Chapter Text
He noticed the fissure in the throne long before he ever knew what it really meant.
A long, jagged split in the rocky surface of the infernal chair. Lucifer cocked his eyebrow at it, quite sure he would’ve noticed something as atrocious as that before now.
He resolutely decided to chalk it up to his spotty mental state since his return to Hell - one year ago, in Earth’s time. But much more for him.
It was embarrassing, really, but no surprise all the same. The Detective’s… no, Chloe’s - he corrected himself, reminding an admission of love likely guarantees the use of someone’s first name - influence on him had been a very noticeable alteration in the way he would usually run the depressing kingdom, versus his current ruling state.
And like the chair, he was starting to crack.
No longer did he even get the slightest pleasure of ordering and overseeing the torturing of human souls. Before, it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but he’d forced himself into believing he was at least punishing the guilty. Bringing justice.
But now, knowing how those like Charlotte could end up at his not-so-metaphorical doorstep, the torture was just that. Torture. To him.
He saw Dan, Linda, Charlotte, Ella and even Chloe in the faces of the confused and pained souls that made up the citizens of the ‘underworld’. Or, at least imagined their faces. He knew that the latter four would never end up in his domain. The first, he was curious if, and more likely when, they might meet again. And this time the Douche would be forced to believe he was a man - or Devil, rather - of his word. Not quite a nutjob.
Well not yet, anyways.
He was starting to wonder if this was really dear old Dad’s plan in putting Chloe on earth. A long game of planned sublime punishment to orchestrate a way to flush out the very denial and self-serving avoidance of emotion that had kept him sane in the depths he previously governed.
This was Hell. No, really. He wasn’t just the Lord of Hell.
He was a citizen too, now.
---
Chloe brushed Trixie’s hair, pulling it up into a high ponytail. It was getting so long these days.
“Are you still wanting to grow out your hair, Monkey?” She mumbled, with a couple of bobby pins between her lips. “Cause I can take you after school today to get it cut if you want? I have the afternoon off of work.”
Trixie looked up and met her mom’s gaze in the mirror. “No, that’s okay. I want to wait a little longer.”
Chloe’s heart fell just a little bit, but she took a deep breath and steeled herself.
“Look, I know you wanted to wait until… until Lucifer.. could come back… But, honey, I’m sorry... I don’t-”
Trixie ripped away right as Chloe was pulling the hair through the last loop of the ponytail.
“He will come back. Stop saying he won't." Her face was scrunched up in a special kind of denial that Chloe could internally empathize with. But now was not the time to crumble.
“Baby, he’s been gone for a year, and I think that means he’s decided he can’t. He had to leave to… to do something that his dad is making him do, remember?” Chloe’s eyes were watering.
It had been almost a year, exactly, since his departure. She still felt it every day.
“Well I hate his dad!” Trixie yelled, storming into her room. “Lucifer promised he’d braid my hair like Elsa when it was long enough. And I’m waiting until he’s coming back.”
Chloe followed her furious daughter into her bedroom. She knew it wasn’t just about Elsa. Trixie barely even watched Frozen anymore.
She noticed as Trixie began rifling through her school backpack.
“Trixie, what are you doing?” Chloe was trying very hard to keep a lid on the rising emotions.
Her daughter pulled out a worksheet from one of her class folders. It was the blue folder, so, English class then.
“I’m writing his dad a letter. We just learned how to in class.” Her daughter answered mechanically, as she also looked for a pencil in her backpack.
Chloe shook her head silently, a few tears watering up her ducts and down her cheeks. How do you tell your daughter that she’s saying she hates God? And that letters aren’t really able to be addressed… to Heaven.
“Wait.” Trixie said, stopping as she scrawled the first mark on a notebook paper inside the blue folder. “Is Lucifer’s dad God?”
Chloe’s eyes marginally widened. “Um, yeah, he did used to say that didn’t he?” She wiped the tears from her cheeks before Trixie could spot them.
Trixie nodded quietly before resolutely looking back up with a smile.
“Well, okay. I guess I’ll just yell at him in my head then. Then he’ll hear me.”
Chloe was really hoping the grief wasn’t driving her daughter crazy, like it was to her.
“What do you mean, Monkey?”
“Praying! I hear all the time that parents make kids pray, because God can hear them.” Trixie smiled. She grabbed her backpack and zipped it up, making sure the folder was back inside. “Okay, you can take me to school.”
Maybe it was Chloe’s turn to pray, that they made it all out of this in one piece.
---
Amenadiel smiled warmly at one of the many blessed sights he’d been granted since the birth of his son.
Charlie had learned to fully walk, and despite Linda’s trepidation at this sudden development, he was ecstatic. Walking meant that his son was that much closer to getting his wings and flying.
“Linda! Come look, he’s walking to the kitchen now!” Amenadiel called gleefully from his place on the floor near the couch.
“I’m sure he is!” Linda answered from behind the closed bathroom door, “But I’m about to take a shower, so you’ll just have to fill me in!”
Amenadiel pulled out his phone to take a video but as he pressed record, a message popped up.
STORAGE FULL
“That’s odd.” Amenadiel mumbled to himself. “I was sure that they told me it was almost impossible to fill up the 64 gigabyte version.”
