Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When the Detective told him she needed his help on a Thursday afternoon, this was certainly not what he had in mind.

Lucifer stares at the little urchin while the elevator doors close behind him, taking the smirking Detective along with them. Her babysitter, Detective Douche, and every other conceivable childcare option apparently failed, and the Detective has an afternoon departmental meeting Lucifer regretfully already said he would rather go back to Hell than attend. More fool him.

Now, the Detective’s spawn is standing next to his piano with a knapsack full of Dad-knows-what and a sneaky grin. That absolutely can’t bode well.

But he won’t be brought down by a seven-year-old human. He’s the Lord of Hell. He can handle her. He thinks.

“All right. You heard your mother. Homework and then…educational television,” he says, trying to sound both commanding and aloof.

The little thing just stares at him for a moment before looking around. “Two pieces of homework for a tour.”

Lucifer feels his eyebrows go up. “Into making deals, are you?”

“You are,” she says.

“Indeed I am,” he agrees, surprised. “All right, urchin. Maths and…whatever else you hate most, and then we’ll do a walk-about. Pop to it.” He points to the coffee table and watches with trepidation as she spins on her heel and nearly sprints into his sitting room.

She drops to the ground in a way that looks painful, but clearly doesn’t bother her, dumping her knapsack out on his expensive rug to rifle through the papers and find her assignments.

He watches her, fascinated despite himself, and then turns to make himself a drink, cataloguing what he can show the spawn that will be…relatively child appropriate. Not that he cares, but he supposes the Detective would be displeased to hear he taught her daughter how to throw knives or showed her his collection of antique torture devices. Though the urchin probably would enjoy the swords. He thinks he has plastic-tipped fencing foils around somewhere.

“Can I have a drink?”

He looks up from scowling into his whiskey to find the girl looking hopefully over at him. He nods without thought, reaching out to pour her a finger. Then blinks. Children don’t…drink alcohol, he doesn’t think. Human adults barely handle it.

But he has limited non-alcoholic options up here. He turns and rummages in the cabinets below the shelves. Orange juice for the screwdrivers, cranberry juice for the very boring vodka/cranberries preferred by his more basic of overnight guests.

“Juice?” he asks, popping up to find the little urchin scrambling up onto one of the stools at the bar. “You’re not supposed to be up here.”

“That’s a lot of alcohol,” she says.

“It is,” he agrees, shaking his head as he reaches for one of his more hated glass tumbler sets. He’s hardly going to give the sticky thing one of his favorites. He holds up the two bottles of juice and waits for her to point to the orange juice.

"Why do you need that much?” she asks, taking her orange juice with a grin.

He watches her take an exaggerated slurp. Humans are so visceral. “Alcohol doesn’t have much effect on me. I need a larger supply than your average human.”

The urchin cocks her head, staring up at him, a bit like a small, confused bird. He supposes she is. “Why not?”

“It metabolizes too quickly in my system for much enjoyment,” he says.

“So you don’t get really drunk, like Daddy?”

Well, there’s an interesting fact about Detective Douche to ponder later. “Not usually, no.”

“How many drinks would it take?” she asks, eyes wide, staring up at him in seeming fascination.

“About six,” he says easily.

“Like that?” She points at his glass.

“Oh, not glasses, child, bottles.” Her little mouth drops open. “What?”

“Mommy says a whole bottle of wine could make Daddy go to the hospital.”

“Mm, perhaps it could,” he says. “But not me.”

“Mom says it’s bad for your liver,” the urchin says, her wide-eyed surprise melting into a look of disapproval that’s so familiar he can’t help but chuckle. “What?”

“I’m sure she did,” he says. “Don’t you have school torture to finish?”

She sighs gustily and slides down from the stool, reaching up, tipping her glass of juice precariously while trying to retrieve it. “Yeah.”

He rolls his eyes and plucks the glass up, walking around the bar to shoo the little thing back to the coffee table. He places the juice down by her mostly completed maths equations sheet and settles himself in the opposite armchair. Thus far, this hasn’t been…abhorrent, as far as houseguests go. She’s a bit like a talkative puppy.

“Did you have to learn math in Heaven?”

He blinks down at the child, her head still tilted down, pencil scribbling away.

“I beg your pardon?”

"In Heaven. That’s where you said you grew up, right?” She looks up to meet his eyes.

“It is,” he says slowly.

“Mommy says we should play into your ‘lusions, but I don’t think they’re ‘lusions, are they?”

“What are these ‘lusion—oh, my ‘delusions.’ Your mother asked you to placate me, did she?” he asks. He will not be charmed by the mispronunciation. He really won’t.

“She said you believe you’re the devil, and it’s easiest to just…let you. But I don’t think you just believe you are, right?”

“I don’t just believe I am, I simply am,” he agrees. Because why not? The Detective clearly doesn’t believe the truth staring her in the face. Why should her urchin?

"Okay,” the child says, shrugging those little shoulders. “Did you learn math up there?”

He sits for a moment, rather gobsmacked. She might actually believe him. Just like that. No proof. No further questions. Just…taking him at his word, the way he never expects humans actually will.

Well, some questions, apparently. “I was tutored, yes, but much more quickly than your current educational system. Seems to take a dreadfully long time for humans to know enough to properly human.”

“Yeah,” she agrees with a put upon sigh. “Daddy says he’s never used the pytha-gorey theorem—whatever that is—and that math is mostly useless, but Mommy says I hafta do my best anyway.”

