wipe it away. Wants to snarl, to complain about the indignity of bleeding on his favorite shirt, but his arms won’t cooperate. The Devil is nothing but a marionette with his strings cut, leaving him suspended in the sickening space between sensation and nothingness.
The world wavers while shards of memory slice through him in disorienting flashes.
Sirens—distant at first, then swelling, keening through his skull. Red light bleeding across the edges of his vision. Hellfire? Something else? Next is a hard jolt beneath his back as he’s lifted and carried, jostled through a space of echoes. Someone is shouting what he thinks might be numbers, so quick they run together.
Hands. Too many of them. His first thought is demons. An ambush, perhaps, yanking him into the fray. These hands are rough, efficient, faceless. Gloves press against his bare chest, tugging at his arm, shoving something sharp into his vein. He wants to snarl don’t touch me, but his lips barely twitch. Whoever they are, they’re strangers, interlopers, and their touch feels wrong. Cold. Mechanical.
Almost the moment he feels himself getting worked up further, he feels another touch from a hand that isn’t strange. One he would know no matter the circumstances, including now.
Her hand.
It’s much smaller, barely able to cover the back of his, but it doesn’t stop her trembling fingers from trying to wrap around his, soothing him. Her grip is iron, the sort of strength born not of muscles but desperation. She doesn’t let go, not when another voice is telling her she needs treatment, not when they’re trying to pull her away from him.
The sound of her voice brooks no argument from anybody.
“He goes first,” Chloe says, hoarse but unrelenting. “I don’t care what state I’m in. Fix him. Do you hear me? Fix him.”
The words slice right through him. He wants to argue. Wants to tell her not to be so bloody ridiculous, to put herself first for once, to not risk what little she has left for the likes of him. To stop being so damn selfless. His brain howls the words, but his traitorous mouth refuses to obey.
His chest convulses instead with a sharp ache that spreads where water filled him, pressing against his ribs, heavy and suffocating. He tries to squeeze her hand, to reassure her, but even that slips away.
Darkness swallows him whole.
The next time he surfaces, there are voices in the dark. They fade in and out, more suggestion than actual substance, muffled as though he’s hearing them through layers of glass.
The first one is unmistakable: Mazikeen.
Her curses are sharp, violent, panicked in a way he has rarely heard from her. She’s demanding things he can’t parse, snarling threats at whoever gets in her way. The bite of her fury is wrapped around his fading name.
Another voice cuts through, low and soothing: Amenadiel. His brother’s tone is meant to be grounding and steady, but Lucifer knows the rhythm of it too well—it’s strained, brittle at the edges with worry of his own. Faintly, Lucifer wonders who he’s worried for, because surely it can’t be the Devil.
Then another. A voice that lances him like ice water. His mother’s, filtered through the vessel of Charlotte Richards. Even fevered and half-gone, Lucifer would know that timbre anywhere—the sharp elegance, the demand carried like a weapon. “Let me in, you maggots. I will see my son. You will not keep me out.”
Lucifer wants to laugh, wants to sneer, to ask her if this is the triumph she always dreamed of: her son, laid out like a cadaver, burning alive from within. If she saw this coming when she began her manipulations all those months ago.
The other, less familiar voices blur together. Clinical. Detached. He hears beeping, the rustle of fabric, the sterile clatter of instruments. Someone reciting more numbers that mean nothing to him. Someone else arguing about protocol.
But never the one voice he truly desires.
Never hers.
Every time he claws his way from the black, gasping for air he doesn’t need, it’s the same. Maze shouting. Amenadiel soothing. His mother demanding. Strangers muttering.
Never Chloe.
It gnaws at him, more vicious than the poison, more damning than the water in his lungs. Her absence cuts because he doesn’t know what it means.
Is she okay?
Is she safe?
Is she—?
If he had the strength, he would rage. If he had the strength, he would crawl out of this hollow shell and tear apart every wall until he found her.
But the fact of the matter is...he doesn’t. He drifts instead, a ship without an anchor, pulled deeper into the undertow.
Every time he surfaces, she is not there.
Every time, the darkness takes him again.
The fire is gone.
Lucifer realizes it only in contrast, because what replaces it is almost worse. Not burning, not the boiling of his internal organs, one-by-one—but cold. Bone-deep, marrow-splitting, soul-tearing cold.
He almost thinks he’s back in Hell, the way sensation twists itself against him. Not flames licking at his skin this time but ice chiseling into his ribs, filling his veins with frostbite. He remembers once, a very long time ago, what the void beyond stars felt like. That endless, frozen silence. This is worse.
He tries to move, and panic flares when his limbs don’t obey. He is weightless and heavy all at once, pinned beneath something he can’t identify. One feeling he has always despised is being restrained against his will. It’s one thing in the bedroom, with safewords and rules in place, but this paralysis is unbearable.
Finally, a sliver of light cracks through the dark.
His eyelids twitch open against a weight that feels glued shut. The world above him swims in blurred strokes—white ceiling, broken shadows, the hint of movement at the edges.
Not Hell, he realizes. And probably not another trap room.
A room, yes, but not one he knows. This one is...clinical and unfamiliar. A hospital, perhaps. Too still to be real. For a heart-seizing moment, he wonders if this is Death itself, if he has finally stumbled into his father’s great abyss.
