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Lucifer woke with a smile on his face.
It was an odd feeling, to be so calmly happy at the beginning of the day. He didn't feel the need to get out of bed and start doing things even though he should be getting up to start breakfast for the Detective. He didn't feel that gnawing emptiness that sometimes hollowed him out. He felt... light.
If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the Detective leaning against him as she had last night, still feel the heat of her body and smell the fruit of her shampoo. He had been well and truly sloshed by that point, but even that wasn't enough for him to forget what she felt like. No amount of inebriation would be.
He rolled out of bed and shrugged into his robe, tying the sash loosely only in deference of the Detective's sensibilities. Her senseless sensibilities, more like it, but he couldn't say that to her face. Again. Without getting a good slap.
It might be worth it.
Before he went to the kitchen to start breakfast, he grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen for when the Detective woke up, bringing it with him. He puttered around, pulling the ingredients for crepes out of the cabinets in the kitchen. He wasn't sure what the Detective liked in her crepes, so he put out an assortment of fillings as the pan heated. Perhaps he should make some bacon and eggs to go along with it; the Detective was sure to have a hangover.
He pulled out another pan. As he cooked, the smells of breakfast filling the kitchen and hopefully drifting to the guest room, the happiness faded into uneasiness. Before he started cooking, he should have made sure the Detective was still in bed... That she hadn't left before he awoke.
Just as he was thinking of turning down the hobs and going to check, she trudged into the kitchen, dressed in the clothes she had been wearing yesterday, her hair barely tamed, and her face free of any makeup. She was beautiful.
"Ugh," she said and leaned against the counter beside him.
"Hangover, darling?" he asked and put the ibuprofen in front of her along with a glass of water. "These should help a little."
"Thanks," she mumbled, throwing back the pills dry before draining the glass of water and going to get another one. She was starting to look more awake, and he found that he was a bit disappointed by that. She was so adorable and so... soft when she had just woken. It was a look he wished he could capture on his phone without her making him delete it, so he could always have it by him.
"Brekkie's almost done," he said instead of taking out his phone to snap a photo. "Go sit down. I'll bring it over."
She did as directed, casting a grateful smile his way, one he would do anything to earn. As he would for any smile she was willing to give him. He felt his breath catch in his throat at that, at the realization that he...
That he...
He cleared his throat, shaking the thoughts out of his head and piled two plates high with bacon and eggs, and balanced the plate with the stack of crepes in the crook of his arm. The Detective had her head down on the table and her eyes closed as he approached, and he felt a contented smile spreading across his face. She pushed herself up when he put the plate down in front of her.
"You can go back to bed," he told her, not bothering to try to keep the smile off his face. "The food will keep."
She shook her head as she stabbed her fork into a crepe and moved it to her plate. When she spooned out some jam for it, he made a note to buy more strawberry jam for-
For nothing. This wasn't something likely to happen regularly. He had let himself forget that, let himself fall into the easy rhythm of what he always imagined a morning after with the Detective would be like. After Dan returned next weekend, there was a distressingly high chance that things would go back to being as strained has they had been before he made the bloody deal with her.
He couldn't bring himself to regret it. Not if it got him this, the Detective looking soft and beautiful in the early morning light, even if it was only once.
"What?" the Detective asked, wiping at her face with a napkin. "Do I have something on my face?"
"No, just lost in thought," he said, and she raised an eyebrow, clearly waiting for him to continue. When he didn't, she shrugged and went back to munching on her bacon.
He hated to bring it up, but... "When do you need to pick up your spawn?"
"Not until noon." She looked wary, and he felt like he was fumbling his way through two different conversations somehow. "I should go after this." She laughed, a nervous tinge underneath it, and he felt his heart sink. "I need to shower."
"You can always use the ensuite in the guest room," he found himself saying, and waited for her to tell him that, no, she really needed to go.
When she just chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bacon without immediately rebuffing him, he felt something he wasn't sure he'd felt for millenia: hope.
"I suppose it's not noon yet," she said, watching him out of the corner of her eyes.
"It isn't," he agreed readily, his fingers clenching around his fork for a second before he made them relax and put the fork down. She didn't seem to notice.
"If you don't have plans..." she started and paused, looking away.
