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Louboutins thunder across the tarmac, their red soles eating up the distance ravenously. He would never be so pedestrian as to jog but even the Devil would admit he was keeping a brisk pace. The package was secure in his grasp, no trouble for his ample arm span. The rest of his stolen items could be dealt with later but he wouldn’t risk any incompetence with this particular piece.
“Lucifer! Lucifer would just –”
The clip of the Detective’s own boots could be heard pursuing him and at a much more rapid pace. The noise didn’t initially register in Lucifer’s mind. Her exasperation, however, quickly did.
“For goodness sake! Lucifer! Get back here!” Chloe yelled.
He paused, allowing Chloe finally to catch up to him.
“I apologise Detective. Got a bit carried away,” Lucifer grinned down at his Detective.
“Lucifer, I get that you’ve got no patience for LAPD procedure when it comes to your own possessions,” Chloe says, gesturing behind her to the officers in the distance, sifting their way through Lucifer’s retrieved items, “but couldn’t you have waited five minutes before running off with this – this – whatever this is?”
“Painting Detective,” Lucifer remarks, lifting the package slightly in acknowledgment.
Chloe crosses her arms and frowns in consternation.
“A painting? You’re telling me that you left those poor UNIs to process a jewel encrusted strap-on but you couldn’t trust them with a painting. I don’t even know where to begin with that... What has gotten into you?” she interjects.
Chloe tried to stay focussed on her frustration. She has to, because she cannot be thinking about the more lurid of Lucifer’s items that had been stolen. Although she hadn’t had any actual interaction with those particular items, her relationship with Lucifer wasn’t exactly a secret within the department. The assumptions probably being made by the other officers at this precise moment were enough to swallow her in mortification.
So yeah, a little discretion with the sex toys would have been preferred over a painting.
“It’s not just any painting Detective. It’s special,” Lucifer replies adamantly.
“Special how?” Chloe presses.
“Well it makes me think of you for a start,” Lucifer declares proudly.
“If that is a screenshot from Hot Tub High School, I swear –”
Chloe wouldn’t put it past Lucifer to commission a ludicrous oil painting of that scene. As it is, he still has the audacity to leave his Blu-ray copy lying around the Penthouse and act ‘surprised’ every time she finds it.
“No, don’t be ridiculous Detective. I think you would have noticed by now if I had such a masterpiece adorning my walls,” Lucifer grins salaciously.
Now Chloe regrets whatever idea she may have inadvertently planted in his head. She needs to distract him before he follows through with that line of thinking.
Chloe leans forward, drawing Lucifer’s attention and gently reaches for the painting herself.
“Well the sooner we get it processed through evidence, the sooner we can have it hanging back in the Penthouse,” she says as sweetly and reassuringly as she can muster.
“Not even if Dad himself ordered me to,” Lucifer jolts away, as though Chloe would have had any chance of snatching the cumbersome package away from him. “I’m never letting this out of my sight, until I am certain it’s secure and out of reach of greedy little opportunists!”
“Finally gonna get that lock on the elevator, huh?” Chloe snorts in response, resuming her cross armed pose.
“That or a couple of Hellhounds should do the trick...” Lucifer pouts thoughtfully.
Chloe stalls for a moment, contemplating the possible existence of dogs from Hell. Whether they’re real or just another of Lucifer’s jokes, she definitely cannot let him say such a thing in front of her daughter. Like most kids, that girl had been begging for a puppy since she was six. Hellfire certainly wouldn’t put Trixie off from asking Lucifer for a new pet.
And idiot that he was, Chloe could see him doing it. He still produced chocolate cake at every instance that Trixie asked for it.
“Okay, not interested in house training infernal canines,” Chloe quips with an eye roll. “Seriously, what is so special about one painting?”
Lucifer hesitates, the slightest trace of worry in his eyes. “Isn’t it enough to know it’s a mark of my regard for you, Detective?”
“Okay, now I gotta see it,” Chloe demands and whips her sunglasses off. It can’t be worse than Hot Tub High School, she reasons with herself.
“You’ve already seen it,” Lucifer hedges.
“Well let me see it again,” Chloe says.
Lucifer deflates; leaving Chloe to wonder what could possibly be so special about a painting but also lead Lucifer to obfuscate so intently.
“Very well...” he presents the package almost in defeat.
Chloe takes a tentative step forward. When Lucifer shows no signs of resisting she takes a hold of the canvass’ edge. Carefully she pulls away the brown paper it had been secured in. At first she doesn’t see much of anything, just some patches of what might be blue or green. She peels more paper back to get a clearer view, and is accosted by virulent orange and red, followed by ghastly zinc white.
Chloe flinches in revulsion, quickly replaced by confusion. Was she really looking at a clown-face on a mermaid? The hideous monstrosity that Lucifer usually, for some unknown reason, has hanging in front of his safe?
“That thing? That eye-sore reminds you of me?” Chloe asks in disbelief.
“With good reason Detective!” Lucifer pleads.
“I thought you lost a bet or something!” Chloe exclaims, still staring agog at the painting.
“Well there was something of a gamble involved...” Lucifer mumbles in concession.
But Chloe is still none the wiser to the painting’s significance. She had seen it enough times hanging in Lucifer’s bedroom. Most of the time she was too pre-occupied to take much notice and the rest of the time there never seemed an appropriate moment to ask him about it. Honestly, she just tried to block it from her mind, hoping it would eventually migrate out the next time Lucifer decided to give his Penthouse a makeover.
