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The thing is that Lucifer is so much body; tall, broad of shoulder and long of limb. Wingspan enough to encase a person. And more than that – every atom of him is hyper real, the edge of his smile keen enough to draw blood. The word “omnipresent” comes to Chloe's mind, which makes the interminable months on months on months he spends stuck in Hell that much stranger.
When a man that omnipresent, yes, owns a nightclub, you sort of expect to dance in it with him. When that man is also the Devil, it may or may not start to feel unavoidable.
She just sort of thought she'd get the chance, eventually.
***
It starts with a dream that Chloe has wings. She's not an angel, because there's no universe where any dream of his features another angel, not even Chloe-as-angel, but she does have wings like them – thick and golden brown like an eagle – and she is avenging, every inch of it. Not even Remiel would be able to fault her, Lucifer finds his dream telling him.
This is mostly because of the trail of demon bodies she strings behind her like the cosmos' most grimly satisfying breadcrumbs.
i've come to fetch you, her mouth says even though her voice doesn't, you've been gone too long. how are you supposed to rule hell when all the devils are on earth?
(Lucifer chalks it up to dreaming that she's more poetic than he is and more dramatic than herself.)
He doesn't know what to tell her, of course, because he's stuck here and she's up there, and he said he would be here and so he is.
***
Trixie comes home from school one day, chattering about mythology and what she'd learned in school that day. “We talked about Orpheus and about Anubis and about the Valkyries. I liked them best, they get to go down to battlefields and bring people up to Odin's hall where it's kinda like Heaven,” Trixie is saying as Chloe moves about the kitchen.
“That's great, baby.”
“Isn't it cool! And Orpheus went down to the Underworld to bring his true love back from the dead after she was killed on their wedding day.”
“That's very cool.”
(Trixie is not amused. She makes a face, one Chloe would recognize had she been watching.)
“I'm gonna get Maze to teach me to be a Valkyrie and then I'm gonna go rescue someone from Hell and bring him back here, Mommy, and everything will be okay.” Trixie beams at her mother, certain this will get her attention and bring her back into their kitchen from wherever she'd been lately.
Maze had caved in under the barest pressure and told Trixie the basics of everything – Lucifer really was the Devil, Maze herself was a demon, and little Charlie's daddy was a real angel. A really real angel. The kind like Lucifer used to be.
Not that Trixie ever didn't believe it. He'd always told them that. Trixie just wanted him to come back, that was all.
“That's great, baby.”
Well. Maybe not all.
***
Maze sits in Linda's office, not technically in a session, but Linda never seemed to mind, not even when she flipped a knife around while she talked. It's just that she's on edge, dealing with the club. With Lucifer gone, and Chloe too distracted with either trying to figure out how to get him back or Decidedly Not Thinking About it by throwing herself into all the boring cases that Maze couldn't even go out hunting bounty on, she was stuck minding Lux. Not tending it, thank fuck, but still doing the books and the stocking and the supervising.
“I'm just so bored,” she groans. “He didn't even have the decency to take me with him so I could go back to tormenting the damned.” She knew where she stood with the damned.
Linda tilts her head. “Maze, maybe you need a hobby.”
“I don't. I have a job. I'd like to get back to it.”
“Maze.”
“Linda.”
Linda smiles, first slow and then so wide it even makes Maze's face hurt. “Maze, what you need is tribe night.”
They meet up at the usual bar, the four of them; they get drunk and they get drunk fast. What Maze isn't expecting is for Chloe to be the one to bring it up.
“Hey Maze,” she says muzzily, leans on first Maze and then the table, glumly and heavily through her elbow. “Maze, we need a hobby.”
Maze's smile is dangerous like cocking a gun, drawing a bow, pulling a knife. “Hot shit, Decker, that's not what I was expecting to you say. What'd you have in mind?” She hopes it's something good, like sneaking all the good cases off the other detectives' desks and going after the suspects, the nervous witnesses, and the culprits. She'd also take another fight breaking out. It was a surprise that the tiki bar had let them back in at all, but Maze certainly isn't complaining.
Chloe squints at her through one eye. “Something good. Trixie said she was gonna be a Valkyrie. Maybe you can teach me to be a badass and the three of us can be the next...I dunno. Charlie's Angels or something. Except Trixie's just a kid, so probably not that.” Her one open eye slips closed again, her head lolls. “Definitely not that one.”
Maze pats the side of Chloe's head (but awkward, stiffly, more of a gently whack to her ear). “Decker,” she crows, “speaking my language! Are you not already a badass though, what with being a detective and all?”
“Pfff,” Chloe tells her. “Not the same.
“You've shot people.”
"You've thrown knives at people, and tortured souls, and generally been a lot cooler than me for millennia, so I think you win this one.” Chloe sits up straight, mouth an exaggerated 'o' as she gasps at Maze, wide-eyed. “Holy shit, Maze, maybe I can go bounty hunting with you!”