The thought almost makes him laugh, except he hasn’t the breath to spare. He knows what death feels like; he’s died twice in recent memory alone. Once by gutshot from a psychotic, porn-stached cop; the other by stopping his own heart intentionally. He nearly didn’t make it back after that second time.
After taking in the whole of the room—the machines, the blinds over a dark window, a painting of a horse in a meadow—he lets his eyelids fall again as the cold wraps tighter, smothering his thoughts.
Darkness draws him back under.
He drifts for what feels like eternity, the dark clutching him tighter, no matter how he fights.
And then there's a new sound.
Well, not new new, but new in this specific Hellscape.
It isn’t the cacophony of voices from before, not Maze’s fear disguised by fury, nor Amenadiel’s steady gentleness, nor his mother’s grating insistence. This is softer. Lower. Threaded with exhaustion, rasped raw from overuse but unmistakable to him. To his soul.
Chloe.
For one disoriented moment, he thinks he’s imagining her, that she’s a hallucination conjured by fever and desire. But the cadence is too specific, too grounded. She’s talking—and from nearby. He doesn’t know to whom at first. Perhaps to herself. Perhaps to an empty room. He’s heard her do that during cases, muttering under her breath as she sorts evidence in her clever detective brain. She isn’t commanding or bargaining like the others. She’s just...talking. Words strung together in an ordinary, utterly human way.
Her voice washes through him like rain after a drought, pulling him to the surface bit by bit and keeping him there.
He doesn’t catch every word at first. They come in fragments, blurred by the fog still clinging to his mind. Mentions of paperwork, of Trixie’s stubborn insistence that she’s old enough for her own phone, of Maze complaining that hospital food being ‘an abomination’ while still stealing Chloe’s. None of it is extraordinary. But because it’s her, because it’s the Detective, it might as well be scripture as far as his heart is concerned.
And then he feels a weight on his hand. Warmth. Fingers curling around his, faintly trembling but unyielding. Or maybe that’s his hand. He summons everything he has left in him, dredges it up from the pit of his soul, and squeezes.
Barely a twitch, a hint of pressure, but it’s enough.
The words falter. She stops speaking altogether. For a moment, there's only silence, and he wonders if he imagined all of it after all.
“...Lucifer?”
His name is so small and fragile on her lips. He wants to open his eyes just to drink in the sight of her, but his lids are stone again. He tries instead to make his mouth work, but it feels stuffed full of cotton, his tongue too heavy to shape the syllables.
And bloody hell does it frustrate him.
Another pause, then her voice turns more urgent. “Lucifer? Can you hear me?”
He tries again, forcing air through the raw cavern of his throat. It emerges as a rasp, nothing coherent, but it’s a sound. It’s something. It’s more than he had before.
She shifts closer, and he feels the heat of her now, her breath feathering against his skin. Inches away. The space between them diminishes, and when he finally manages to crack his eyes open, she fills his vision. Her face swims, blurred at the edges, but her smile pierces sharp through the haze. Relief, raw and bright, breaks across her features like sunrise after an endless night.
“Well,” she whispers, so soft he almost misses it. “Look who’s back. Guess you didn’t die after all.”
A laugh scrapes out of him, more air than sound, but unmistakable. He knows those words. They’re his, the ones he spoke when she was the one nearly claimed by poison.
And now here she is, mirroring them back.
Her smile deepens, her eyes wet at the corners, and his battered heart stumbles in his chest, desperate to keep up. He lets his eyes close again, though not from weakness this time. Actually, he thinks it may be peace. Because for the first time since the darkness claimed him, he no longer fears it.
Not with Chloe’s hand in his.
Lucifer's eyes open again hours—days?—later. Time feels utterly meaningless in the endless haze of fever and darkness. But this time, clarity pierces through, cruel and sudden.
Memories slam into him all at once with the force of a meteor strike.
The case of the missing, tortured couples. That infernal warehouse filled with twisting corridors and rooms with sadistic trials not even he would force on someone.
Well, not someone innocent.
The ball maze that electrocuted Chloe, her body convulsing before his eyes. The confessional chamber that locked her away from him, and the sounds of her screams tearing through walls as her skin was ripped away. His desperation to get to her, and his frantic voice spilling truths he hadn’t wanted to share just to stop her suffering.
The realization that he was powerless to protect her with the poison coursing through his veins, weakening him. He was more than just vulnerable; he was helpless. All he could do was ensure she didn’t have to suffer more.
The water tank, choking him, stealing his breath, while Chloe—brave, stubborn Chloe—fought for him. Her voice, breaking on a confession he thought she’d never give. Are you in love with Lucifer Morningstar? YES! The flash of Hell he’d gotten when he drowned, and then the feeling of her breath in his lungs, bringing him back.
The gun room filled with a countdown and ultimatum—her or him. As if that was ever going to be a choice in his mind. As if he were capable of hurting her. The determination in her eyes and conviction in her voice when she insisted there had to be a trick, a way to beat the Game Master at his own game. His own grief when he realized what he would have to do. A kiss wrapped in an apology and goodbye. Then her sheer terror when he pulled the trigger, followed by her grief and relief disguised as fury.
The climax of the warehouse. The rickety, thundering contraption of gears and steel, his body convulsing, vision fading. Chloe’s hands cradling his face as she begged him to hold on.
Every detail slices him open anew.
He jerks, trying to sit up. The world spins violently, his muscles shriek in protest, and a firm hand presses him back.