Detective Douche isn’t wrong, but he also thinks the Detective has the better outlook. “Studying hard is a worthwhile practice, even if it will take ages for you to become interesting,” he says.

The little girl doesn’t so much as frown. “Mommy says you have a lot of growing up to do still. Maybe someday you’ll be interesting too.”

And there’s the cheeky little smile. “Touche, urchin,” he says with a snort.

“Done!” she says, slapping the maths homework down on the table next to her. “Just science left.” Her tone is far less enthusiastic.

“What are they teaching you?” he wonders. He’s always found human science to be…limited at best. And at the same time, rather stupendous.

He didn’t know how magnificent his stars really were until he sat in on particle physics lectures and visited NASA. He’s even prouder of them now. Not that he allows himself much time to contemplate his creations. It makes his insides squirm to think on them. He refuses to call it pain.

“We’re learning ‘bout the planets. I feel bad for Pluto.”

“Whatever for? It’s a great dwarf planet,” he says.

“But it used to be a real planet,” the girl says. “It’s no fun when you’re one thing, all whole and part of a family, and then suddenly you aren’t,” she mumbles, quieter.

Ah. Feelings. Family feelings.

He rather thinks the Detective is good to be rid of Detective Douche, and he’s certainly heard about him letting the urchin down often enough. But he…supposes the change has been difficult on the child.

Certainly his siblings didn’t react well, as far as he knows, when his parents broke up. Though Detective Douche hasn’t been sentenced to eternity in Hell and cast out of the world. He’s getting off rather easy.

“Pluto may not be part of the planet family anymore, but he’s joined a rather robust family of dwarf planets,” he hears himself say.

The girl looks up at him, a small smile on her face. Missing those two front teeth, with those big brown eyes, she’s clearly genetically engineered to tug at the heart strings. Were he a lesser devil, it might even work on him.

“We have to name all the moons today,” she says. “You wouldn’t happen to…know them all, would you?”

It isn’t working, he promises himself, even as he scoots forward on his chair. “How fast can you write, and in what order do you want them, urchin?”

Her brilliant smile and excited wiggle doesn’t make him smile in return at all. Not at all.

(...)

He’s not entirely clear on how it happens, but the following Thursday, the Detective drops the urchin off at his penthouse for the afternoon, again. Another departmental meeting, apparently.

“If a door is locked, you may not go in, but otherwise, I do suppose have at it,” he says, watching the child turn around in the hallway, staring wide-eyed at the many doors off the corridor from his bedroom.

She’s wearing an entirely denim outfit today that really should get the Douche thrown in jail. The Detective, at least, had the dignity to insist the child’s father dressed her today. She may not have much fashion sense herself, but she’s hardly this bad.

“Did you have an apartment down in Hell?” the urchin asks as she finally picks a door, reaching up to turn the doorknob and push into the den. “Wow! That’s a huge TV.”

 “It is,” he agrees, standing in the doorway as she circles the coffee table, peering around. “And no, I had a throne, but no apartment.”

“Where did you sleep?” she wonders, coming back toward him, apparently unimpressed by his 100” flatscreen.

He follows her back into the hallway. “I didn’t, really,” he replies, watching her skip down the hall to open another door, this time to his guest bathroom.

“You didn’t sleep?” the girl asks, poking her head out of the bathroom to stare back at him, incredulous.

“I didn’t,” he agrees. Maybe time would have passed more quickly had he slept.

He rather likes sleep here in the human world, not that he’s ever able to get more than a few hours at a time. He doesn’t need more than that on the mortal plane. But it’s still…nice.

“Mommy says if you stay awake for more than three days, you die,” she says, hopping across the hall to push into his gym. “Wow! A trampoline.”

Ah, didn’t think of that.

He finds himself rushing down the hall to follow her into the home gym, which is outfitted better than most commercial gyms he’s ever entered. The floor has a springy wood finish with rubber mats under the various weights machines. The walls are a burnt rust, with one wall entirely made up of mirrors. For form, of course.

And sometimes other activities.

None of which are appropriate to consider with the urchin underfoot.

Speaking of, he turns to the corner with the trampoline and sighs. He likes to experiment with all forms of human exercise, the trampoline having been an impulse buy during his brief jazzercise phase. And now the urchin is hopping to her little delight in the corner on the dusty trampoline, all manner of sharp corners waiting to strike her dead should she fall off. Which, given the energetic bouncing, seems a distinct possibility.

He didn’t think you needed to baby-proof an apartment for a seven-year-old. He may have been wrong. He finds himself hovering like some kind of bloody mother hen. The urchin just grins up at him, clearly enjoying his discomfort.

“Did you go insane in Hell, because you didn’t sleep?” she asks, voice warbling with each bounce.

“I certainly did not,” he says stiffly.

“Did you not sleep in Heaven too?” she wonders.

It makes him pause for a moment. He did. They all did, together, in one large feathered pile, especially when they were young—celestially young, at least. He remembers curling up beside his mother for over a week after he lit the stars, exhausted and depleted. Sometimes he still wakes up at night, the phantom feeling of her fingers carding through his wings hovering over his back.

“We slept there,” he says, and his voice feels as far away as his thoughts.

It doesn’t last. The urchin bounces too high and goes careening off the trampoline. He only just manages to snag her around the middle and spin them to land her on her feet.

