Chapter Text
When Dan dropped Trixie off a few days later, Chloe wasn't sure how she was going to explain the screaming to her. Lucifer had woken her almost every night that Trix was gone with a hoarse shout of pain, or grief, or whatever wasn't letting him sleep.
When she carefully broached the subject with Trixie, her smart little monkey just gave her a look and said, "I know what nightmares are, Mom."
Chloe decided to leave it at that.
Something woke her in the early hours of the morning, something other than Lucifer screaming. She wasn't sure what it was, but it had her sitting up with a gasp out of a dead sleep. The house was silent around her. She tried to decide if that meant he was still sleeping, if going to check on him would wake him up, if she cared.
There was a chill about her, something that made her skin erupt in goosebumps that were taking their sweet time going away. She shook her head a little, the remnants of a dark dream fading away before she could grasp what they were about. Maybe that was what had woken her; maybe her subconscious was on her side for once.
Maybe she hadn't been dreaming about Lucifer being gone again, being dragged back to Hell screaming for her. She hadn't had that nightmare in a while, but it always left her feeling shaky.
Even if he was sleeping, even if she was about to wake him up, she needed to go check to make sure he was still there, she decided. Maybe she would invite him back to her bed finally. Maybe it would be just to sleep, but maybe…
She threw on a robe and crept out of her bedroom on silent feet. Lucifer was sitting up on the couch, a book in his hands, but he didn't look like he was actually reading it. He was definitely awake, though, so she went and sat next to him with a sigh.
"Detective," he said evenly, the exhaustion well-hidden behind his voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
She leaned against him and he lifted an arm, positioning her more securely against his side. "Couldn't sleep. I figured I'd come see if you couldn't either."
He huffed out a short laugh at that. "It seems sleeping well just isn't in my future for the moment."
"How come?" she asked quietly. "I know you said we weren't in any danger, but are you? Is that why…" She drifted off, waiting. As the silence stretched out, she regretted asking him, but couldn't help tensing when the simple "no" she'd wanted didn't come. Still, "You don't have to-"
"I couldn't seal the exits," he said, interrupting her, his voice low and strained. "I spent-" he huffed out another breath that might have been a laugh "-I don't know how long trying to find a way. Years. Decades."
She swallowed, a hundred words sticking in her throat.
"At first I just wanted to watch over you. Make sure my solution didn't have any holes in its security. Staying awake a few days at a time isn't a problem for me, but then-"
She felt the shudder run through his body and he fell silent. When she looked up at him he was staring off into the distance, his face pale, and his knuckles were white where he clutched the book in one hand.
"What was your solution?" she asked finally, when it seemed he wasn't going to say any more. She wasn't sure if she wanted to know.
"A trial, of sorts," he said, meeting her gaze finally with a smile that held no good humor. "A labyrinth, with a thousand exits back to Hell but only one heavily guarded one to here. I tested it with my strongest demons. Not a one made it out. Not a one survived to come back to Hell with their sanity fully intact."
An awful feeling started growing in her stomach as he looked away. His hand on her was gentle, but the one holding the book had dented the cover and his fingers looked like they were about to sink through the pages. Or crush the paper back into the tree it came from.
"It was quite ingenious, really," he continued. "Each level of the labyrinth takes the traveler deeper into their worst fear, worst nightmare. They live through it over and over again, each time more intense than the last. I-"
He broke off with a strangled noise, his fingers spasming on her arm, gripping tightly for a moment before letting go. She was going to have a bruise there tomorrow.
"You built a shortcut for yourself though, right?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head slowly, letting her go entirely and dropping the book in order to clasp his hands together, knuckles white.
"I knew the route to the true exit, but I still had to walk it. I-" He shook his head, his cheeks wet.
She wanted to hold him, to offer him comfort she wasn't sure he felt he deserved. But he had pulled away from her, curling in on himself. When she reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, he flinched away from her before gasping an apology.
"I sent in a legion of demons to test it once I was certain everything was- They all made it back to Hell eventually, and I executed every one. Just to be safe, you see." His laugh was mirthless. "They needed to be remember who the King of Hell was, and I reminded them. They won't be forgetting for a long time, I imagine."