Maybe somehow Linda’s account had synched with his? Yes, he imagined, that was probably it.
He would have to take it in today to see if they could fix it at the store. But what if they made him delete all the files he had on it already?
Amenadiel’s heart seized up. No! That would mean removing countless images and progress that Charlie had made over the last year!
He took some time to open up his gallery and scroll through to the very first photo, reminiscing.
It was taking quite a while to get there, actually. Weird.
He began to wonder if maybe he’d been overdoing it, when he looked up to see Charlie walking towards him, voicing repeatedly his new favorite word - “dada”.
“Yes, that’s right, Charlie. I’m your dada.” He smiled and held his arms out for his son.
He recalled how excited they’d all been when he first spoke two weeks ago. He’d even went and showed Charlie around the precinct.
---
“Oh my gosh, he’s getting so big!” Ella squealed, grabbing for Charlie. Amenadiel smiled as she looked in adoration at him.
“You should hear him lately, too. He’s started talking.”
“Someone’s a proud dad, huh.” Dan smiled as he and Chloe walked into Ella’s lab, joining the other two.
“Yeah, I guess I can’t help it lately.” Amenadiel shrugged back, “I just can’t get enough of him. Now that he’s starting to talk and maybe even fl-”
Amenadiel stopped his sentence for a moment as Chloe made eyes to cut the celestial talk - before it started.
“I mean, fart, yeah.” He finished awkwardly.
Dan barked out a laugh. “You’re telling me Charlie doesn’t fart? Wow you got lucky. We must’ve been feeding Trixie something really wrong at that age then.”
Chloe smiled and coughed. “SO true.”
Ella laughed and handed Charlie back to his dad as he started to squirm. “Well I think I’m the only non-parent here but if I have any advice for you, it’d be to be careful what you say. They repeat. My little cousin, did for sure anyways.”
Dan pointed in agreement at Ella. “Yes. It’s terrifying. I had a great time getting Trixie to stop saying the ‘f’ word all because I yelled it out in traffic one time. ONE time is literally all it took.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Yes, it did. And we’re both fortunate that time thankfully helped her lose interest in saying it.”
Ella laughed along with Amenadiel.
“Well, at least uncle Luci is still back with the main family so he can’t corrupt little Charlie just yet. We all know what kind of words he’d be teaching him now, huh.” Ella giggled.
The room’s silence changed her laugh to an uncomfortable row of apologies.
“Oh, hey sorry. I know we all still miss him a lot.” Ella grimaced at Dan’s pained expression, Amenadiel’s sad eyes and the side of Chloe’s head who wouldn’t meet anyone’s gaze anymore.
“But don’t you think, you know, he deserves to be missed?” She ventured.
The group turned back to her in a sad sort of rapture.
“I mean, from what you and Amenadiel said, it sounds like the guy really wants to be here, but his dad won’t let him. I know it’s sad, and it sucks, but by not even talking about him isn’t that kind of wrong? I mean, it’s not like he wanted to leave.”
The room was quiet.
Ella sighed. “Well, I’m sorry. It’s not like any of you will give me an address or number to reach him at, so how am I supposed to let the guy know I miss him?”
Amenadiel put Charlie in one hand and his other on Ella’s shoulder.
“We miss him too.”
Ella shrugged, looking down. “Okay, well can you tell him for me or something? Since I can’t?”
Amenadiel was quiet for a moment. He hadn’t spoken to his brother since the day that they saved Charlie. He hadn’t even visited. And he knew it was wrong, but at the same time, maybe it was easier for them all if he didn’t.
It was naive to imagine everything was finally okay though, and selfish of him to pretend Lucifer wasn’t suffering, or that their friends wouldn’t miss him, that… Chloe wouldn’t miss him as much as she did.
He peered over at her glassy eyes, full of a deep emotion, just at the mention of his brother’s name. Maybe even just for her sake, he should go.
“Yeah, no, you’re right Ella. I’ll go see him, and let him know.”
Chloe’s gaze shot up in a stunned expression, Dan remained immobile, Ella smiled, and Charlie voiced a happy “dada” to him once again.
----
Amenadiel still hadn’t visited Lucifer. He didn’t know why. He held some guilt over it, though... because he had become so complacent to how things are right now. Without Lucifer.
Finally, his life was looking up since the first time he came to Earth. And Lucifer wasn't here. Was it a coincidence? He wasn’t completely sure.
His phone buzzed with a message and he looked down to see Chloe’s name in his receiving folder.
Chloe: Hey, can I come by later today?
This was.. Unusual. Normally Chloe would text Linda.
He responded back, nonetheless.
Amenadiel: Yes, I’ll be here but Linda’s at work until 6.
It was just a few seconds before he got her response.
Chloe: I’m actually coming over to talk to you.
Amenadiel thought back to the last couple of weeks when Chloe gaped at him for suggesting he would go see Lucifer. He had a bad feeling that Chloe was holding out some sort of hope.
And he really didn’t want to be the one to tell her that it was still futile.
“Shit.” He breathed out.
Charlie turned towards him, smiling. “it!”
Amenadiel promptly face-palmed. Linda was going to love this.