“Easy.” Chloe’s voice, gentle but firm. She leans over him, her eyebrows furrowed, eyes dark with fatigue. “Hey, it’s all right. You’re not going anywhere. Just relax.”
Lucifer blinks at her, his throat raw. “Detective...” The word croaks out, broken, half a plea. He drags his gaze over her, and his heart twists into a knot.
Her arm is bound in a sling, stark white bandages peeking from her collarbone to her elbow. Other bandages on her wrists, her face, her temple. Her leg bears the stiffness of fresh stitches. Exhaustion clings to her like another wound. Yet she’s upright, breathing, alive.
Bloody hell, she’s alive.
Relief slams through him so fiercely he damn near weeps.
“You’re hurt,” he rasps.
Gentle fingers brush hair away from his forehead. “You should see yourself,” she counters softly. “Poison. Drowning. Seizures. You scared the hell out of me.”
He swallows, shame and gratitude tangling like barbed wire. “You—I need to know,” he whispers. “What happened? After...after I—”
“Collapsed?” she finishes for him, too quickly, too neatly. Her mouth twists. “You...almost didn’t come back.”
She tells him everything.
The machine, its rolling thunder, the ball clicking through impossible paths. The syringe in the tiny box, preloaded with the only antidote. The man—their sadistic Game Master—stepping from the shadows with his smug smile and her gun. Her fury, the tackle, the gunshot ricocheting off steel. Her pulling the trigger without hesitation.
And then...the livestream.
Lucifer stares at her, words deserting him. “I...beg your pardon? The what?”
“It wasn’t just us in there,” Chloe says, her voice low and tinged with bitterness. “The whole thing was streamed. People watched, Lucifer. They watched us suffer. Watched us bleed. Watched us...confess.” Her jaw tightens. “Watched me kill him.”
The admission guts him. It was bad enough he had to watch her go through that, someone who actually cares about her well-being, but the thought of others—sadistic psychopaths like the Game Master—who likely cheered on her suffering... Demons come to mind with their twisted, cruel natures, feeding off human pain and misery. He banishes that thought quickly, putting all his considerable focus on her instead.
He wants to reach for her, but his arms feel weighted with lead. “Detective...”
She shakes her head. “It’s been days since they got us out of there. We were barely missing for one, but when we didn’t check in with the precinct, they started searching for us.” She swallows hard, her eyes glistening. “They never would have found us in time.”
For a moment, she’s quiet, pressing her lips together like she’s swallowing her own pain. “After the doctors fixed my arm as best they could, Maze tried to drag me home.”
Lucifer looks away. He knows why Maze tried to get her out of here—to give him distance from her. So he would heal.
Chloe swallows hard again, her eyes darting to his. “You woke up long enough to ask me not to leave. And even Maze couldn’t say no to that.”
The words feel like a physical blow. He remembers none of that, but it certainly sounds like him when it comes to her—pathetic, selfish, clingy. Yet the fact that she listened, the fact that she stayed—
His throat closes.
For the first time in...well, he doesn’t know how long, he has nothing clever to say. He simply stares at her, drinking in every line of her face, every weary shadow beneath her eyes, every flicker of life that he almost lost forever.
She is alive. He is alive.
“But you’re...okay?” he asks quietly, searching her eyes. “Aside from the obvious, that is.”
When she flexes the fingers of her bad arm, she winces, then quickly smooths it away. “I’m...working on it,” she admits softly. “It only really hit me last night what we went through—the kidnapping, those sick games, all of it. I keep having to remind myself he’s gone, that he can’t hurt us anymore. But I still keep...thinking about it, you know? I had to give a full statement about what happened, and Trixie...” She trails off, shaking her head. “Obviously, I can’t tell her any of this. I guess it’s just going to take time.”
Which he can see frustrates her. She never did like not being able to solve a problem on her own.
And still, between them, the weight of all they said, all they screamed into the void, hovers unspoken.
Neither mentions their confessions.
Until Chloe does.
Settling in a chair again, confident he’ll stay in bed, she looks at him, searching his eyes for answers. “I know now’s probably not the best time,” she says quietly. “But...what now, Lucifer? Do we just...go back? Pretend none of it happened? Pretend we didn’t say the things we said?” Her voice cracks slightly. “Or do we finally stop lying to ourselves?”
The words hang there, heavier than any trap, sharper than any blade, worse than any poison.
Lucifer cannot breathe.
“I mean, we don’t have to have the answers now,” she adds quickly. “You should get better. I...in fact, forget I asked.”
He feels his heart twist painfully, and finally forces his hand to obey his desires. It slowly crawls across the scratchy blanket, seeking hers. “Detective...” he says again. He swallows hard, his voice raw as if someone took sandpaper to his throat.
Part of him wants to make a quip, to pull up the shields of charm that have protected him for so long.
A shield made of Candy.
But he tried that once, and it only made things worse. All he wanted was to protect her—from what he is, from his father, from the miracle—and the end result hurt her worse than the truth probably would have.
“There are things...you don’t know,” he forces himself to say. “About me. About...yourself. About us, I suppose. What I said in that room was true—I walked away to protect you. To give you back...your life. Your...well, everything. I know it won’t make sense to you, but...” He trails off, at a loss for how to continue.
Chloe watches him with an inscrutable expression. He almost wants to squirm under it. Her eyes flick down to his hand and she hesitates, then a second later, she carefully covers it with her bandaged one.