“Enough bouncing for you,” he says, his voice tight.

The girl doesn’t seem perturbed, grabbing his hand to pull him out of the gym. He shakes his hand, trying to dislodge her, but goodness, the tiny child has a firm grip.

She drags him down the hall and back into the front room before pushing him onto the couch. He watches, bemused, as she gathers one of the throw blankets and attempts to spread it out over him.

“Whatever are you doing?” he demands.

“Tucking you in, duh,” she says brightly.

“For what?”

“A nap, silly,” she says, tossing the partially unfurled blanket on top of him. It lands in a gray heathered heap on his lap.

“I do not need a nap, but perhaps you do. You are far too excitable.”

“I don’t take naps anymore,” she says, hands moving to her hips.

“Make an exception.”

"No,” she says firmly.

"Well, I certainly won’t take one if you aren’t going to,” he says, gathering the blanket and sitting up with his haughtiest air.

The urchin’s face twitches. Ah, a loophole.

“If I lie down, then you’ll nap?” she asks, eyes narrowed.

“I shall lie down as well,” he hedges. If she’ll just lie down, perhaps he’ll have a moment’s peace.

“Will you tell me a story?”

He blinks. That is a…strange negotiating tactic. “I suppose.”

She stares at him in challenge for a moment, before her face breaks in a grin. Then she’s clambering up onto his expensive leather couch, far too close to where he’s sitting.

“All right, all right, go down there,” he directs, pushing her toward the corner of the couch, where she can lie down, head on one of the throw cushions.

She narrows her eyes, but does as she’s told. “Where aren’t you lying down?”

He hesitates. Right, well, there’s not entirely room for him with her there. “All right, about face and worm your way over here,” he says with a sigh.

He stands and then plops himself along the longer lounger section, placing a pillow by his hip. The urchin crawls across his couch—still wearing her shoes—and flops down onto the pillow on her back so she can stare up at him.

He deposits the blanket onto her face and she giggles. It is not adorable, nor charming.

He watches her squirm around to get the blanket situated over her tiny frame. She’s a small little thing, which doesn’t help with the big doe eyes and wide little smile. The whole effect is far too childish and innocent and pure for an urchin with such a devious streak.

“Story,” she demands.

A bossy cute little thing. “What kind of story?”

“Did you play games in Heaven?” she asks, blinking up at him. “The internet says you had lots of brothers and sisters. I always wanted a little sister.”

There is an uncomfortable lump in his throat. The same one he feels sometimes looking at the Detective. Made of some kind of feeling Dr. Martin might want to discuss. He dislikes it immensely.

But when he glances down at the urchin, he finds he can’t quite refuse either. Tiny humans aren’t meant to have compulsion powers. Then again, he doesn’t feel entirely compelled to answer. It’s almost like he wants to.

He looks out toward the Hills out the windows to his balcony, cast in a golden glow from the slowly setting sun. How arch, Dad.

“I suppose we played the same games siblings have played since time immemorial,” he offers. Hardly immemorial. He remembers every second of every eon he’s lived—a curse whenever he closes his eyes.

“Did you play hide and seek?”

“We did,” he murmurs.

“I’m the best at hide and seek,” she says.

“Are you?” he asks, tearing his eyes away from that familiar golden hue to look back down at the urchin. “Better than me?”

“Way better,” she says, blinking a little more slowly up at him. “Unless you have a story where you were better.”

He huffs. Clever little thing. “There was perhaps, one afternoon, early on, before Dad began the whole humanity experiment, but after he’d created the world, where we all spread out across the globe and Mother came to seek us.”

She stares up at him as he talks, his mind far away, hiding in the canyons that eventually became Grand not so far from here. He flew low to the ground for hours and hours so his mother might not see him, evading her each time she came to check. His siblings were found one by one, but not he, not the lightbringer.

Dad had to call him back. He can still hear his mother’s laughter, can see Amenadiel’s proud little smirk, Michael’s jealous sneer.

“After that, we didn’t play as much, banished back to the Silver City. Well, most of us, once dear old Dad began the experiment in earnest,” he says, looking back down at the urchin, only to find her sleeping peacefully, one of her little hands wound into his pant leg.

The spell of remembrance breaks and he sits, his chest heaving slightly. He hasn’t thought on those memories in such a very long time. They don’t hurt as much as he imagined they would. He’s more winded than beaten.

He should get up, though—make something productive of his afternoon until the Detective returns. Do something other than watch her inquisitive spawn sleep. There’s not much of interest to her placid little face like this.

And yet he doesn’t get up. The Detective finds them still there on his couch an hour later, when the faded sunlight has all but disappeared into darkness.

The Detective doesn’t seem as pleased as he is to find the urchin asleep.

“She’ll never get to sleep now, Lucifer,” she says on a sigh, coming to sit across from him on the coffee table.

“She wanted a story, who was I to refuse?” he argues.

She rolls her eyes, but her face is soft, staring at her daughter, and a little bit at him.

“Try and keep her up next week, would you?”

He’s nodding before he really thinks about it, watching as she leans forward to wake the little urchin. “Wait, next week?”

(...)

The following week finds him driving the urchin back to her house after their afternoon. Something something getting held behind by the lieutenant, something something “Please, Lucifer, just this once?”

Just this once his arse. Clearly, the Detective intends to stick him with the urchin every Thursday from now until the end of time.

