Chapter Text
Lucifer was having a fantastic day.
It had begun with a most pleasant breakfast, scrambled eggs on toast for Amenadiel, a glass of rich whiskey and a line of white powder for him. The morning had bled into a thrilling afternoon, giving him a rush that could only come from that delicious push and pull he had with the Detective. It had been a long time since a human had captured his attention quite like Chloe Decker.
They had bickered the way they always bickered, sparks flying between them, and after countless eye-rolls from her and mischievous quips from him, they’d caught the bad guy.
He still found meting out justice immensely satisfying — and now the leggy blonde currently slipping out of his bed was the icing on the cake of a perfect day.
He stood too, his brow arching as he scanned the room for the black silk boxers she had hastily torn off him. He found them in the corner and pulled them on, moving over to his nightstand to grab his lighter and a packet of cigarettes. He slipped one between his teeth and held the packet out to her.
She gave him an easy smile as she took one, her expression hazy and blissed out. Another job well done, he thought with a touch of characteristic arrogance.
He flicked the lighter open with a click, the flame engulfing the end of her cigarette before he lit up his.
He closed his eyes with a pleasant hum as the smoke entered his lungs. Other than another round, there was nothing he enjoyed more after sex than a good cigarette. The blonde — Amy, because he never forgot a lover’s name — was busy trying to find her clothes. He stood in the doorway, leaning against Assyrian stone as he blew some smoke out of the corner of his mouth and watched her pluck her bra from the lampshade.
Once she was dressed, she slipped her too-high heels on and pushed past him with a kiss and a sultry “until next time”. His chest swelled with pride again when he noticed she was walking on somewhat shaky legs.
He was just slipping his robe on and putting his cigarette out in the crystal ashtray when he heard the whistle of the elevator doors opening.
“Uh, Lucifer?”
“Back already, darling?” he laughed delightedly, “give a devil a moment to recharge!”
Amy scoffed, her voice travelling from the other room.
“You’re really going to want to come.”
“I’m actually rather spent,” he quipped as he walked into the penthouse, “but I’ll give it my best shot.”
His fingers were already toying at the waistband of his boxers, a jibe about supernatural stamina on the tip of his tongue, when he caught sight of what had made her pause.
She was staring into the open elevator.
More specifically, she was staring at the pink bundle lying in the middle, a bundle that had started emitting some kind of horrible screeching sound.
His brows furrowed, his mouth pinching in disgust.
“What on earth is that?”
Lucifer paced up and down the penthouse, despairing at the day’s turn of events.
It had started off so well.
The night had descended into chaos, his lovely companion replaced by a creature far more confusing. He raked his fingers through his messy hair, his eyes wide and wild, and still—
The thing would not stop crying.
It wailed and wailed, sounding very much like a dying animal, and he suddenly understood why childbirth and all things baby-related were such a common form of torture in hell. He stopped pacing for a moment and hesitantly leaned forward with his fists drawn to his chest, as though the screeching bundle might jump out at him at any moment. It was on the piano where Amy had left it, scooping it up when it was obvious he was frozen to the spot and then leaving with an uttered “sorry dude, I’m out. Babies are so not my thing.”
They certainly weren’t his thing either — so he turned to the only person he knew had experience.
Speaking of, the elevator doors whistled open again and revealed a sight far more welcome.
“Lucifer?” the Detective was calling out before she looked, “what is so important you would drag me out here this late? Your text wasn’t very helpful—”
Yes, he supposed “Detective, come immediately. Something absolutely awful has happened,” was a little ambiguous.
His wide eyes were still focused on the squirming bundle and he suddenly realised the Detective’s voice had trailed off.
She was staring too.
“What in God’s name is that?”
He gave an incredulous, wry huff.
“Yes, I imagine he does have something to do with it.”
He was shocked to see her rush straight over to it, just approaching it like it was nothing. She moved the blanket down with her index finger, her curious eyes scanning over the thing.