“You mean because...you’re the Devil?”
Lucifer is incredibly glad that he’s lying down. If he weren’t, he’s sure his knees would give out from shock alone. As it is, the room begins to spin again. “I’m...what?” he croaks.
He has known Chloe Decker for over a year now, and not once has she spoken that sentence without sarcasm or exasperation. But that almost sounded as though she believes it.
And that can’t be right.
“When we were in...that place, I remember thinking how impossible it seemed that you were still functional with that poison in your veins. We were unconscious for...hours before waking that first time, which means you should have dropped an hour into that nightmare.”
She frowns slightly. “But you just...kept going. You drowned, Lucifer. You were just...you were gone, and yet, you woke up again and got right up. Like it barely fazed you. And I saw your eyes a few times—they were red. I told myself it was a trick of the light. My imagination or adrenaline or...I don’t know what. I didn’t let myself stop to think about it; I couldn’t, there wasn’t time. But it wasn’t a trick or my imagination. Was it?”
His mouth opens to speak, but no sound comes out. He wants to blame the fog, the fever, anything but what it actually is—which is fear.
The whole reason he has kept the truth from her for so long is because he knows if she learns who’s been at her side, she’ll run. She’ll be afraid. She’ll bring an end to their partnership, their friendship, their...whatever the hell they are these days. And that is something he couldn’t bear, not after all he’s done to preserve what little they still have left.
But she’s still here...
Clearing his throat, he tries again. “No,” he murmurs, barely louder than a breath. “It wasn’t.”
Chloe swallows, and then nods. There's no surprise in her eyes. Just confirmation of what she already knew.
“Is it true that I make you vulnerable?”
He blinks in surprise that just keeps coming at him from all directions.
“Maze told me, when she tried to get me to leave. Am I the reason this happened to you? That you nearly died?”
Lucifer swears that if Maze even so much as hinted Chloe is the sole reason he got hurt in that hellhole, he will rip her apart with his bare hands.
“No,” he says firmly. “Detective, you didn’t do this to me. It was that sadistic psychopath. He dragged us into that house of horrors. He poisoned me and arranged all those traps. He is the reason you nearly lost your bloody arm.”
“But I—”
“I don’t know why,” he cuts in gently. “Not for sure. There are theories, but nothing more. Why you’re the only human in history who is immune to my mojo. The only one who makes me vulnerable. I don’t know why you’re...the most important person in my existence.” He hadn’t quite meant to blurt it out like that, but now that he has, he doesn’t want to take it back.
Chloe lets out a breath, her fingers tightening over his. “Lucifer...”
“And I understand if you...need time. After what you’ve been through. After learning what I am. Detective, I’m just...I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you better.” His voice breaks, despite his attempt to mask it.
She shakes her head. “You did what you could. We both did.”
Lucifer scoffs. “Darling, you did more for me in that place than anyone ever has,” he says softly. “You are...remarkable.”
Chloe leans closer, tilting her head until he’s meeting her gaze again. “So are you,” she murmurs. “And for the record, I don’t need time, Lucifer. I meant everything I said in there. You’re still you, Devil or not. That hasn’t changed for me.”
His lips part in surprise. “No?”
“No. Look, just...get better. Okay? I didn’t mean to put all this on you when you’ve just woken up.”
“Detective, I feel better than I have in ages,” he says honestly.
Not just because the poison is out of his system. Because she’s here, more or less in one piece, and unless he’s sorely mistaken, she accepts him—Devil and all.
“We can talk later,” she promises. “I mean, if you want.”
Déjà vu hits him like a brick wall. The role reversal—him in the bed, recovering from a poison that should have killed him; her at his side, asking to talk.
This time, he has no intention of running.
“You’ll stay?” he murmurs, unsure if he means right now or in the long run. Maybe both.
Chloe smiles at him, lacing their fingers together. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The band burns against her palm, her arm trembling like it’s trying to tear itself apart from the inside—again. Chloe grits her teeth and pulls again, the elastic stretching out with agonizing, frustrating slowness. Scar tissue tugs stubbornly beneath her skin, and fire licks down to her wrist, into the tips of her fingers.
Her breath hitches. She forces it through, anyway. “Again,” she mutters to herself, stubbornness ratcheting up another few notches.
Her arm quivers violently, shaking like a loose engine about to snap. She digs her heels in, pulling until her whole body hums with effort. The band slips, snapping back into her palm with a sharp sting. She hisses, shakes out her hand, then automatically reaches for it again.
“Detective.”
Chloe pauses for a beat at the sound of Lucifer's smooth, velvet-wrapped steel voice. He isn’t sprawled in his usual fashion today. He’s watching her closely, every line of him tense.
Every session for the last six weeks—sometimes three times a week, sometimes four—he’s been at her side, watching, listening to the physical therapists, learning the exercises along with her. Chloe told him more than once he doesn't have to be here; he only scoffed and led her to the car.
At first, it seemed odd that the Devil himself has become her biggest cheerleader as she fights to regain use of her arm. That passed quickly once she remembered he’s always been that way with her. Now, she appreciates him being here.
Lucifer.
Not Dan or anyone else.
In fact, her ex went into overprotective mode after everything that happened, insisting she was pushing too hard too fast. Maybe she is, but this is the only way to get her life back.
And Chloe Decker doesn’t give up.
“I’m fine,” she grinds out, not looking at Lucifer as she loops the band around her hand again.
