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He could hear the cacophony from inside the apartment but the time he parked the Corvette, but as he recognized the high pitched glee of the the Detective's spawn, not typically a sound he associated with mortal danger, he decided it wasn't worth being concerned with. He lifted the canvas bag of groceries that the Detect- Chloe (it was still hard to get used to calling her by her name outside of work, but she had asked and she asked so little) had asked him to get and swung it over one shoulder with his hastily (and hopefully) packed overnight bag.
Being invited to a Friday night "movie marathon" seemed like an invitation to, ahem, 'sleepover' but he hadn't actually asked to confirm. He debated leaving the case in the car, but shrugged. In for a penny, as they say.
As he got closer to the door he could make out the clear chanting of the spawn.
"MO-A-NA! MO-A-NA! YAY! MO-A-NA!"
"What on Dad's good green earth is going on?" He asked, opening the door without a key as was his habit.
"LUCIFER! I GOT MOANA! WE CAN WATCH MOANA! MOM SAID SO!" He was immediately weighed down by the weight of the small child, who had wrapped herself entirely around his right leg.
"A few decibels louder, spawn. I don't think Maze's sisters in hell can hear you yet." He grumbled, but Trixie just giggled and tightened her hold. "Detective, must your offspring be so grabby?" The woman in question was at the stove, mixing something, and appeared to have not heard him. "Detective, have you sustained hearing loss? Completely possible, I believe, if this racket has been the standard since you got home. Detective? Detect- Chloe?" At that she turned around immediately.
"I was wondering when you'd say my name. We're not at work, there's no detectives here."
"Oh but I do so love a woman in uniform" Lucifer said flirtatiously, trying to smoothly glide across the kitchen for a kiss, but finding himself weighed down by the child he had forgotten was still glued to his leg. His stumble caused both the child and her mother to start giggling and he rolled his eyes. "I suppose you don't plan to release me until all this ice cream has melted?" He finally said and Trixie sprang away at near hyperspeed.
"No! Put it in the freezer! Go! Go!" She started pushing him across the kitchen, but he leaned back and refused to budge.
"No, I'm sure that ice cream soup is quite as good. I'll just keep it out until after dinner."
"Not to interrupt your fun, but I'll just take that." Chloe had crossed the kitchen during their squabble and took the sack from Lucifer's arm, grabbing the overnight bag as well. She looked at it, then at Lucifer, and kissed his cheek. "I'll just put this in the freezer" She indicated the canvas bag and then the overnight bag "and this in my bedroom?"
"If you don't mind?"
"Not even a bit." She gave him another quick kiss, the kind of casual affection that had eluded him for so many years and he found himself starving for now. How strange, that a being who had indulged in just about every hedonistic act throughout history (and quite a few that never made it into the history books, Herodotus had really been such a prude, honestly), found that the one thing he craved now was so innocent it could be found in a film rated for the spawn's own age bracket.
Which brought him back to the topic that had brought on the shrieking of the child in question.
"What, may I ask, is Moana?"
Trixie's eyes got huge and her mouth hung open for a second before she spoke again.
"You've never seen Moana! It's the best! I finally got it on DVD, so I can watch it whenever I want now!"
"Yes, I gathered that, but what is it?"
"It's a Disney movie, a musical." Chloe said, having returned from her bedroom. "I think you'll like it, it has a misunderstood demi-god and everything. Very up your alley."
"Well...I'll defer to your judgment in this I suppose. What's for dinner?"
"Spaghetti!" The spawn's ability to get excited about the smallest day to day things was inexplicable, but also oddly catching, Lucifer had found.
"Nothing fancy, just fast so we can get to the ice cream and movies faster." Chloe shrugged.
"It sounds absolutely delightful, darling. I think the bottle of red I brought will go nicely. I'll open it now?"
"That would be good. Trixie? Go wash your hands and set the table alright?"
"Yup!"
"Is is just me or is your offspring rather more excitable than usually tonight?"
"She's always a bit like this when we get to have movie nights" Chloe said, sounding apologetic. "Plus, she got pretty excited when I said you were coming over as well. Sorry, if she's being a bit..."
"Hmm, oh don't apologize, darling. It's just that having someone be excited at my presence when it has nothing to do with...well, the usual" he smirked and Chloe whacked him softly on the arm "is still rather novel, I’m afraid.”
