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When Lucifer said his friend was hosting an event at their bar in Las Vegas, this was not what Chloe had expected. But she supposed she shouldn’t have been this surprised.
He hadn’t mentioned much detail; he’d just said that he wanted Chloe to go with him. And of course she said yes. They had only been on a few official dates since getting together, and despite the seeming extravagance of going to another city, she jumped at the idea.
Of course she wanted to spend the time with him, but deep down she knew it was because she still had bad associations with the city, and if she was being completely honest with herself, there was a part of her that didn’t want to let him go there alone. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but a part of her would always remember how he’d just disappeared; the sheets covering all the furniture in the penthouse and later her birthday spent trying not to think about it happening again. She hoped that maybe by coming along, she could rewrite those memories with something better.
Now though, watching Lucifer talking to Candy of all people, Chloe was - despite everything that’s happened since - starkly reminded of how it felt then.
Chloe hadn’t realised exactly which friend they were coming to see until she and Lucifer were already seated at one of the tables and Candy had stepped onto the stage for her opening performance. The music itself had been lovely, but Chloe had had a hard time focusing on it, thoughts flitting back to how she’d felt the first time they'd met.
He’d gotten up to get new drinks from the bar after the song had ended, but she’d watched him stop to greet Candy. Chloe was too far away to hear what they were saying, but even from this distance she caught the blush rising on his cheeks at something Candy had said, and the slight bashful smile he cast at his feet. Candy said something else, a slight smirk on her face and Chloe would be lying if she said she didn’t wonder what was being said.
So when Lucifer stepped toward the bar, Chloe took a breath, and made her way over to where Candy was still standing beside the stage.
“Hi.” Candy smiled as Chloe approached. “It's good to see you here,” she said, her words warm, with none of the air she had last Chloe spoke to her. She raised an eyebrow. “It means this time he brought you along.”
It snagged at something in Chloe, the casual way she mentioned Lucifer's previous trips to Vegas when all Chloe had been thinking at the time was how he’d just left. Chloe was long past feeling jealous, and it wasn’t really even that, more just hurt. But it was still the reminder, feeding into her worry that despite knowing how much he cares, it’ll one day become too much and he’ll get overwhelmed and run away again.
Chloe tampered down on her doubts, and awkwardly said, “Well, I'm glad to have been brought along.”
Candy flashed another smile at her. “Well I’m just glad that he didn’t mess it up in the end. About damn time.”
Chloe furrowed her brow. “Mess what up?”
Candy laughed, but not unkindly. “You guys of course. I told him not to. But it seemed like something was holding him back.”
“But… you?” Chloe trailed off. She’d never asked the specifics of what happened between them, still haunted by the sheets laid out across his penthouse furniture and just wanted things back to a semblance of normality.
“Had a mutually beneficial arrangement where he helped my bar out of a tight spot. And he… well I still don’t really understand what he was doing. But I believe it was what he thought was the right thing.”
That made Chloe pause. Lucifer had done many strange things over the years that she was still trying to decipher the meaning behind now she knew who he really was and that there was probably more going on at the time.
Candy must have noticed something in Chloe’s expression because she continued.
“He spent most of the first night we met talking about you. He was clearly absolutely besotted with you. But something was bothering him. I don't know,” she paused, clearly trying to think back, “something about his father putting you in his path. I didn't really get it. Still don’t. But he nearly got through a whole tub of ice cream. So it must have been something serious.”
Chloe didn’t have time to process the possibility of this revelation, because Candy then said, “And he said he’d gone through hell or something.”
“Hell?” Chloe stuttered, only wondering what it meant for a moment when it hit her: what Lucifer had said in the lawyer’s office that day she’d met Candy.
I’ve been through Hell recently. Both figuratively and literally.
At the time she hadn’t believed his Devil talk. But now she knew it had always carried the weight of truth, like he’d always said.
Which meant he’d been serious when he said he’d been through Hell. And not just the kind fueled by one’s best friend getting poisoned.
She’d briefly wondered how Lucifer had gotten hold of the formula. She remembers clearly how Professor Carlisle had said it only lived in his head. But after she’d woken up she’d been too relieved at being alive to give it much further thought; choosing to believe the Professor had lied.
It was the simpler explanation.