“Darling, you’re shaking.”
“Means it’s working.”
“Unless I’m terribly mistaken,” Lucifer says, leaning forward with that sharp intensity he usually reserves for suspects, “it also means that you are about three reps away from tearing something vital. You really must forgive me for preferring you functional, Detective.”
She ignores him, gritting her teeth and pulling again. The scars pull harder, hot lines shooting down her arm. That doesn’t stop her.
Lucifer sighs, climbing to his feet gracefully. “Bloody hell, woman, do you have a death wish?”
Her hand slips. The band goes slack as her muscles give out, and the curse that rips from her is pure frustration. This has also been the routine—her, refusing to stop even when she should, and getting irritated at the too slow rate of healing.
He’s beside her in an instant, catching her wrist before she can hide the tremor. His thumb brushes along her pulse point as his eyes travel to the scars on her bicep, his eyes bending with worry as they find hers.
“You terrify me when you do this,” he says softly.
Chloe swallows, her throat tight. “You’ve done worse to yourself.”
Killing himself to get her antidote. Nearly getting himself trapped in Hell. Leaping into danger at every opportunity.
“Yes,” he says without hesitation, lips quirking with grim humor, “but I’m me. And you’re you. I happen to be quite a bit sturdier by celestial design. And I’d rather like it if you remained in one piece.”
Her chest aches, recalling he’s not always sturdy. When she’s nearby, he’s vulnerable, and she watched him nearly die in that place. She looks away instead of calling him on it, grabbing the stress ball off the table with her good hand. “If I don’t push, it’ll never get better. If it never gets better, I won’t heal. And if I don’t heal...” Her jaw tightens. “...I can’t get back to work.”
Lucifer plucks the ball from her fingers before she can squeeze, and she levels him with a glare that would burn a lesser man to ash. “Well, if you insist on murdering yourself in the name of progress, then at least let me help.”
She arches an eyebrow at him. “You? Doing physical therapy?”
“Why not?” His grin is rakish, deliberately overdone, but the warmth behind it disarms her. Not that she’s willing to let it show. “After all, I’ve been told I’m rather good with my hands.” He waggles his eyebrows. “By you. More than once.”
Although she rolls her eyes, she can’t quite hold back her laugh—or her blush. “Fine. But if you drop me, I swear I’ll—”
“Detective.” He smirks, slipping the band back into her palm and stepping behind her. The heat of him is a line all the way down her body, still making her shiver. “I would never.”
Despite everything, or maybe because of it, she knows it’s the truth.
“Right, then,” he says brightly. “Shall we?”
Chloe takes a deep breath and nods. He guides her arm carefully into position, one hand gently bracing at her elbow, the other steadying the band.
“Now,” he murmurs in her ear, his tone soft and coaxing, “try again, slowly. Breathe with it.”
She pulls, feeling the resistance bite deep in her muscles. The scar in her bicep tugs. A flash of memory rips through her—pure darkness, feeling around for an exit, steel teeth clamping around her arm. Even now she can remember the pain, every detail of it. Her own screams mingling with Lucifer's furious, frantic ones while the trap tried to take her arm and he couldn’t get to her.
Her body falters as she tries to force the memories away.
Lucifer's hand presses low on her belly instantly, firm, steady. “Easy, darling,” he murmurs soothingly. He knows the signs of what’s happening as well as she does now. “You’re here, love, not there. Focus. Only one more inch. That’s it.”
She forces the band back, letting his voice anchor her to reality and shattering the flashback.
“Better,” he says, low and approving. Proud, even. “No need to martyr yourself when a bit of support will do, hmm?”
“Don’t,” she says through her teeth. “Don’t look at me like I’m broken.”
“I don’t,” he says at once, fiercely. His breath brushes her cheek as he leans closer. “I look at you like you’re bloody unstoppable. Which, frankly, you are. But even unstoppable forces occasionally benefit from leverage.”
Her throat feels tight. But when she pulls the band back and holds, even when her muscles tremble, she finishes the rep. And for the first time, she doesn’t feel like a failure.
“Well done, Detective.” Lucifer smiles as she lets go of the band. He doesn’t tell her to rest or that she’s done enough the way someone else would. Instead, he guides the band to its base and retrieves the stress ball, dropping it into her palm. “Squeeze,” he urges, surprisingly not making an innuendo of it.
She obeys, even though her hand trembles. Her fingers don’t want to close. “Pathetic,” she mutters, glaring at them.
Lucifer's hand covers hers before she can throw it down in frustration. “The power isn’t in the squeeze, Detective. It’s in the fact that you’re still bloody trying. Now try again. Imagine it’s my neck, and you’re wringing it because I’ve annoyed you to your breaking point if you must. But try again.”
She shoots him a look, half a scowl, half fond exasperation, but she keeps squeezing. The ball yields, her hand shakes, and she still tries again. Lucifer counts under his breath, not numbers but praises. “Good. Strong. Better. Again. You’re not losing this fight, Detective. Not to rubber, not to scars, not to anything.”
Her chest loosens and the tiniest flicker of a smile breaks free.
Next comes the dreaded wall climbs. She hates them more than the bands. Arm trembling, she presses her fingers to the wall, climbing upward inch by inch. Pain knifes through her shoulder as scar tissue screams.
She hisses through her teeth. “Feels like it’s tearing.”