“I’ve been happy to see you plenty of times.”
“At work, yes...usually less so in your home.”
“Well if you had called first...or knocked. Maybe waiting until I wasn’t in the shower...”
“Now, what kind of fun would that have been, Detective” he smirked, and wrapped his arms around her waist as she stirred the pasta sauce again.
“The kind that didn’t end with me throwing you out?”
“Oh really? What might you have done instead?”
“Not whatever it is you’re thinking, that’s for sure.” Chloe said.
“Oh, you wound me, truly. I was thinking nothing of the sort.”
“Yeah, sure babe. You forget, I know you.” Chloe turned as she said it and tapped him on the nose, leaving him with a healthy splash of spaghetti sauce on his face.
“Lucifer! You have sauce on your face!” Trixie looked like she was fit to burst from excitement and laughter. Chloe caught Lucifer’s hand inching toward the spoon, still covered in a fine layer of sauce except for the one spot where she’d filched what was now on her boyfriend’s nose and quickly stopped that line of thought.
“Woahoh, no. No food fights in my actually clean for once kitchen. Nope.” The would be culprit froze, guiltily. “Is the table set, Trixie?”
“Yes, mommy!”
“Okay, go have a seat and we’ll bring the food.” Lucifer backed away to pour wine into two glasses and Chloe snuck up behind him. “You’re adorable.” Lucifer looked up in shock.
“What? I am not, take that back.”
“Nope, I know how you feel about lying.” She laughed and picked up the sauce pan and the bowl of pasta, taking them to the table. He grumbled, but followed along with the wine and then returned with Trixie’s request for grape juice: ‘in a fancy cup like mommy’s and yours’ which Chloe thought was probably a disaster waiting to happen, but the clear message of ‘if she breaks it I’ll buy you a new one’ on Lucifer’s face silenced most of her concern.
Dinner passed quickly, with Trixie trying to bolt her pasta down like she was in a spaghetti eatching contest, not even arguing about the mixed salad greens that had been put on her plate as well. Even Lucifer cleaned his plate, which felt like a compliment to her cooking and by the time they were pulling the ice cream out, Trixie was bouncing again.
“Can I put the movie in? Please, please, please!”
“Don’t you want to get your ice cream first?”
“You and Lucifer can get yours first!”
“Okay, monkey. You can put it in, but don’t press play yet.” Trixie ran over to the entertainment center and skillfully navigated the many remotes to get it started. “She hasn’t seen it since it was in theaters” Chloe said, by way of explaining her excitment. “It just came out on DVD and my mom sent it to her. That being said, I’m glad to be able to move onto something other than...Frozen” she whispered the last word as if saying it might summon the film.
“Frozen?” Lucifer looked perplexed.
“I thought you liked pop culture?”
“Clearly a different type of pop culture.”
“Thank uh..., well Disney always has a new movie coming out so the obsession always changes, but if I had to hear Let It Go one more time...” Lucifer could swear that he’d only ever seen that look on Chloe’s face when she was facing down murderers and he chuckled. “Oh, you laugh now, but we’ll see how you feel about ‘How Far I’ll Go’ after the 100th viewing of the film.”
“100! Now, Chloe, I like your offspring far more than most children, but I highly doubt I can watch anything 100 times...your acting debut withstanding” she smacked him with the lid of the ice cream carton.
“I’ll try to spare you from the indignity.”
Ice cream in hand the two joined Trixie on the couch, where she promptly manipulated the situation so that Lucifer was snugged up between the two of them. He thought about complaining, but given that he was eating an ice cream sundae on a Friday night, while watching a children’s film with his girlfriend and her spawn...he figured his reputation as a playboy was well and truly destroyed already and, besides, it was...comfortable. Chloe hit the lights and Trixie pressed play and the movie began.
—
Chloe had been pressed up close enough to Lucifer during the entire movie that she could feel every minute muscle tense and twitch as he reacted to the film and now, bowls empty and placed in the sink, and Lucifer standing on her balcony to smoke a cigarette, she had a moment to think about his reactions.
She had never put much thought into the song lyrics, but as the bouncy cheerful “coconut song” had played, she’d felt him tense up and had suddenly felt an insight. A song about how looking for more was wrong, not precisely the best choice for an angel who was literally kicked out by his own father for the same thing. She’d soothed him as best as she could, but the next song hadn’t helped.