"Oh, babe," she said, turning enough that she could pull him into a hug, unable to resist anymore. He went stiff for a moment before slumping against her, the sudden weight of him almost knocking her backward. "I'm sorry."
He shook his head against her shoulder. "They were only demons. My best after Mazikeen, but still only demons. But when- When I was certain- After the last, I left. I walked through that labyrinth and watched you and- and the urchin die a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand different ways and I can't get it out of my head. I can't, Chloe, every time I close my eyes, I- and then you're not- and Beatrice-"
He was shuddering against her and she held him tighter to her, one hand running up and down his back even though she knew it could do little to soothe him. It was the least she could do; it was all she could do.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into his hair. "I'm so sorry."
"I would do it again," he said, his voice thick. "I would do it however many times I had to, to get back to you."
"I know," she said, her heart too big and her chest too small to contain everything she was feeling. She pressed a hard kiss against the side of his head. "I know."
She untangled herself from him and he let her go with clear reluctance, turning his face away to hide the wetness of his eyes from her. She stood and pulled him up after her, then stood on her tiptoes to press a kiss against his cheek.
"Babe, come to bed with me," she said, taking his hand and stepping away. "Come rest. Maybe…"
He was watching her, his eyes red-rimmed with a grief she couldn't begin to understand, but a wonder slowly growing in them and his face slack in a way that made something warm turn lazily in her stomach. She smiled at him, stepping backward and pulling him after her. He followed docilely, but his grip on her hand was tight with anxiety.
"I don't know if I'll be of much use to you, darling," he said, sounding hesitant and pausing in the doorway to her bedroom.
She cast an exasperated look back to him and tugged his hand, gently until he came forward. "You're here to try to sleep," she said before raising on her tiptoes and giving him a gentle kiss. "That's it."
"Oh," he said, and a bit of light died in his eyes, so she added, "For now."
"Oh," he said, the light coming back. But he still looked uncertain. "I still don't know if- I'll only keep you awake."
"That's okay," she said, and turned them so she could push him gently down onto the bed. "Just lay down anyway."
He didn't look convinced, but did as she said, laying there stiffly as she curled around him, prodding him until he rolled onto his side so she could be the big spoon.
"It's alright," she said, running her hand slowly up and down his side, soothing him into relaxing inch by inch. "You don't even have to close your eyes, just rest."
"If you wanted to get me horizontal, Detective," he said and yawned widely before finishing with, "all you had to do was ask."
She huffed out a laugh, pausing her movement for a moment only to resume when he made a discontented noise. They lay like that for a while, both of them awake, but not talking, Chloe breathing softly and slowly, trying to get him to do the same.
After a while he nodded off, his breathing deepening and his body relaxing, but it only lasted a few minutes before he jerked awake with a tiny, broken noise.
"Are you sure you don't-" he rasped.
She didn't let him finish before saying, "I don't."
He kept doing it, nodding off and then jerking away, sometimes more violently than others. Occasionally he would offer to go back to the couch, but she continued to shut him down. She wanted him there, even if it meant neither of them were going to sleep. She wanted him to get at least one night where he could wake up and immediately know that she as safe. She wanted-
"Would it help if Trixie was here too?" she asked quietly.
He made a noncommittal noise and said, "You shouldn't wake her on my account, darling. I'll be fine."
"Yeah, okay," she said and sat up. "I'll be right back."
His lack of protest was telling. So she went back out and to Trixie's room and knelt beside her bed, gently shaking her awake.
"Mom?" she asked, still half asleep.
"Hey monkey," Chloe said, sitting back on her heels. "Lucifer's having a hard time right now-"
"I know that, Mom." Trixie sounded exasperated, even half asleep.
"And," Chloe said, emphasizing the word, "it might help him sleep if we were both there. Want to come sleep in my bed for the rest of the night?"
"Okay," Trixie said, heaving a sigh and pushing herself up.
God but Chloe loved her.
Trixie trailed her up to her bedroom, and when they went in, the first thing Chloe saw was Lucifer, awake and sitting up on the edge of the bed. His fingers were digging into the mattress and he was breathing hard, and her heart broke for him.