Lucifer's hand hovers at her elbow, steady without pushing or guiding. “It isn’t. I’d know if it were. It’s stretching. And you, Detective, are rather good at pushing through discomfort.”
She grunts, her jaw tight. “Yeah, well, discomfort’s one thing. This is—”
“Progress,” he interrupts softly.
Her arm reaches higher. Against her expectations, she touches the mark set by the therapist—and then surpasses it. She lets out a shaky laugh, part disbelief, part triumph. “I did it,” she breathes. It seems like such a simple thing, touching a mark on a wall, but for her, it’s one step closer to regaining her life.
Lucifer beams. “See? You may glare at me all you like, but I was right.”
Chloe shoots him a look. “Enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely. And do you know why?”
“You’re a sadist?”
“Well, yes, but that’s entirely beside the point.” He leans closer, still smiling. “Because I happen to find your stubborn drive incredibly sexy.”
From anyone else, it might sound teasing or even mocking. But from Lucifer...his brown eyes soften, belying his tone, and she knows he means it.
As it turns out, the Devil has a bit of a competence kink. One that is centered around her, specifically.
“Time for stretching,” she says quietly, holding his gaze.
A sinful look flashes across his face. “Ooh. Now that is something I know for a fact you are more than capable of.”
Lucifer eases her onto the bench, his hands gentle as he guides her arm through stretches he’s memorized. Within seconds, she’s shaking, ignoring the sweat beading at her temple. His touch is careful but unflinching, one hand back at her elbow, the other coaxing her wrist into extension.
She winces, sucking in a sharp breath.
“Just breathe,” he murmurs, eyes flicking from her wrist to her face. “I’ve got you.”
She breathes. And then she watches as her arm slowly, impossibly, moves farther than it did a week ago.
When it’s all over, Chloe is flushed, trembling, exhausted—but she also feels lighter. Lucifer presses a chilled water bottle into her good hand, his eyes soft in a way that makes her heart flutter and squeeze.
“You see?” he says, quiet but certain as he helps her back into her sling. “Still in one piece, as promised. And you didn’t even have to do it alone.”
Chloe drinks deeply, then levels him with a look over the rim of the bottle. “Don’t get used to it,” she mutters dryly, but her lips are twitching.
Lucifer smirks. “Oh, on the contrary, Detective. I fully intend to.”
Her laugh is tired but real, echoing through the room. For the first time since she and Lucifer were abducted and forced to play twisted games that nearly killed them both, Chloe’s injuries don’t feel like an end. They feel like the beginning.
As much as she doesn’t want to add to her partner’s smugness by admitting it, Lucifer is right—having someone to help shoulder the burden made it a thousand times easier.
Hours later, she’s in another atmosphere altogether. One where the music is low with sultry bass lines weaving through the air like smoke. Lux never truly sleeps; even on a quiet evening, there's always some rhythm pulsing, and warmth in the air that makes everyone feel like they belong. Chloe sits at the bar with her back straight, nursing a crystal tumbler of Macallan whiskey with her good hand. She’s gotten a taste for it in recent weeks, thanks to Lucifer.
The other arm rests in its sling, an anchor she both loathes and needs. Every time she catches sight of it in her periphery, the warehouse flashes through her mind—puzzles with potentially deadly consequences, knowing she had no choice because Lucifer had been poisoned, the trap that nearly claimed her arm. Even now, nearly two months later, she remembers how it felt, that white-hot pain of her skin tearing, muscle shredding, nerves snapping.
The real miracle here might be that she managed to keep going after that without bleeding to death. Not to mention all the other injuries she sustained and the trauma she still deals with on a nightly basis. PTSD isn’t something she ever thought she’d be diagnosed with, and while it’s a mild case comparatively, some days, it feels insurmountable.
She shifts, trying to ignore the phantom pull in her scar.
A man slides onto the stool beside her, smelling like he bathed in cheap cologne, his hair gel gleaming under low lights. “Rough day?” he asks, flashing a smile he probably thinks is charming.
Chloe doesn’t bother glancing at him. “Not interested,” she says dully.
“Aw, come on,” he persists, eyes darting to her arm. “That sling—did you fall off a horse or just fall for me?”
She rolls her eyes, giving him a flat look, feeling secondhand embarrassment rush through her. “Neither. But you’re going to fall on your face if you use that line again.”
He blinks, laughing awkwardly. “Uh...funny. I like funny.”
“Try again, and I’ll prove it,” she says sweetly, which in Chloe-speak means: run while you still can, loser.
His grin falters, but he slinks away back into the crowd with a muttered curse.
Apparently, he opened the floodgates; less than five minutes later, someone else takes his spot. This one is younger, tall and grinning a bit too wide. He settles on the stools like he was invited, leaning close enough she can smell the booze on his breath.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
She lifts her glass, tilting it so the light catches the amber. “Already have one.”
“Well, maybe I could—”
“No.”
On the other side of the bar, Patrick glances up from where he’s cleaning glasses, subtly raising an eyebrow to ask if she needs backup. She shakes her head minutely.
The guy beside her blinks, stunned by the refusal, then tries to laugh it off. “Hard to get, huh? I like that.”
Chloe turns her head, giving him a smile that’s in no way inviting. “Nope. Just not interested.”
He goes red, muttering something about her being a bitch, and shoves away from the bar.
Patrick’s lips twitch. She winks at him.