"This is awesome!”

He glances at the child where she’s strapped tightly into the bucket seat of his Corvette next to him. Her arms are thrown in the air, the wind sweeping her hair back, her face bright and eyes a little wild.

“A speed demon, are you?” he calls back.

“Faster!”

He’s all too happy to oblige. “All right, let’s show this Toyota who’s boss.”

Her high pitched giggle is a certain kind of music, he decides.

The afternoon itself wasn’t terrible, all things considered. The urchin did her usual assignments, and then rather than let her wander the penthouse, he sat her down and demanded she choose a game to learn.

She took the challenge with gusto, and he taught her to play chess. While she’s no strategist, she’s a bold player, he’ll give her that. It’ll take her a few millennia, but she might best him one day. She demanded a rematch next week, at any rate.

“Move your butt!” the urchin yells as they approach the Wilshire/Santa Monica intersection behind an older Mazda that’s slowed far too soon for the yellow light.

He sees the older gentleman behind the wheel glance back at them, scowling. Sees his hand go for the door. He flashes his eyes, and even through the rear view, it’s obviously effective. The man straightens his spine and his hand falls from the door handle.

“We really must improve your road rage vocabulary,” Lucifer says.

“Mommy mostly says, “come ON,” in the mornings. And Daddy just mutters bad words he thinks I don’t hear.”

“No surprises there,” Lucifer says, withholding a smile as the girl laughs. “You might consider something more along the lines of, “were you born with concrete feet, or did they grow while you waited for this light?””

She laughs louder. “Do another one!”

He does smile then, creeping up against the bumper of the Mean Mazda Man’s car. “We’re nowhere near the La Brea Tar Pits, so why are you so stuck in the mud?” It’s far from his best, but it does make the urchin erupt with more laughter.

The light turns green and he tailgates the unfortunate man for a few blocks before swinging them to the left to glide down toward Venice. The child whoops through the turn.

“You try one,” he suggests.

“Were you born in a bog?!” she shrieks.

His laugh carries on the wind as they speed through the city, tossing ridiculous insults back and forth until they’re both breathless with laughter when they pull up to the Detective’s house.

The Detective’s waiting at the door and the urchin bounces out of his car, skipping up to throw her arms around her mother’s waist with abandon. The Detective takes the assault with far more grace than he ever manages.

“Did you have fun with Lucifer, baby?” he hears her ask as he follows the girl up to the door, holding her backpack in one hand.

The child has proved less sticky than anticipated, but her accoutrements certainly haven’t.

“He taught me to play chess, Mommy,” the urchin says.

“Did he?” the Detective asks, glancing up at him. “How surprising.”

“What, were you expecting lessons on proper guillotine technique?” he tosses back, holding out the offending backpack.                     

The Detective takes it with a put upon sigh.

“What’s a guillotine?” the child asks.

“That’s on you,” the Detective says, turning to let them into the house.

Lucifer lingers on the doorstep, staring into the house while the two troop inside. He could escape right now, return to Lux, drown himself in liquor and women, or in silence up in his penthouse, or all three. It would be easy enough to turn down the walkway and head back to his normal life.

“Lucifer!” the child calls. “What’s a guillotine?”

Somehow, he finds himself walking forward instead, closing the door behind himself. The urchin is flopped on her bed upside down, staring at him in question. He looks to the left and finds the Detective removing the child’s lunchbox with a disgusted frown. It’s leaking something blue, somehow.

“You wanna handle this, or give her a lesson on Marie Antoinette?” the Detective asks, like it’s perfectly average for him to be in her house for their after school routine.

Now there’s an easy choice. “A guillotine, you blood-thirsty thing, is a great big murder machine that cuts off heads using an angled blade,” he says walking forward to lean against the doorway to the urchin’s room.

He hears the Detective snort, but keeps his eyes on her spawn. Surely she’ll be—

“Cool!”

“Cool?” he repeats, glancing back at the Detective.

She nods at him. “All things knives.”

“Fascinating,” he says, looking back at the child. “Well, if decapitation excites you, perhaps we should have had a look through my collection on Henry VIII.”

“He had all the wives!” she says, flipping over to scramble off her bed. “I wanna see that next week.”

She trots over to him and grabs his hand, yanking him out of her room and over toward the couch. He hardly agreed to another week of babysitting, nor did he agree to be pushed onto the Detective’s rather lumpy sofa and forced into watching… oh dear Dad, is that a Disney film from the 1960s, on VHS?

“You have a VHS player?” he asks toward the Detective.

“My mom still has some of her reels on VHS, so she kept it.” The Detective is closer than he anticipated, standing at the end of the couch while toweling off the offending lunchbox. “Oh, good choice, Monkey. I bet Lucifer hasn’t seen this one.”

He didn’t agree to stay for a film. Certainly not—wait.

“I in fact haven’t,” he says, shocked.

Not that he got up here to see everything that came out, but he made a damned good effort. Somehow he missed the King Aurther retelling? There’s a true shocker.

“You wanna order Chinese, Trix?” the Detective asks.

“Yes!” the spawn says, taking a running leap to land next to Lucifer on the couch. Far too close for comfort, but it’s not like he has the expanse of his own sofa here.

“Kung Pao, Lucifer?” the Detective asks.