Maze smiles again. “I like the way you think, Chloe.”
***
There are more. The dreams get not worse, but more frequent, which is worse in its own way. Each time the detective returned, she was covered in more and more blood, drenched with it. It wasn't bad, my any stretch of the imagination, but it was alarming.
tell me anything, Chloe directs him soundlessly. tell me what you know and i can get you out of here, lucifer.
His seat, his high perch over all the endless tortures below, was starting to give him altitude sickness. Lucifer presses a hand to his forehead, sucks in a breath and tries to ignore the lingering taste of ash in the air.
***
“Chloh-ee,” Maze singsongs at her the next morning through the door. Knock knock. “Decker, come on, we've got work to do.”
Chloe launches up in her bed, spits hair out of her mouth, flounders for the clock. 6:00 AM, and Maze is still tapping at the door with something far too sharp to be her knuckles and too substantial to be her fingernail. Chloe stumbles out of bed more than she gets out, and tears the door open more than turns the knob to find Maze's too-chipper face, knife spinning on one finger. “You wanna do this or not?”
"Maze. Too early,” she warns her roommate, trying to pull the door closed again but finding a knife in the way.
“Uh-uh,” Maze tells her. “Now or never, Chloe. Do you. Wanna do this. Or not?”
“What,” Chloe challenges, “learn how to annoy my roommate at six in the morning? I think I can manage that, actually. Wanna test that theory?”
Maze smirks. “You're on.” She pushes the knife into Chloe's hand, wraps her fingers around the leather-wrapped handle. “We got a lot of work to do if you want to be good enough to pull it off.”
Chloe blinks. Frowns. Blinks again, mouth opening with a question she doesn't actually get out before shaking her head at Maze. “What are you talking about, Maze?”
“I'm talking about what your kid said, Decker. I think she's right.”
“About what?”
“Going and getting him.”
***
The dreams get vivid, real, which is more distressing than even the frequency. Lucifer can smell the blood on her, the sweat, hear the rustle of her impossible wings. It's like she's standing right before him. He's consoled by the fact that she can't possibly mean she's here, because he'd have been alerted immediately if someone died and come to the wrong place.
There was no way she'd end up in Hell. The dreams, as comforting as her presence was, were just that.
***
Chloe can't nail down why she eventually caves, but she does. She wants Lucifer back with them, she supposes. It had taken more innumberable months before Maze decided she was ready, but as soon as they'd come – Maze refusing to let her come without backup and Amenadiel willing to ferry them down but not stay for the fun – the time had moved in a blur.
Here she finally stands. In front of a spike of rock that was so endless it seemed amazing Lucifer hadn't shown up back on the surface. Covered in blood, in ash, smelling of the fires she and Maze had used to make a barrier and keep the majority of the demons back while Chloe makes a break for the throne.
She calls up to him.
***
That's his name on the wind, and the smell of burning flesh. Which means someone has broken in and is likely trying to take what's his. What he gave up his whole life for, and not just once.
His wings unfurl, he steps off the highest point in hell, and he drops to the ground.
***
He hits the ground in front of her, rolls his shoulders. It's impossibly good to see him again.
“Lucifer.”
***
It's impossible.
“Detective.”
***
“You can't be here, Detective.”
“Yeah. Well.” She squares her shoulders. “I am. I came to fetch you. Maze, too. You're coming home.”
“I can't. You can't– You can't. You don't know what…”
Chloe steps forward and takes his hands with her own, heedless of the way the motion drips blood onto his sleeves. “You're coming home. You can tell me everything,” she soothes, “tell me everything when I get you back home.”
She smells like gasoline, and there are no wings to be found even as he pulls her into his arms and runs his hands over her shoulder blades, but she's easily the best thing he's seen in the countless revolutions of the soulless imitation sun of Hell. His wings flex, and he's ready to take off when –
“Lucifer,” she reminds him, “don't forget Maze.”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, for Dad's sake,” he says, and it is not hoarse, or watery, thank you, “did you drag Mazikeen into this scheme as well? And here I was just getting over the shock of it being you.” Chloe gives him a look, one he knows, and the fact that she's covered in blood does nothing for his case. “Right, yes, one at a time, I'll be right back for her.”
She smiles, like everything's going to be okay. Perhaps it is. He takes off, heads home.
***
(When a man this omnipresent owns a nightclub, you sort of expect to dance in it with him. When that man is also the Devil, it may or may not start to feel unavoidable. She tells him this, one time, in low light with her hair damp from the shower.)
When you're Chloe Decker, and the Devil has been gone for too long, and you love him, you apparently march down to Hell and carve your way through a horde of demons to make sure you get the chance, with only one other demon for backup.
They'll get the chance, thanks to her.