Annoyance number three is smoother—or thinks he is. “Mind if I join you?” he asks with a confident smile. “I promise I don’t bite.”
“I might if you don’t walk away.”
“I could get into that. But seriously, a beautiful woman like you shouldn’t have to drink alone.”
Chloe barely holds back her sigh. “I’m waiting on someone.”
He leans closer. “If you were mine, you’d never have to wait,” he purrs near her ear.
“Well, I’m not, and I’m never going to be. And I guarantee if you’re still here when my partner arrives, you’re not going to like what happens.”
“He the possessive type? I can certainly see why.”
“Maybe. But it’s more likely I’ll arrest you for harassment.” She turns to look straight at him. “I’m a cop.”
That seems to be the magic word. He scuttles off the stool so fast it teeters slightly.
“Someone’s popular tonight,” Patrick says, refreshing her drink.
Chloe sighs. “Unfortunately.”
As he walks away to tend to another customer, she takes a sip, enjoying the whiskey’s burn down her throat. She isn’t here to be wanted by strangers who don’t even know her name. She’s here because...the last few months cracked her open in ways she didn’t know were possible and she’s still trying to figure out where she fits now.
Her mind drifts the way it always does when she’s alone.
The poisoning was months ago now, but she can still feel the way her insides burned. The fear, knowing the chances of attaining the antidote were near zero. Of knowing she might never see her daughter again. Or her friends, her mom. Lucifer. The last thing she remembers clearly was falling asleep with Trixie, and then she woke to find Lucifer at her side, relief in his eyes he couldn’t hide—and guilt she couldn’t parse.
And then he vanished for weeks, leaving her to worry and wonder. Was it because of her? Because they were close to something? Because she nearly died? Had something else happened? He returned two weeks later like he never left with a ditzy stripper on his arm and a ring on his finger.
Meet Candy Morningstar. My wife.
Those words still hurt, but the pain is duller now. Some part of her knew all along there was more to the story. Lucifer didn't do commitment. He didn't do relationships, and she was supposed to believe he met a stranger in Vegas, fell into some whirlwind romance, and got married all in two weeks? Please.
But she went with it, because she knew he wasn't going to give her the full picture. So if friends was all he wanted, then friends was all he would get.
The distance between them hadn’t helped anything. But then they were abducted and dropped into a nightmare by a truly sadistic bastard who liked to watch people’s pain. Worse than that, he broadcasted to other sociopaths who subscribed to watch her and Lucifer and other couples who weren’t so lucky be tortured for entertainment. She was electrocuted, tore her leg open, had her arm mauled, and was forced to admit things she hadn’t been ready to speak. Lucifer was poisoned, drowned, and heard her suffering while he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
He tried to sacrifice himself with a bullet to the head to give her a chance. She has nightmares some nights where there was a bullet in that gun and wakes up gasping, calling his name. Those are the nights she ends up texting or calling him, just to reassure herself that he’s okay. That they both are.
Ella put it best when she muttered to Dan one night, unaware that Chloe could hear her, “Those two are going to need all the therapy.” She wasn't wrong.
Of course, Lucifer recovered when Chloe put distance between them, but that wasn’t the end of it for him. Aside from refusing to let her go through PT alone, he and Maze have been hunting down every single person who subscribed to that livestream. Chloe hasn’t asked what they do when they find those people—she doesn’t want to know—but she also hasn’t stopped them.
The LAPD has dismantled every inch of the warehouse. And they’re also going after those voyeurs—the top contributors, after dealing with the Devil and his demon, face federal charges for interstate commerce, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting kidnapping and torture.
With the Game Master—whose real name was Andrew Knox—dead, it’s some form of closure, though it doesn’t quite feel like peace. He was watching them for months, ever since Carlisle killed himself in front of Chloe, and knew things about them they hadn't even told each other. Once his apartment was raided, they learned how he knew so much: he broke into Linda's office, raided her files on Lucifer, and made copies of them. Linda had no idea there'd been a break-in at all, and has spent the last several weeks apologizing profusely to both Chloe and Lucifer. She's also invested in new high tech surveillance equipment for her after office hours.
Everything they've learned about Knox says the man was a true monster the Devil could never be. It would be one thing if this was some supernatural enemy, but it wasn't. He was just a sick, twisted human, which somehow makes it worse.
The only good thing to come out of the nightmare is the closeness between Chloe and Lucifer. Between their confessions in the warehouse and their talks afterwards, neither of them was willing to just go on like they had before—friends and partners, and nothing more.
Chloe meant everything she said—she doesn’t care that Lucifer is the Devil. She knows him, knows his heart, and refuses to give up on him. On them. Lucifer's hesitation—his belief that Chloe being a miracle means she has no free will—was blown to Hell when she called absolute bullshit on the theory.
“My feelings are mine and no one else’s. Nobody dictates how I live my life—not God or the Devil or anyone. I know what I want and who I want.”
They went back and forth on that subject alone for days, where Lucifer desperately wanted to believe her, and finally conceded the point—no matter what theories he’s come up with, they don’t know for sure why Chloe was put in his path and they probably never will. The only one who can tell them for sure is God, and as Lucifer said, they have more of a chance of Maze turning into Ella Lopez than that happening.
It took time, but she thinks he’s finally starting to believe her. At the very least, he's given her the benefit of the doubt.