He glances up at her and finds her looking down at them with soft eyes. The urchin is currently burrowing into his side, as if he’s consented to a movie-long cuddle. He would rebuff her, but there’s something in the look the Detective’s giving him, like this is some sort of test. As if the afternoon babysitting wasn’t enough.

He looks down at the urchin, whose face is trained on the television, one of her little hands wrapped into the cuff of his Armani where she’s resting against the arm he hasn’t moved.

There are…worse ways to spend an evening, he supposes.

“Kung Pao would be sufficient,” he says, looking back up at the Detective.

Her smile widens and she nods, turning to head back to the kitchen.

And if he moves his arm around the little parasite twenty minutes later, it’s only because his forearm was going numb, and nothing at all to do with the child’s snarky commentary on the movie.

Chapter Text

She doesn’t make anything of the sensible sedan parked out front, figuring one of the neighbors has a visitor. Juggling her grocery bags, she trudges up the front steps, intent on getting everything into the fridge and then beating a hasty retreat back toward Lux. She would have been able to get Trixie earlier, but the Lieutenant insisted she stay behind to be part of the impromptu upper level meeting about the new uniforms. She texted Lucifer but never heard back.

Now it’s nearly seven, and she still needs to fight her way back across the city to get Trixie. Even worse, she didn’t manage to meal prep anything last night, so they’re either having buttered noodles for dinner or she’ll have to spring for takeout again, and she’s already through their budget for the month.

With an exhausted sigh, she goes to slot her key into her front door, but finds it already open. She’s a second from drawing her gun—no easy feat with an armful of groceries—and then she hears it:

“The gravitational force of the planet would suck you in and you’d plummet to the craggy surface in a ball of fire.”

“Not if I had my booster boots!”

Chloe pushes inside, thoroughly confused. Her kitchen has exploded…in the most orderly fashion she’s ever seen. There’s flour in the air, but the counters look immaculate. Ingredients have been lined up on the island in height order. The oven is on, and the entire place smells like oregano. She can see a red-rimmed pot already soaking in the sink.

Entirely more surprising is the sight of her daughter standing on her little step stool, flour smudged on her cheeks, an apron over her pajamas, and her hand outstretched over…a homemade pizza? Lucifer beside her looks thoroughly at home, wearing his own apron (which says “kiss the devil,” so he must have brought it from Lux) over his shirtsleeves, which are rolled up, jacket discarded over her couch. He’s flour free, and patiently demonstrating the correct way to sprinkle cheese.

She didn’t know her mother had a pizza stone.

“Even if these fictitious…booster boots could provide propulsion, humans haven’t perfected any technique to prevent combustion upon entering an atmosphere.”

“I’d use Scotch Guard,” Trixie says firmly. “Is that enough?” she adds, nodding toward the pizza.

“Two more handfuls,” Lucifer says, looking up to grab another mound of cheese from the plate to his right. “Ah, Detective, you finally freed yourself from departmental torture?”

He’s in her house, cooking with her daughter, and discussing Trixie’s entrance plan to land on Mars, like it’s normal.

“Hi Mommy!” Trixie says brightly. She glances back at the pizza. “That spot needs more,” she adds, nudging Lucifer where they’re pressed hip to little shoulder.

“Yes, I can see that,” he says, rolling his eyes as he adds more cheese to the necessary spot. “Now, help your mother with the groceries.”

The groceries, right.

Chloe stumbles into motion, moving around to the other side of the kitchen to get everything into the refrigerator. “I got it,” she says.

When she opens the door, however, she finds it’s already full.

“Did you shop?” she asks, looking back at him in confusion.

He doesn’t look up from the pizza. “Just the necessary ingredients for pizza, and cake, and the urchin wanted taco fixings as well.”

Chloe surveys the contents of her fridge. He’s also gotten her a rotisserie chicken, what looks like five salad kits, and two flats of her favorite sparkling water—the orange creamsicle ones that always disappear immediately at the precinct.

What’s she supposed to do with this? He was a total ass all week at work. And now he’s cooking with her kid and filling her fridge?

The headache she’s been fighting all day suddenly feels like it might finally win. So she puts away her own groceries (which have no overlap with anything he bought, which feels like insanity) and closes the fridge. There’s also a new loaf of bread on top of her microwave and she can see new chips, popcorn, and ranch puffs in the snack cabinet.

“Wine’s by the sink,” he says, still not looking at her as he and Trixie carefully place artisan pepperoni he had to slice up on the pizza.

You know what, why look a gift horse in the mouth? Her kid looks happy. She’s about to have what’s she’s sure will be a great dinner, and she won’t have to shop for another two weeks.

She pours herself a glass of wine and wanders around to the opposite side of the island to watch them put the finishing touches on their masterpiece. Trixie’s tongue is poking out while she places the final pepperoni, Lucifer looming over her shoulder, eyes narrowed in concentration.

It’s utterly charming, which is deeply unfair.

“How was your day, Mommy?” Trixie asks when she straightens up.

She looks up at Lucifer and he nods at her, lifting the pizza to spin and place it into the oven. Chloe shakes her head and takes a sip of her wine. He looks so domestic, it just doesn't make sense.

“It was long, Monkey. How about you? Did you have fun at Lux?”

“Yeah!” Trixie says, wiping her hands on the dish towel Lucifer extends her way. “Lucifer taught me Texas Hold ‘Em.” Lucifer bumps her shoulder. “Go Fish,” she corrects quickly.

Chloe can’t help but snort. “She any good?” she asks Lucifer.