"I don't," he said, and had to hold his breath to stop from blurting out- no, begging her to stay just a short while longer. Begging her to let this moment in time stretch like taffy before it inevitably broke.
"I could stay," she finally said after a pause, and rushed on to add, "I suppose you haven't seen any of the good Christmas movies."
He frowned to cover his relief. "I think good might be overstating it no matter the movie."
"Well clearly you've never seen Die Hard," she said stuffing the last bit of egg into her mouth before popping up. "I'll just go shower."
After a moment of speechlessness, he called after her, "Die Hard is not a Christmas movie!"
Her laugh drifted back to him, and he smiled.
He took the time she was showering to take his own shower and fix his hair. He forewent a suit for the moment, just putting on a button down and trousers. When he was finally ready to leave his bedroom, he found the Detective already ensconced on a sofa, hair dried and pulled back with a hair tie, clicking through his Prime account to find Die Hard, he assumed.
"I hope you don't mind," she said, motioning to the TV.
"What's mine is yours," fell out of his mouth. She gave him an odd little look, so it might have been too much, but it was true. He would gladly give her anything of his, if only she asked, including his heart.
The thought was less terrifying anymore than it used to be. As long as he kept it a secret, it was barely terrifying at all.
"Let me just make some popcorn, shall I?" he asked and went back to the kitchen when she nodded and smiled at him. By the time he returned with a big bowl of popcorn drizzled with butter and sprinkled with salt, she was half laying down on the sofa, her feet up, massaging her temples.
"Need a good rub, darling?" he asked, putting down the bowl of popcorn and motioning her up.
The gesture wasn't necessary. As soon as he said it, she shot up with a glare and a wince, so he added, "Your head. It could help."
"Oh," she said, looking slightly guilty.
He sat sideways beside her when she nodded, tucking himself into the corner of the sofa as much as a man of his height could, one foot on the floor and his other leg against the back of the sofa. He gently encouraged her to slide back a little and, with only a slightly suspicious look, she did, moving until she was nestled in the V of his legs.
She was tense, but as he carefully took out the hair tie and ran his fingers through her hair, she relaxed and leaned against him. Her hair was soft, and he could spend days letting it slide through his fingers.
"How come you don't have a hangover?" she asked as she hit play on the movie, bringing him out of his reverie. "You're vulnerable around me."
"It's my superior constitution." He said, deflecting from the double meaning. He dodged the hand she tried to smack him with — poorly — and chuckled as she laughed. His fingers rubbed tiny circles into her scalp as he said, "I heal slower around you, true, but it's still faster than a human."
His fingers were on her temples now and he wished he could just pluck a feather and heal her pain, but the one time he had offered, she had brushed him off and he found himself strangely reluctant to try again. Instead, he moved his fingers in soft circles and tried not to react when she hummed in appreciation. She melted against him as he worked, her eyes half-closed and her body boneless with pleasure.
"You're good at this," she sighed as explosions happened on the television screen.
"I've had practice," he said, smiling down at her. Her shoulders tensed, and he felt himself tense in return, bracing for whatever was about to come. He refused to be made to feel ashamed about taking and giving pleasure when he could, not after going so long without.
But without him needing to break the mood, she relaxed and murmured, "Tell them thank you from me."
He chuckled a little and moved from circles to stroking his fingers through her hair, gently untangling the knots he'd accidentally made. "You're more than welcome to thank them yourself," he said.
She tilted her head back until she was looking at him, smirking. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
He knew he was staring at her blankly, but he couldn't stop as images of her and one of his past lovers together ran through his head. He willed himself not to get an erection at the image of one of the Brittanys with her face between Chloe's legs and-
"Did I break you?" she asked, and he blinked down at her.
"N- No, of course not," he said, but he wasn't so sure.
She smiled at him and sat up; he mourned the loss of her warmth as she slid away from him. Then she was pushing his leg off the sofa and laying back down, her head in his lap. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve this, but he prayed that he could continue.
He let his fingers rest on her forehead, gently stroking across her soft skin. She murmured something that he didn't quite catch, her eyelids sagging. He reached for the remote to turn down the television volume and moved the popcorn further away. Then he settled back against the sofa. He'd wake her in time for her to go get her spawn, but for now...
For now he was going to enjoy this, for as long as he was allowed.
THE END