When she feels eyes on her, she doesn’t stiffen or flinch; she knows who it is. She smirks into her glass, flicking her gaze to the mirror behind the bar. Up on the mezzanine, Lucifer steps up to the railing, curls his fingers around it, and scans his kingdom. His eyes find her and stay, and warmth washes over her.
Then he makes his way down the stairs, never taking his gaze off her. People move out of the way instinctively, but he doesn’t notice them. For all he’s concerned, there isn’t anybody else here but the two of them.
He slides onto the stool beside her, the same one the other men tried to claim. The difference being, she wants him there. “Hello, Detective,” he murmurs as a bartender slides a glass into his hand. Lucifer sips from it without looking away from her.
Biting the inside of her cheek, Chloe drinks from her own glass, tilting her head towards him. “You’re late.”
“Perhaps,” he agrees, his eyes sparkling. “But fashionably so.” Leaning closer, he lowers his voice. “Besides, anticipation suits you. Makes your cheeks glow, your lips tighten. Positively radiant.”
“Radiant, huh?” She smirks. “I guess that’s one word for it.”
He feigns offense. “And what would you call it, then?”
“Annoyed.”
His grin widens in delight. “Well, that just so happens to be my favorite look on you.”
She shakes her head, fighting the smile that threatens to spill.
“You were exceptional today,” he murmurs, more serious now. “I was quite impressed.”
Chloe hums into her glass. “Think so?”
“I know so. You’ll be back to detectiving before you know it.”
She isn’t so sure. In order to get back to where she was before, she needs full range on her arm, to be able to pull a trigger if she needs to, and not drop things with no warning because her nerves aren’t firing correctly.
Lucifer leans even closer, sliding his arm behind her. She shifts towards him on instinct, letting his presence, his scent surround her. This feels like home.
“Dance with me.”
Chloe blinks. “What?”
“You heard me.” She can hear the smile in his voice. “Come now, Detective, surely the sight of me swaying these perfectly tailored hips across the floor is something you’ve longed for.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” She swallows, trying to keep her voice dry, but he isn’t fooled. Not when her pulse betrays her, hammering loud enough she swears he can hear it.
“Wouldn’t you?” he teases, sliding to his feet. “You know what I can do horizontally. Imagine it as foreplay.”
Heat floods her cheeks as she looks at his hand. She does know what he’s capable of, but that’s entirely beside the point. Her shoulder still aches, her leg isn’t quite one hundred percent. Sex is one thing, but dancing is reckless in her condition. She should just say no, finish her drink, and drag him upstairs for something safer and more private.
But then he presses closer until she feels the heat of his body radiating through her. He curls over her, his lips brushing her ear.
“Dance with me, Chloe.”
And just like that, she’s lost.
She slides her hand into his, letting him pull her effortlessly to her feet. He guides her to the dance floor, a little smirk on his lips as if he won some prize. They end up in the center of everything, and his arm curls around her, his forehead against hers.
“My arm—” she starts.
“Is safe,” he murmurs in return. “You’re always safe with me, Detective.”
That was never in question.
The song shifts to something slower, and his eyes soften even as they darken a touch. Lucifer moves like water, smooth and unstoppable, his body aligning with hers in ways that makes more heat bloom in her belly. Every brush of his fingers on her back, every sway of his hips is a seduction—not that he needs to seduce her.
Which means...
“You’re showing off,” she accuses, though her voice is already husky.
“Darling, I’m merely existing.” His lips graze her ear as he spins her gently, careful with her injuries but making it look effortless. Even though she’s not the best dancer, he makes her feel graceful. “If that happens to drive you wild, well...” His smile grows against her skin. “Who am I to complain?”
She huffs a laugh, unable to hide how much she’s enjoying this. He doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile, doesn’t let her hide on her worst days. Like he had today at therapy, he pushes her to do her best, and that’s gone a long way to help her.
The more they move, the room might as well have vanished. The music, the lights, the crowd—none of it matters. There's just him, warm and strong, moving with a precision that is both art and temptation, and he knows it. There was a time when she thought herself immune to him, that his charm was all smoke and mirrors. This, though, this is real.
Everything about them is real. And after they were forced to fight for their lives, they’re finally here, giving in to what they both want.
She tilts her head back to meet his gaze, and what she finds there makes her breath catch. Mischief, yes, but also heat. Devotion. Something deeper, something that feels more like a promise.
“You’re ridiculous,” she whispers.
“And yet...” He spins her again, dipping her low enough for her hair to brush the floor. His mouth hovers just above hers. “You can’t look away.”
“Or maybe that’s you.”
Lucifer pulls her upright again, a soft half-smile on his lips. “Guilty,” he murmurs, curling over her. His hands slide up her body, cupping her face, and then he’s kissing her.
Chloe doesn’t hesitate to respond. She wraps her arm around his neck, her fingers slipping into his hair, and opening for him. He hums, tangling their tongues together with an expertise that makes her toes curl.
Nightmares and confessions and nearly dying hadn’t torn them apart. It only brought them closer. It brought them here. They fought and bled and survived. Everything they have now, they’ve more than earned. And Chloe won’t give it up without a fight. Because she’s exactly where she wants to be.
Here, in the arms of her Devil, she’s home.
Notes:
Thank you for reading! I know it was difficult at times and painful and stressful, but I wouldn't do all this and not have a happy ending. Thank you for sticking with me. I hope you enjoyed. And I promise the next fic I post will be lighter. 😈