“Oh Lucifer!” he was even more stunned at how her voice changed — he’d never heard her use that tone before; she was practically cooing, “who is this?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Detective,” he mumbled, running a somewhat shaky hand over his face, “it was just… in my elevator.”
Chloe arched a brow, her finger still on the blanket by the baby’s shoulder.
“It?”
“Yes,” he repeated blankly, “it.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Well, is it a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t know!” he exclaimed somewhat hysterically — and then he began to pace again, “but it’s wrapped in pink so I would imagine it’s the same as the one you’ve got at home.”
“It’s the 21st century, Lucifer,” Chloe pointed out dryly, “boys can wear pink.”
He scoffed, uncaring, as she gently pulled aside the blanket and took a look. She hummed, wrapping the baby up again. The thing was still crying, but at least it was quieter now — hiccup-y little sobs rather than screeching wails that set his teeth on edge.
“But in this case, it is a girl,” she admitted and then paused as she seemingly caught sight of something, “wait — there’s a note.”
He cocked a brow and took a step forward, still very wary.
“You didn’t see this before?” she asked, raising a brow of her own as she picked the note up and kept her other hand resting gently on the baby’s middle. He wondered why she wanted to touch it so much. He couldn’t think of anything worse.
He told her as much.
“No, I didn’t want to touch the thing.”
She rolled her eyes. She seemed to do a lot of that when he was around. Normally it gave him a little thrill — now, he just felt numb.
Confused.
It was an odd sensation.
Powerlessness was not a feeling Lucifer Morningstar was accustomed to.
“Some consultant,” she muttered at his lack of investigative skills before she turned the note and scanned her eyes across it. They widened as she caught her bottom lip between her teeth and slowly returned her gaze to him.
“What is it?”
He watched her struggle for a moment before she came out with it.
“It says she’s yours.”
“Mine?” he repeated incredulously, “that’s not possible.”
She threw him a deadpan expression.
“Really?” she asked, “with your track record, you really never thought this could happen at some point?”
“My track record,” he repeated sarcastically, “doesn’t mean a thing. I’m the devil, darling. Human beings can’t procreate with a celestial, it’s not possible.”
The Detective blinked at him, slipping into that bewildered expression she wore every time he mentioned his true nature. She still believed he spoke in wild metaphors and he could see the cogs in her head turning.
Sometimes he thought about just bloody showing her, but even putting aside Dr Linda’s (obviously ridiculous) insistences that he was scared of being rejected, he really couldn’t afford for her to fall apart right now. Not when he was barely holding it together.
“O-kay,” she drawled slowly, “be that as it may… here we are.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and tried again.
“It is not mine.”
The Detective glanced at the baby again, her expression softening curiously.
“She is really cute,” she admitted with a smile.
“Alright then, maybe it is.”
He couldn’t help himself, but that slip back into his characteristic, flippant self was short-lived when the baby started screeching again.
He flinched, his nose scrunching.
“Bloody hell, why does it keep doing that? Doesn’t it have an off button?”
Chloe rolled her eyes again, leaning down to pick the baby up.
“Maybe if you hadn’t put her on the hard piano,” she muttered, gently rocking the bundle in her arms.
To Lucifer’s surprise, the thing stopped crying almost immediately. He supposed he could relate — he liked it when the Detective touched him too — but still, he wondered how a creature could be so simple and yet so very confusing at the same time.
“I didn’t put it anywhere,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “my guest did before they left.”
“A guest of the female variety, I assume.”
“Yes — but we have far more pressing issues at hand than your jealousy, Detective.”
This time, her mouth twitched along with her eye roll.
She continued rocking the pink bundle in her arms, the cries replaced by little hiccups and babbles. He had to admit, those sounds weren’t quite as awful.
She took a step towards him.
“Do you want to hold her?”
He drew back.
“Hold it?” he repeated, outraged, “I don’t know where it’s been!”