But what must have really happened was slowly becoming clearer. After all, there’d only be one place a man like Carlisle would go after he died. After all, his whole experiment was based around his guilt. And Lucifer was the Lord of Hell. It should be easy enough for him to pop down and question a particular soul.
Except Chloe knew just how much he hated Hell; how it was not his Kingdom by choice, but a cruel punishment whose horrors still lingered with him.
Which meant if he was serious when he said he’d been through Hell, he’d been willing to go back for something that outweighed his own feelings about the place. He’d gone back to get the formula to… to save her.
And she’d sat in that office that day, so heartbroken at him leaving after daring to hope, that she’d looked him in the eye and said that it seemed only for a moment that he cared.
Which was the furthest thing from the truth.
Yes he’d been scared and ran off the Vegas, but that didn’t diminish the depth of how much he cared.
Chloe wondered how much else the Devil had done that had gone unnoticed by her.
Candy must have noticed Chloe pause, because she asked, “Is everything alright?”
Chloe shook herself lightly out of her spiraling train of thought, sending a smile Candy’s way.
“Yes, yes,” she hurried to say. “Just struck by a thought. Different perspective on things.”
“What, on some of his strangeness?” Candy nodded her head in Lucifer’s direction, where he was still standing at the bar.
Chloe laughed. That was putting it lightly. It wasn’t simple eccentricities, but rather truth. It was a craziness on a rather celestial level, one that came with all sorts of ups and downs. But if she’d learned anything, it had turned out to be definitely worth it.
She had felt conflicted at seeing Candy step out onto the stage, but talking to her had set something at ease
“Thank you,” Chloe said, meaning it and hoping the smile she gave Candy showed it. “This city stirs bad memories for me and I think we needed this. Or I know I did at least.” She paused, then added, “And the performance was amazing, so there’s that too.”
Candy smiled. “Thank you. And I’m happy to have helped.” Her gaze shifted to something over Chloe’s shoulder. “It’s rare to see something like what you two have.”
Chloe turned just as Lucifer came up behind her, a drink in each hand, a soft look in his eyes as his gaze rested on her.
She was sure she sported a similar expression.
-
Chloe was sitting up in the bed of their hotel room, mind still caught up on her recent revelation. The rest of the night had gone on pleasantly, and she’d done a good job of pushing it to the back of her mind. But now, as the night winded to a close, she couldn’t help dwelling on it.
She cast a glance at Lucifer, standing by the sink in the bathroom. He turned, and she caught a brief glimpse of his bare chest. She’d seen it countless times by now, but seeing it in this moment took her back to that night on the set of The Cabin. How he’d jumped in front of the axe for her and how she’d later pressed it against his chest.
And I would do it again and again. Don’t you know that Detective? He’d said, scarily sincere, his gaze open and vulnerable.
He stepped out of the bathroom, making his way over to her with a soft smile.
“When else?” Chloe blurted out before she could stop herself.
“Pardon?” He halted, his brow furrowing in confusion, clearly unaware of what she was referring to.
“I mean I know about 4 months ago. Obviously,” she laughed humorlessly. “But I get the feeling that wasn’t the first time. And you’ve pretty much said it yourself. I guess I just think I should know. When else have you gone to Hell for me?”
He continued to stare at her, still standing in the middle of the hotel room. There was a flicker of something across his face that she couldn’t quite decipher. He opened his mouth then closed it, and she could guess he was deciding on how much of the truth he wanted to reveal.
He must have settled on something because he barrelled on as if the whole concept wasn’t a big deal.
“Well, there was that time with Malcolm,” he said, far too nonchalantly.
She could only stare up at him.
He took a hesitant step towards the bed, then another until he was standing in front of her.
“I did get shot, remember,” he added lightly, like he was stating what he’d had for breakfast. “And then you asked how I'd survived. Well, I didn't. I’d just got shot and made a bargain with my Father to protect your life. I’d sworn I'd never go back, but well I was bleeding out and there was nowhere else to go. Except then my father sent me back to find my mother who escaped-“
Chloe was still stuck on his admission that he’d died, hardly hearing the rest of his rambling as she interrupted him. “Wait, hold up. You died?”
She could almost still see the blood pooling around him on the warehouse floor.