He meets her eyes for the first time, surprised, and then his lips settle into a smirk. “She has a decent bluff for a tiny urchin.”

“Hey! I beat you twice,” Trixie grumbles.

“Go wash your grubby little hands and face and set the table,” he says in reply.

Trixie sticks out her tongue and then hops off her stool. She pulls off her apron and flings it toward Lucifer, who catches it without even looking, bent over to fold up Trixie’s stool. Chloe huffs when Trixie wraps her arms around her stomach, mashing her flour-coated forehead into her stomach.

“It’s gonna be so tasty, Mommy! We used sourdough and everything,” Trixie says, before releasing her and sprinting back toward the bathroom.

“From where?” Chloe mutters.

“Third shelf,” Lucifer replies, patting the refrigerator before slotting Trixie’s stool back onto its hook. “It’ll need feeding.”

Chloe stares at him and sighs. “Text me instructions?”

“Your spawn has a sheet printed out. We started it last week at the penthouse.”

She doesn’t know what to make of any of this. “Why are you here?” she asks.

He stares at her, nonplussed. “It hardly seemed necessary to send you across town at rush hour to retrieve the child.”

“And the groceries?”

“She wanted cake.” It’s said so simply. Like there was no other consideration made. Trixie wanted cake, so they went to the store to—

“Did you also make cake?” she asks, glancing around the kitchen, then back to the table, where, of course, there’s a chocolate cake cooling.

She turns back to look at him, now standing in just his shirt and suspenders, the apron nowhere to be seen. How does he do that?

“The child insists on that abhorrent store-bought frosting,” he says, gesturing behind him to the counter, where three Duncan Hanes tubs of chocolate frosting sit waiting for the cake to cool.

“She’s not eating all of that,” Chloe says, lacking anything better.

“Of course not,” he huffs, insulted. “You and I will have some.”

She breaks then, an absurd giggle falling out of her mouth. He just looks so cute there in her kitchen, with his hair a little curly from the humidity coming in off the ocean. He made her daughter pizza and cake, and he doesn’t like children.

“Whatever is so funny?” he demands.

“Nothing,” Chloe says, shrugging at his indignant look. “You’re just very sweet when you want to be. It’s disarming,” she admits.

His face cracks in a pleased little grin. “So domesticity is the way to your affections. How very…traditional of you, Detective.”

And there’s the jackass. “Shut up,” Chloe says, taking another swig of her wine.

He doesn’t comment further, which only puts her on alert, but then Trixie returns, and he spends the entire rest of the evening arguing with her seven-year-old about the composition of Mars’ atmosphere and how many hectares of plant life she’d have to cultivate to create a breathable biosphere.

By the time he’s getting ready to leave, she’s actually longing for his innuendo again. She’s never met anyone who can go toe-to-toe with Trixie on her Mars obsession. He’s taking it far too seriously, sure, but Trixie looks delighted. Until the sugar rush ends.

He frosted the cake with two tubs of frosting, with little help from her daughter, and snuck her two slices while Chloe was doing the dishes. She left him to the sugar spike, but he handled it with surprising poise, simply sitting on her couch and letting Trixie run around it. He just kept asking her about Mars, and she kept talking, running full tilt until she practically passed out, flopping onto the couch next to him. 

“I’m tired,” Trixie whines.

“That’s my cue,” he says, grabbing his suit jacket and slipping it back on, even while Trixie gropes feebly for his pant leg. “Go to sleep, you sugar encrusted terror.”

Trixie giggles exhaustedly and then seems to do as told, falling asleep face planted there on the couch.

All Chloe did was sip her wine and watch. It’s a miracle.

“Have a good evening, Detective,” he says.

She tears her eyes away from her snoring daughter and looks up to find him smiling down at her. The look crinkles his eyes and opens his face, making him look younger, and almost angelic. It steals her breath, just a bit.

But it only lasts a moment, before his usual self-satisfied smirk takes its place.

“Such an instructive evening,” he says, voice sly.

She rolls her eyes as theatrically as possible. “Get out.”

“The lady doth protest far too much,” he sing-songs as he adjusts his cufflinks.

“Like you didn’t enjoy it,” she tosses back.

He looks quickly down at Trixie, but not quickly enough for Chloe to miss the way his eyes soften. “Don’t know what you mean,” he says, meeting her eyes, clearly sure she didn’t notice. “Goodnight, Detective.”

And then he’s gone. Her door lock clicks from the outside. She has no idea how he did that, but she finds she doesn’t much care. He may think she didn’t see how much he enjoyed hanging out with them, but he did. And the soft look on his face stays with her all night, long past the sound of his sensible sedan (and when did he buy that?) squealing off down her street.

(...)

“You’re awfully pensive today,” he observes, returning to the main room with the urchin’s usual throw blanket.

The girl in question is seated on his couch, clutching a mug of hot chocolate she promised four times she wouldn’t drop. He doesn’t know when it became impossible to deny her requests, but somehow, she wheedled the cup out of him. The little thing’s got a chocolate mustache now and is staring off out the balcony window, her forehead creased.

He lays the blanket over her lap, lest she spill while trying to do it herself, and sits himself down a few cushions away. No need to tempt fate.

“What’s pensive?” she asks, still not looking at him.

“Thoughtful, sometimes broody,” he supplies. Always a question.