"Oh, babe," she said quietly as she gently pushed Trixie toward the other side of the bed.
Trixie, for her part, climbed into bed and almost immediately was asleep again, in that way kids had. If only it were going to be that easy to get Lucifer to get some sleep.
"I-" he started, his voice choked, but she shook her head.
"Lay back down," she said, going to stand in front of him. He shook his head, his arms coming up to clutch her as he shook. She could feel his heart beating hard and rabbit fast as he pressed against her. "It's alright. We're both here. Lay down."
He did, reluctantly, and Trixie immediately rolled over into his side. He looked surprised at that, which had Chloe laughing quietly. "She's an octopus when she sleeps."
She climbed back into bed, spooning up behind him again, her hand going back to his side. She could feel him relaxing by degrees until he was lax against her. She slowly stopped moving her hand and shifted her arm to be around his middle. It put her head in an awkward spot but she didn't care. She pressed against him as much as she possibly could, and slowly drifted off into sleep.
Chloe woke with a start at her alarm and quickly smacked it off with one hand, the other trapped underneath Lucifer's body. He made a grumbling noise but when she craned her neck to catch a glimpse of his face, he was still asleep. They had shifted during the night, her on her back and Lucifer cuddled up to her so his head rested over her heart. She could just see Trixie to the other side of him, her back to his, still sound asleep.
Chloe didn't want to wake him, but needed to call the station and school; a day off for the three of them wasn't going to hurt anyone and might do Lucifer good. Carefully, slowly, she eased out from under him, then grabbed up her phone and crept to the door.
She made the two calls quickly as she searched for her tablet. She was up for the day, but that didn't mean she couldn't read in bed while Lucifer slept beside her. In fact, it sounded like a nice way to spend the morning.
Back in her room, he was starting to stir one hand stretching across the bed, a slight frown on his face. She couldn't have been gone for more than five minutes. Before she could reach the bed, he was shooting up—an unhappy whine coming from where Trixie had buried herself in blankets—and looking around wildly before his eyes landed on her.
"Hey," she said, going over and sliding into the bed next to him, propping herself up on the headboard. "I was just calling in so we have a day off."
"I don't need-" he started, but she shushed him and he changed tactics. "If you're up we should-"
She shushed him again. "You look like you could still use a few hours."
He grimaced and ran a hand through his curls. "You don't have to do this, Detective."
"I know," she said, crooking a half smile at him. When was he going to learn that she knew she didn't have to take care of him, but that didn't mean she was going to stop? "Why don't you lay down again."
He stared at her for a moment before pressing a soft kiss to her cheek. She turned before he could move away and caught his lips with hers. She didn't deepen the kiss—morning breath was morning breath, devil or human—but poured as much affection as she could into the chaste press of lips.
When he finally sat back, he was smiling, a soft expression that made her want to kiss him again. She held herself back, instead reaching out to cup his cheek. He turned into her touch, pressing a kiss into her palm, still smiling.
"I don't know what I did to deserve you," he said quietly, "but I'll endeavor to keep doing it, whatever it is."
"Just keep being yourself," she said before dropping her hand to his shoulder and pressing lightly. "Now go back to sleep. I'll be here, and Trixie will sleep for another few hours if I let her."
"Thank you," he said, and when she furrowed her brow in confusion, he added, "For putting up with me."
"Oh," she said. "It's hardly a trial. Not when it's you." She paused, taking note of the sly grin spreading over his face, and pointed a finger at him. "No. Do not take that as an excuse to be even more annoying at work. That's a trial."
He darted forward and kissed the tip of her finger. The sleep seemed to have done him good, even if it was only a few hours. "I'll keep that in mind."
She sighed and shook her head with a smile that she couldn't quite banish from her lips. "You're impossible. Go back to sleep."
He stayed where he was for a moment, smiling and eyes bright through the exhaustion still pinching at the corners. Then he lay back down, head at her hip, one arm thrown across her thighs.
"Is this alright?" he asked quietly.
She ran her fingers through his hair, gently scritching his scalp. His tousled hair and soft smile made quite the picture, and her throat was suddenly tight. They couldn't do this every night, but hopefully the nights they could it would help.
"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, it is."
The End