Chloe tugged on his arm, pulling him to sit down beside her. She didn’t let go of his arm, instead trailing her hand down to grasp his hand.
“I just said that. It can happen when a person gets shot. You should know.” He was speaking far too casually for Chloe's liking. But she knew him well enough to tell he was trying to deflect the seriousness of it. “And at least that time I didn’t do it myself.”
That time? Chloe internally screamed, wondering if she should have phrased her question differently. So, how many times have you died for me? So much for immortality.
That makes one of us.
She’d just woken up from nearly dying of poison, still mostly out of it, but she clearly remembered his words. Like many other things, she’d ignored it. And then she’d been far more caught up with him disappearing.
“You killed yourself.” She spoke softly, the weight of it hitting her more now then when Candy mentioned it, now she knew how he’d gotten there. “The Professor was in Hell and -”
“And I didn't have my wings,” he said, his tone losing its lightness, sensing her shifting mood. His gaze softened as he looked at her. “You were dying and there was nothing I… I had to.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Like I’ve said before. And I’d do it again.” His words were spoken just as sincerely as the first time and it tugged on her heart.
She was at a loss for what to say, the gravity of all he was willing to do still slowly taking hold. So she tugged gently on their still joined hands, pulling him closer and wrapping her free arm around his back. She buried her face in his neck, breathing him in and mumbled out, “You reckless fool.”
“Oh,” he huffed out, half surprised at the hug, half a laugh at what she’d said. He slowly brought his arms up to wrap around her, sinking into her embrace with a sigh. “Well, you’re welcome.”
She let out a laugh. Because this was apparently her life now; the actual Devil acting as her Guardian Angel.
It hit her then, just how much he cares. It’s not that she didn’t know - she did. It’s hard not when he showed it so clearly in all the little things he did; in the way he looked at her. But now she was slowly starting to see the crazier things as well, everything she was blind to before.
She remembered something else Candy said. That Lucifer had mentioned his Father putting Chloe in his path. It must have been a recent discovery if he’d been so openly affected. She thought about how patient he’d been a few months ago when she’d said she needed time. Like he knew what that felt like.
Heaven sent.
There’d been something sad in his eyes when he answered her that day in the hospital.
“That's why you left isn't it?” she asked, puzzle pieces of all the information she’d gleaned in recent months slotting together to create a clearer picture of the past few years.
She leaned back slightly, not pulling out of his arms completely, but enough so she could meet his gaze, which was fixed on her.
“You weren’t running away because it was too much,” she continued. “But you’d just found out didn’t you? About the little case of divine intervention in my birth.”
He shifted his attention down, away from her eyes. “I wanted to give you back a choice in the matter,” he said softly.
Because he was the Devil; nothing if not dramatic but he’d also said to her before that he wasn’t worth it. If he thought their feelings weren’t real he’d hardly have remained complicit, painful as his methods had been. Free will was important to him. And it’s not like she’d taken well to the news either.
He lifted his eyes back to her, a hesitant smile playing across his lips. “But we figured that one out,” he whispered, leaning closer.
She closed the distance, tilting her head slightly to press their lips together. He hummed into the kiss, one hand lifting to cup her cheek, thumb gently caressing her cheekbone.
Pulling back, she rested their foreheads together, not wanting to widen the distance between them.
“Yeah,” she whispered, “Because I choose you. And that’s all me.”
She kissed him again, resting a hand on his chest, feeling where his heart beat.
“And know that I’m always going to be a bit reckless when it comes to making sure you’re safe,” he said
She smiled, unconsciously reaching up to the bullet around her neck. A physical representation of the vulnerability, that despite his newfound bullet resistance, she knew he still chose to show around her.
She could see it in the way he looked at her, warm brown gaze bared for her. And she’d rather he be invulnerable if he’s willing to throw himself around like a shield.
Knowing the motivation behind his past actions didn’t erase the fact that he’d hurt her, but having context helped to ease it. She knew with ever growing certainty that Lucifer loved her. He may not have said the words yet, but she was learning to read the ways he did show it. And that was enough to settle the doubts that had been planted in her mind.
“I love you too,” she said.
She leaned in and kissed him before he could say anything to that, her arms instinctively lifting to wrap around him, one hand rising to thread through his curls, holding him close.