A laugh he would normally have found lovely burst out of her. She shook her head in disbelief, probably thinking him utterly ridiculous, but she was human and used to the little urchins and he… wasn’t.
He felt like he was sinking, like the ground was turning to quicksand beneath his feet, and he needed her to bring him back to earth.
“Detective, don’t laugh, just—” he sighed, rubbing his jaw anxiously, “—just help me.”
Her expression softened.
“Yes Lucifer,” she murmured and held the child closer to her chest, “I will help you.”
“Lucifer,” a hand suddenly slapped down onto his knee, stopping it from erratically bouncing, “calm down.”
The Detective’s voice sounded too far away, like he was under water, and it took him a moment to blink back to reality.
“What?”
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, her lips twitching into a reassuring smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes.
He dragged his gaze away from her again and stared at the white, clinical wall. They were waiting for the doctor and the results of the paternity test. It had taken a lot of strings and a lot of his very particular kind of persuasion to get them here. The nurse had stuttered an excuse about no appointments, the doctor had gaped the results needed to be examined at the lab, but Lucifer had simply scooted onto the table, presented the inside of his mouth and insisted they could wait.
His knee had been bouncing ever since. The Detective’s hand was still on it, her other one cradling the little urchin. It was still fussing, making those insufferable, whinging noises. He still hadn’t held it, batting away the Detective’s attempts with “this is a three thousand dollar suit it might spit up on” and insistences that he didn’t have any antibacterial gel and he needed to sanitise his hands first. She thought that was very responsible until he told her it was for his sake, not the child’s.
His nose scrunched as he looked at it again.
He tried to comb through his mind for all his lovers to find a mother, but it was pointless. He couldn’t even tell how old the thing was; his understanding of human ageing was iffy to say the least.
He could see it was Caucasian, with a smattering of dark hair and big brown eyes, so if it was his — which of course, it wasn’t — it would have inherited all that from him, so that didn’t help either. It would be unsurprising for his superior genes to would win through, he thought grimly.
The Detective was being short with him, too — undoubtedly due to a lack of sleep where she had stayed the night and the thing had cried the entire time.
He sat back in his chair and sighed.
The little urchin had been in his life less than 24 hours and it was already ruining it.
Strangely, though, the Detective didn’t seem mad at it. She still coo’d and ahh’d and giggled at the little monster, even though it was the cause of all this mess.
It simply didn’t make sense.
The door opened with a click, the doctor walking inside.
Lucifer sat forward, watching tensely as he flipped his clipboard open.
“Okay, I have the results.”
“Finally,” he barked a little rudely, “so?”
“Well, it looks like—” much to Lucifer’s frustration, he paused, arching a brow and flipping through the charts, “—I’m sorry, this is very embarrassing, I don’t seem to have written down the child's name?”
Chloe’s eyes slid to his, hesitating for a moment before she effortlessly slipped into character.
“Oh, we haven’t decided yet,” he noticed the doctor’s brow raise, which was understandable — even though he had little concept of human ageing, Lucifer could see the thing wasn’t a newborn, “why don’t you just put down Baby Morningstar for now?”
“Baby Morningstar?” Lucifer repeated incredulously under his breath, outraged.
Chloe squeezed his thigh tighter, a silent warning.
“I know you’re still angry, honey, but we promised we’d try to get past this, didn’t we?” she purred, playing the part of a regretful wife who’d made a few bad decisions. Lucifer straightened his back, preening slightly as he sniffed and tugged at the bottom of his waistcoat. How the doctor was supposed to believe she had cheated on a man like him was beyond him.
Still, he played along.
“Of course, darling,” he said through gritted teeth, “now please doctor, I’m just dying to find out if this little monster is mine.”
The doctor’s smile was just as tight, clearly feeling awkward.
“Well, I’m happy to say it’s good news,” he said, brightening up, “you are the father.”
And there it is, Lucifer thought glumly as he slumped back in his chair…
The end of life as he knew it.