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“This is exactly what we needed,” Linda murmured as she sat on the raggedy plaid blanket, legs tucked to one side in her light blue polka dot dress and leaning on one hand. “With everything that’s been going on….”
Amenadiel put his hand lightly on hers from his spot next to her, smiling as their son stumbled across the uneven terrain with a half-eaten sandwich clenched in his tiny fist. “I know,” he said quietly, giving her hand a comforting squeeze as his grin fell slightly.
The year-and-a-half since Lucifer had returned to Hell had been a roller coaster, between Maze and Chloe’s descent into their denial and the change in Lucifer when he came home. Linda had been particularly torn between their growing son, babysitting the adults, and helping the Devil reacclimate to Earth. But things had finally settled down.
And they were going to enjoy the time they had before the next disaster.
She gave him a brief, glowing smile before turning her attention back to Charlie as he waddled back towards them, bending—and nearly falling on his face—to grab his ham and cheese out of the dirt. “I don’t think he should eat that,” Linda noted immediately, starting to rise.
“Linda,” Amenadiel stopped her, gripping her hand harder to get her attention back on him as he grinned at her worry, “he’s going to be fine.”
Blinking at him, the therapist opened her mouth to argue, one finger raising only in brief silence before falling back to the blanket. She gave him a sheepish smile and turned her eyes back to Charlie. “I just…keep forgetting,” she laughed quietly, eyes twinkling. “Everyone we meet always calls him an angel, but—”
“Ass!” Charlie suddenly shouted, his clenched fist angling over their shoulders. “Ass, ass, ass!” he chanted as his parents hurtled towards him.
With Linda swooping the halfling into her arms, shushing him, Amenadiel took the time to look in the direction of Charlie’s gaze.
A very toned jogger was bent over to tie his shoe, his ass aimed towards them in spandex. The Angel’s dwindling annoyance with his younger brother skyrocketed as he recalled the excitement that had flared in Lucifer’s eyes the last time Chloe had watched Charlie. He’s teaching my toddler cuss words because of the goat thing, isn’t he? I never should have told him, Amenadiel chided himself internally. If he would have just let me stick with the cosmos….
He turned with a sigh to apologize, to explain to Linda that he would find a way to fix Lucifer’s little prank, that he was sorry, but had to catch his breath.
The sun was haloing Linda’s light blonde hair, giving her an ethereal appearance as she smiled lovingly down at Charlie. Her raucous laughter—complete with a snort—sounded like the music from the Silver City to him, the toddler gurgling excitedly in tandem with his mother. As the baby reached up to snatch both his mother’s cheeks in his chubby hands to bring them forehead to forehead, his father felt a sudden weight in his chest.
It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was…new. Exciting, even. From the moment Charlie was born, he’d felt vulnerable, like he had a glaring weakness that was ready to be exploited.
But sitting on a raggedy picnic blanket with Linda and their son, the light blazing behind them as she turned that echoing laughter, that axis-tilting glee to him, he felt…invincible. Not like he could take a bullet without a flinch, but like he would take a bullet and come up swinging.
Smile spreading across his face, he muttered, “I wonder who could have taught him that.”
The therapist cast him a conspiratorial smirk. “Oh, well, whoever did certainly knew what they were talking about,” she mused, stretching to give the jogger a comical once-over. “I mean, that’s a nice ass.”
“Linda!” he laughed, leaning towards her with his hand over his heart in feigned dismay. “I thought you only had eyes for one man!”
She chuckled, eyes crinkling delightfully as they traveled back to their son. “Oh, I do,” she said, voice raised in the baby-talk she employed to make Charlie giggle. She glanced at him from above the rim of her glasses. “But his daddy ain’t too bad, either.”