Chapter Text
Lucifer pushed down the feelings that welled up when he realized that Amenadiel had only come after him because he needed his help. Of course, he had. Why else would anyone care to remember he existed? Still, learning what Michael had been doing to his life made him more than determined to put a stop to it. He left Amenadiel in charge while he went to do what his brother wanted him to do, much as it galled him.
Once he got back, the first thing he needed to do was check on Chloe though. Seeing her again was like a breath of fresh air and it was all he could do not to kiss her right there in the middle of the station. Once they were alone in an interrogation room, he did need to let her know that he couldn’t stay though. “I just...I just needed to make sure you're okay. But of course you saw through Michael's charade, my clever Detective,” he said lovingly, hand trailing over her cheek.
“Well, I...It did take a bit. He was very convincing. And some of the things he said were...” Chloe shuddered at the thought.
“Well, good news on that front. Every word that comes out of that admittedly dashing face is a lie,” Lucifer assured her.
“Oh, well, that's a relief, because he said something so insane, I, well, obviously knew it had to be a lie.”
“Did he claim he's friends with Elvis? 'Cause the King's still alive and I'm the only one who knows where. So...” Lucifer tried for a joke.
They both chuckled and Chloe shook her head as she said, “No, he told me...Get this, he told me that I was a gift from God,” she laughed at the absurdity of it. “That's, uh…That's what he said. I mean, that's...That's crazy. That's...That's not true, right?” The look on Lucifer’s face was making her more than a little nervous. “Lucifer, I am not...a gift from God made just for you, right?”
“Yes,” Lucifer breathed out, unable to lie to her, but he did hasten to explain. “I-I know how it sounds, but...trust me, when my mum told me...”
“Your mom told you? Your mom told...What? Over a year ago? You've kept this the whole time?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, back then, you didn't even believe in the celestial side of things,” he pointed out, not mentioning the whole mess after that which prevented him from telling her, not even liking to think about that particular betrayal. “A-A-Anyway, Mom only told me because she was trying to keep us apart.”
“Why...Why? 'Cause if you knew I were a gift from your dad, you'd what, throw me away?” Chloe asked reeling.
“She thought if I knew the truth, it would mean the feelings that I had for you weren't real, that I'd feel you were just some...some tool to manipulate me. But I don't feel that way, because I realized, D-Detective, I realized that whether you were made for me or not, it doesn't matter,” he told her reaching for her hands only for her to snatch them away.
“Well, it matters to me,” she snapped. Before anything else could be said Dan walked in and interrupted them with a case.
“Detective! Detective, wait,” Lucifer rushed after her.
“No, I don't have time for this. I have work to do,” she tried to walk away.
“But, Detective, you're the only reason I'm here,” Lucifer tried to get her to stop. To listen. Something.
“Apparently, you're the only reason I'm here,” she said coldly. “So I'm going to do my job that I chose. And don't you have somewhere to be?”
Lucifer sucked in a sharp breath as she essentially told him to go back to Hell and he closed his eyes against the wash of pain, cursing Michael under his breath for causing this. Michael. That was the real reason he was here. He couldn’t forget that. Michael was turning his life upside down, ruining things with the detective, threatening his nephew. The only reason he’d gone back to that miserable place in the first place. No, he had to get Michael out of the way. Then he’d try to fix things with the detective before he went back.
Unfortunately, his fight with Michael didn’t go so well. He’d been planning to make sure the little worm could never impersonate him again, but what he learned during that fight completely derailed him to the point that he forgot about disfiguring his brother. He forgot about everything but trying to wrap his head around the fact that his brother had engineered it all. From the very beginning. His entire fall. His entire life…eons…just a manipulation from the cowardly weasel he was unfortunate enough to share a face with. At least he was relatively sure that Michael would stay out of his life. If nothing else than because too many people were on to him and he knew now that Lucifer would come back and make him pay.
Once he got to Chloe’s house he found that he wasn’t sure what to say. “Lucifer. You okay? You look like hell,” Chloe said when he didn’t say anything. And he did look like hell. His suit was a mess and had splatters of blood all over it, his hair mussed up.