There had been a little hitch in his breath that she’d almost missed when Moana’s song talked about how she couldn’t be the perfect daughter and then a tensing, that she could feel in his muscles and see his jaw when the song talked about everyone having a role on the island and being satisfied to play along. She knew that Disney movies liked to make their songs relatable to a wide amount of people, but this was a little ridiculous.
The rest of the movie seemed to calm him down, without any pointed commentary in the lyrics that he could attribute to himself. During “You’re Welcome” he had even laughed.
“You know, several of my brothers and sisters were actually responsible for some of that and I find them being compared to an oafish character played by the Rock to be an insult...to the Rock, he’s a much more pleasant person than any of my siblings.”
“You know the Rock?”
“By reputa-“
“SHH!” Trixie was having none of these interruptions.
“That crab’s cell in hell would be horrendously drab.”
“The music really is quite catchy, I’ll give you that.”
Then they reached the part of the film that was Chloe’s favorite.
Sometimes the world seems against you
The journey may leave a scar
But scars can heal and reveal just where you are
The people you love will change you
The things you have learned will guide you
She’d taken Lucifer’s hand at some point during the movie and she felt him squeeze it tight for a moment and she looked up to see what looked suspiciously like a shimmer of tears in his eye before he blinked and it vanished. She tucked her head against his shoulder and the movie played on, with the requisite triumphant finish.
Trixie had insisted on Tangled next, not Frozen (thank uh...goodness?).
“Alright, monkey, but you need to go put your PJs on first okay? I’ll wash up the bowls and then one more movie.”
“Okay!”
Trixie was alltogether too agreeable a child, Chloe was already dreading the karmic whammy of her teenage years. Finally done with the bowls, she stepped out on the patio and wrapped her arms around Lucifer, laying her cheek against his spine and inhaling the smell of his cologne and the cigarettes he smoked.
“Did you enjoy the movie?”
“It was...passably well written and the music was good.”
“Lin-Manuel Miranda was in charge of that.”
“Hmm, I guess everyone wants a Disney credit these days. Pity that I never had the chance to cash in on that favor old Walt owed me.” Chloe knew he was being completely honest and that made that statement all the more hilarious, but she muffled her laughter.
“You seemed a bit...affected by a couple of the songs.” He tensed, but she kept hold of him and eventually relaxed.
“They were...relatable, I suppose. Though I am pleased that it had a happier ending than my own story.”
“Did it?”
“Well yes, after all, Moana’s family accepted her for what she was in the end.”
“Maybe...maybe you were just expecting the wrong family to accept you?” He tensed and sagged, turning in her grasp.
“You might be-“
“GROUP HUG!” A wrecking ball of 9 year old proportions collided with their legs and giggled. Chloe caught the look of surprise on Lucifer’s face for a moment, then he smiled and his hand met Chloe’s on top of her daughter’s head.
“This does seem...suspiciously, somewhat like...well...” Lucifer stumbled over his words.
Chloe felt her eyes mist over a bit and she leaned up to kiss him.
“Yeah, that’s what family does.”
“Can we watch Tangled now?” They both felt Trixie tugging at their legs and Chloe had to laugh at the put upon look on Lucifer’s face.
“Do they outgrow this grabbiness phase?”
“I don’t know, I think you like it when I’m grabby” Chloe threw her arms around his neck and he snaked his arm around her waist.
“In this, as in many things, you are a clear exception, my dear. That being said, your offspring is YOUR offspring and a brief exception may be possible in this case.” Before Chloe could ask what he meant, he let her go and reached down to scoop Trixie off the ground. “Alright, urchin. What is this tale of poor hair hygeine about? More family drama.” He walked back inside, Trixie propped on his hip and happy as a clam, with Chloe trailing after.
“Her boyfriend dies to save her, but he doesn’t stay dead so it’s not really sad, don’t worry.” Lucifer looked at Trixie with disbelief, then glanced at Chloe.
“This is all a bit too familiar...do you think Disney owes me royalties?” Chloe rolled her eyes and curled up against Lucifer again, chuckling as he pretended to be put out by Trixie planting herself on his lap and refusing to move.
Maybe the happy endings weren’t in the place you expected, but they always showed up eventually.