“I guess so,” she agrees, letting her head fall back against the back of his couch. Her feet barely reach the end of the cushions, but at least she’s got her shoes off this time.

He waits, expecting her to elaborate, but she doesn’t. Instead she sips her cocoa with a frown and he finds himself deeply wrongfooted. He’s discovered he has the wherewithal to keep her relatively entertained most afternoons, but the feelings department is still rather alien.

A couple months ago it wouldn’t have bothered him. He’d have let her sit, played some piano, maybe had a smoke, and left her to her own devices until her mother arrived. Now the silence grates on him.

Sod it. He needs to know. Call it pure curiosity. Not worry, never that. “What has you brooding, urchin?”

The girl shrugs her shoulders and slowly rolls her neck to look back at him. “Mommy and Daddy are being weirder than normal.”

Ah. The fallout from Detective Douche’s text dumping. Truly abhorrent behavior, even by human standards. The Detective’s been acting as if nothing’s really the matter since, but perhaps that’s just at work.

He’s not at all equipped to comfort a child through divorce.

“And Mommy’s been crying, but she doesn’t think I know.”

Or how to help a child deal with a parent’s emotional issues. It’s not as if he didn’t know. The woman showed up drunk to his apartment, after all. But he didn’t take what was so wonderfully on offer. He was a gentleman. She seemed to appreciate it.

Perhaps politeness is all that’s needed here as well.

“Are you upset?” he asks, the words awkward on his tongue.

The urchin shrugs again, looking down into her cocoa. “I don’t like when Mommy’s sad.”

“Neither do I,” he says, too quickly. It’s true, but gosh, he needn’t be this pathetic.

“She was happier after Daddy left, which made me sad, but now she’s sad again, so it doesn’t seem like it’s working.” She looks up at him with those big brown eyes. “You never lie, right?”

“I don’t.”

He needs to think of something positive to say about Detective Douche. He’s…not terrible to look at? He clearly has some brain power to do the job he does? He certainly, at some point, had enough charisma to lock down Chloe Decker, so there’s something worthwhile in there, or there was? He—

“Am I doing something wrong?”

The question throws him entirely. “I beg your pardon?”

“Mommy and Daddy keep looking at me funny, and I’m trying to be good, I swear. Even though your friend Maze says being bad is more fun.” He snorts. Of course she did. “But they still keep looking at me funny, and then arguing in whispers and I just—am I doing something wrong, Lucifer?”

It’s a guileless question, whispered with so much heartache.

“No, child, you are not,” he says firmly, scooting close enough to pluck the cocoa cup from her hands. He places it on the table and then turns her little shoulders gently, so he can look at her straight on. “Nothing about what’s happening has anything to do with you. Your parents—adults—are silly, and stubborn, and get heartache just like children. But none of that has anything to do with you, all right?”

The urchin stares up at him, her little lip trembling. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he says.

“And you’ll always tell the truth?”

“I will always tell you the truth,” he says, squeezing her shoulders.

“Daddy’s not coming home, is he?” she asks.

He sighs, his chest tight with the sadness on her face. “It doesn’t seem like it, child.”

The child bobs her head and then lurches forward, pressing herself into his side. She pulls her legs up, huddling against him. He stays still for a moment before giving in to the inevitable. He should have seen this coming. She’s a tricky little thing, always coercing hugs out of him he never has any intention of giving.

But then there’s a quiet sniffle and he wraps his arm around her on instinct.

There’s none of the caterwauling he’s heard about over lost toys, timeouts, or playground scuffles. These tears are quiet and heart rending, pressed against his side, hitching her whole little body.

He didn’t sign on for this. He didn’t account for this. He wasn’t prepared.

Because the child’s tears tug at his chest and he finds himself having to breathe through the urge to charge back to the precinct to shove Detective Douche up against a wall. For breaking the Detective’s heart, but more, for breaking the urchin’s.

But that won’t do anyone any good.

“I don’t like it when things change,” she whispers.

“Most people don’t,” he says, lost for something better, something more comforting. She sighs softly. “Not everything will,” he continues. “You’ll continue to go to child torture every weekday, and your mum will continue to buy you hideous clothing.” She snorts and he takes it as a good sign. “The sun will continue to shine, because this is Los Angeles, and it doesn’t know any other way. And you and I will continue to learn the card games of the world, hm?”

He doesn’t know why he says the last one. It’s not like he’s made an agreement with the Detective to continue watching the urchin on Thursday afternoons. Nor has he asked that the visits continue at any point. They simply have, like a…not entirely bad habit.

There’s been a lot of change in the last few months for him as well. He bleeds, he feels, he goes to therapy, he’s vexed daily by a human detective. And he spends his Thursdays with the world’s least repugnant child.

Continuing to do so wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Her hand tightens in his shirt and she sniffles. “Promise?” she whispers.

It comes rather easily, “I promise.”

The child relaxes and he closes his eyes against the golden glow out the balcony window. An unseasonably warm, comfortable breeze blows through the penthouse. He must have left one of the doors to the balcony open.

He draws the urchin closer, the two of them curled up against the world.

(...)

“Trixie, come out, honey.”

He turns back to look at the Detective, gun still bolstered in both of her hands. She looks around and he stands up slowly, waiting to hear the eager voice of her urchin. But nothing comes.

“Trixie,” she repeats, louder this time. “It’s safe, baby, Lucifer and I took care of him.”