“Appropriate,” Lucifer huffed. “Um...So, uh...the good news is, I dealt with the Michael problem. He won't be impersonating me ever again…The bad news is that I've discovered...apparently, he's been manipulating me since the dawn of time,” he admitted and oh how hard that was to admit. The idea that he’d just been a gullible pawn for his entire existence. He was trying to tell her that he could relate to what she was dealing with and hopefully that could give them a way to talk through it.
“Oh. Yeah, must be, um...terrible to...not control your own fate,” she snarked.
That was all Lucifer could take. He was trying his best. What more did she want. “All right. I get it, Detective. You're struggling with feeling like you can't cope. Well, welcome to the bloody club!” he said heatedly, slamming his hands on the counter.
“You have no right to yell at me,” she said angrily. “Our situations are nothing alike. /You’/ are an angel. You deal with celestial craziness all the time. I am just a person, Lucifer. Just a person who was already dealing with the fact that I'm in love with the Devil, and then...I find out that I was /made/...to feel that way. That my life isn't my own, so I am sorry if your brother is a jerk to you sometimes.”
Lucifer just sighed and deflated. He was done. For her to claim that his feelings didn’t matter because he should be used to it by now…he should have known better than to get his hopes up that anything could change. That she could actually care about him. He was still being a gullible pawn. Believed her when she’d said that she loved him. Thought that he was so lucky even if he /was/ going back to Hell. It had all just been another lie in a long string of lies. “I...I...I spent thousands of years in Hell, imagining our reunion. Getting my partner back, getting...Getting you back. And now...I...I just thought it would go differently,” he said in defeat.
“Yeah. Me, too,” Chloe said with a sniffle. “I thought what we had was real.” She walked away without another word, leaving Lucifer to let himself out. By that point Lucifer was completely drained, emotionally and physically. He would just go home and get a good night’s sleep before going to check in on his nephew. Who knew how long it would be before he could come back again? Before someone needed him badly enough to bother.
The next morning, he went straight to Linda and Amenadiel’s house only to find Amenadiel was there. Instead of watching Hell like he was supposed to be. “Brother, why are you here?” Lucifer asked worriedly.
Amenadiel motioned him into the kitchen and Lucifer was getting as he started his story. “There I was...wandering the corridors of Hell, when...I heard a voice. A voice that I never expected to hear in Hell.”
“Who was it? Mother Teresa, Mr. Rogers? Adele?” Lucifer asked impatiently, as he brought the bottle and two glasses to the table.
“Father.” Amenadiel said almost in awe.
“Dad spoke to you? Well, go on, then. What did he say?” Lucifer asked, pouring the drinks, but he only got to one before his brother dropped the bombshell.
“He told me that Hell no longer requires a warden.”
“And?...”
“And that's it. So I came up here to see my son,” Amenadiel finished with a shrug. “I've only been back a few hours, Lucy. I was going to find you next,” he rushed to assure him.
“Let me get this straight. I just spent millennia down there diligently doing everything He asked without complaint, and you have one sleepover in Hell and Dad tells you your watch is over?” Lucifer asked incredulously, draining his glass.
“You know Father works in...”
“If you finish that sentence, I will punch you in your ‘mysterious ways’,” Lucifer snapped taking another long drink. “Well, first the detective, now this? Talk about salt in the wound.”
“What happened with Chloe? Is she all right?” Amenadiel asked worriedly.
“Oh, I wouldn't know. She's been keeping me at arm's length ever since Michael told her she's a gift from God,” Lucifer huffed.
“Oh...Yeah…Wait a minute, does she know that...
“You're the one who delivered the gift? No,” Lucifer told him. It figured that would be the part his brother was worried so much about. “Her brain was already plenty melted without adding that to the mix.” He drained another glass before he came to a decision. If Hell didn’t need a warden anymore than he was free. “You know what? I’m done. I’m done with all of this.”
“What are you saying, Luci?” Amenadiel asked worriedly. When Lucifer got like this bad things tended to happen.
“I’m saying, I’m leaving.”
“Didn’t you hear me? You don’t have to go back to Hell anymore,” Amenadiel assured him.
“Oh yeah. Of course, it doesn’t. The second someone else steps up to take responsibility Dad ‘finds a way’. I wasn’t talking about going back to Hell. I meant leaving LA. I’m done with all this. All of you. Goodbye brother. Don’t try to find me again,” Lucifer said coldly as he got up and stormed out.