He couldn’t honestly like this painting?
“Lucifer?” Chloe prods.
“I purchased it during that Carlisle debacle,” Lucifer explains with a sigh. “Daniel and I followed up on the lead with Dave Maddox to get the formula and well, he wasn’t willing to co-operate until we made a deal...”
“And in exchange you gave up your sense of taste?”
“Very funny Detective,” Lucifer responds with a withering look. “He desired that someone buy one of his paintings for their own sake instead of as a cover for illicit business transactions; that it would be treated like real artwork rather than thrown away the moment it had served its purpose. So I obliged.”
Lucifer shrugs his shoulders with the canvass still in his grip as if to say ta-da!
“That’s actually kinda sweet. Hideous, but sweet,” Chloe giggles.
“Well I find it tolerable at least.”
“Wait, I remember Dan saying the Maddox lead was a bust; he didn’t have the formula.”
“Well he had the ingredients list...”
“Lucifer... what happened? You can tell me.”
“Just as Daniel told you; he and Miss Lopez retrieved the ingredients while the rest of us were responsible for retrieving the formula.”
“From the very dead Professor Carlisle,” Chloe deadpanned.
“Yes.”
“Who is in Hell.”
“... yes.”
“How?”
“Detective, I –”
“Please Lucifer, tell me,” Chloe’s hand gently grasps his forearm, “I can handle it.”
“I’m not sure I can...” Lucifer deflects. But Chloe’s unwavering gaze forces him to continue, “I went down to Hell to find the Professor. We had a chat and I got the formula and was back in time to save you.”
“That was before your wings returned. I thought you couldn’t...” Chloe makes a vague flapping gesture.
“Well I did have some assistance from Doctor Linda and Maze.”
Puzzle pieces start fitting together. She knew there had been a commotion before the antidote had been procured. Her assumption had been that Lucifer was likely the cause, vicariously through Amenadiel. But neither Dan nor Ella knew exactly what had happened that day and then Lucifer had disappeared before Chloe had been released from the hospital.
The closest she’d had to an explanation had been...
You didn’t die after all. That makes one of us.
“You died. You died to save me.”
“Hardly a new phenomenon Detective,” Lucifer shrugs nonchalantly. He freezes however at the sound of a quiet sniff. Lucifer looks down and balks at the emotion swimming in Chloe’s eyes, shining from the tears threatening to spill. “Detective... Chloe, it was the only way.”
The grip of Chloe’s hand tightens incrementally and a fierce look settles over her face.
“You went down to Hell for me. Without your wings.” Chloe whispers, the words choked and slightly hoarse.
“And I’d do it again –”
“No.” Chloe’s hand drifts up to cup Lucifer’s jaw. Her thumb caresses pleasantly across his stubble. He leans into the touch with a hum of contentment.
“Chloe –”
“No.” Chloe repeats emphatically, “You are the most brave, ridiculous and selfless man I have ever met. You could have been trapped down there. You are never going to that place again. Never. Especially without your wings.”
“I can’t make that promise Chloe,” Lucifer sighs. “If it’s a choice between facing Hell or losing you – it’s no question Detective.”
“Then promise you’ll always come back.” Lucifer’s mouth twitches to speak again but Chloe overrides him and continues, “You have to come back because if you don’t I will find a way to follow you, and neither of us will be happy if that happens.”
For a moment Lucifer is poised to argue further but stalls with a single look at his Detective’s face. There is no bravado, no lie or denial hidden in her beautiful features. He stares into nothing but fierce devotion and stubbornness, to the point he almost swears a divine light of Chloe’s own making is shining from her cerulean gaze.
Lucifer lets out a tremulous chuckle, “I believe you Chloe; I’ll be damned but I believe you.”
He lowers his head further, and while Chloe’s hand has left his jaw, their foreheads meet instead. They bask in the moment, hearing nothing but their own shuddering breathes, oblivious to the crime scene still being processed further down the concourse.
With a gentle kiss to her crown, Lucifer pulls away and promises as much as he can, “I’ll do my best Detective.”
With a sniff, Chloe nods sharply.
She glances down at the painting that prompted the conversation in the first place. It was bittersweet, knowing just what lengths Lucifer was willing to go to for her sake - even before the poisoning.
Being a painting of a freakin’ mermaid clown kinda took the edge off though...
“How about we take this to be processed together, yeah? We can make sure it goes through evidence personally, have everything put on record, request an early release form, and it never has to leave your sight,” Chloe suggests with a soft smile, gently placing her own hands over Lucifer’s on the canvass.
“Indeed?” Lucifer muses, his eyebrows waggle and a mischievous glint burns in his eyes, “And perhaps while we have the evidence storage to ourselves I can show you what else I can give you Detective...”
Chloe represses a shudder at the thought. As good as Lucifer would no doubt make it for her... no, that room was off limits to any further DNA incidents. She does however bring a finger to her lips in exaggerated thought.
“Hmmm... no,” Lucifer’s face falls like a kicked puppy, but Chloe ignores him and slowly begins to drag him back towards the crime scene. “Those release forms can take a while to get approval. But the Lieutenant’s office should be empty by then...”
Lucifer immediately brightens up, bursting into a grin that matches the one also on Chloe’s face.
“Ooh, Detective. You do know how to tempt a Devil.”