They wait. His mind is still lightly fuzzy, his nerves still high, the sight of that damned door fallen off its hinges clouding his vision. But not his hearing. He should be hearing small, excited feet, not the ringing silence of the hanger.

“Trixie,” the Detective calls, her voice rough. “Baby, please, everything’s okay. Please come out.”

She looks at him in askance, her body taut. He nods to the left and then turns to the right. They’ll find her. It’s hardly as ominous a setting as Hell was minutes ago. And though the child is sometimes sticky and often loud, she’ll be a much better prize to find than his mother’s empty cell.

The Detective keeps calling for the urchin, her voice echoing around the massive space.

He stays silent, looking, listening. If he were a small child told to hide, terrified, worried for her mother, listening to bullets flying, where would he go? Where would he make himself small? Where would he make himself safe?

“Trixie,” the Detective shouts, terror spiking into her words now.

Somewhere small, somewhere with doors. Somewhere he could have tucked himself—

And then he sees it. The work bench closest to where he was shot. She could have snuck around behind it and crawled inside while their backs were turned. Could have peeked out, hidden in its dark depths.

Could have seen…

“Beatrice,” he says softly, stopping a few feet away and crouching in front of the sliding cabinet door underneath the massive workbench. “It’s safe, you can come out now.” He can hear a faint movement within, but nothing happens. “Your mum is safe, and that brute is dead, no one will harm you.”

Another minuscule shuffle, but nothing.

He huffs lightly, feeling a twinge in his still healing abdomen at the movement. “Do I ever lie, child?”

Slowly, haltingly, one of the sliding cabinet doors squeaks open and he sees the urchin blinking out at him, her wide, dark eyes reflecting the dim shine from the flood lights across the room.

“Is he dead?” she whispers.

“Very dead. Never coming back.”

She crawls halfway out of the cabinet, looking left and right before settling her serious little gaze on him. “Are you dead?”

“Do I look dead?” he asks archly.

She glances toward his stomach, still wet with blood, then to the puddle of it behind him. “You were,” she says hesitantly.

He glances behind him but doesn’t see the Detective. “I was, but now I am not.”

“Your eyes were red,” she says, still not moving.

“They were,” he agrees, unsure of himself for the first time now. “Did that…frighten you?”

She clambers out of the cabinet on her hands and knees and then pauses about a foot away, peering up at him. “You’re not gonna die?”

“No,” he says firmly.

“Where did you go?” she whispers, eyes searching.

“Hell,” falls from his lips. He cannot tell her what she saw wasn’t real, when it was terrifyingly so.

“But you came back.”

“I did.”

She nods once and then launches herself forward, bowling him back as she wraps her arms around his throat. He sits immobile, knocked on his arse, before he wraps his arms around her. Relief he didn’t know he possessed floods through him and he ducks his head against the top of hers, closing his eyes. He breathes deeply for just a moment. She is alive. He is alive. And she’s not afraid.

“Trixie?” the Detective calls. He can hear the tears in her voice.

"I’ve got her,” he shouts, struggling to his feet with the urchin in his arms, her little legs wrapped tight around his middle, her head pressing hard beneath his chin. “I’ve got her,” he repeats, softer.

He hears her running and looks up as she careens around one of the enormous rows of shelves. “Trixie, Trixie, baby,” she rasps, sprinting up to them, her hand rising to cover Lucifer’s on her daughter’s back. “Are you okay?”

The girl nods against his shoulder, turning her head to look at her mother, but making no move to release Lucifer from her crushing hold. He finds he doesn’t mind.

“I’m okay,” the girl whispers. “Are you?” she asks the Detective.

"Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, baby. I’m fine. Are,” she pauses and looks up at Lucifer, then down to his stomach, where he’s probably leeching blood into her daughter’s clothes. “I thought—I thought he killed you,” she says, glancing at the girl before meeting his eyes again.

“He did,” he says simply. Beatrice’s grip tightens. “And then I got better.”

The Detective stares at him, calculating and confused for a moment before commotion breaks into their little bubble, officers flooding onto the scene.

“Okay, okay, Monkey, we’re gonna need to give a statement, and then we’ll go home, okay?” she says, looking away from Lucifer to crowd closer to her daughter, trying to pry her from his arms.

But the little thing won’t budge, clinging to him with more force than he’d thought possible. He doesn’t have the heart to dislodge her. It’s rather been an evening, and the protective grip of the Detective’s child is providing more comfort than he expected.

"Let’s go talk to whichever dullard of an officer your mother deems fit to take our statements and then we’ll get the both of you home, all right?” he says, glancing at the Detective before pulling back enough to see the urchin’s face.

"Okay,” Beatrice says.

“All right,” he agrees, nodding at her once, unsurprised when she lays her head back down on his shoulder. “Lead the way, Detective.”

The Detective’s eyeing him strangely, like she’s never seen him before. He supposes maybe she hasn’t. He’s never come back from the dead before. And he’s never carried a child in his arms for an hour simply because she didn’t want to be put down. But by the end of the evening, he’s somehow done both.

He’s not sure which is stranger, really.

Chapter Text

“Shouldn’t you be in child torture?” Lucifer asks, looking down at the urchin currently hogging his chair beside the Detective’s desk.

She’s wearing a ghastly outfit, as usual. A purple tutu over neon turquoise leggings, with a tie-dye long sleeve shirt beneath her signature purple fuzzy coat, replete with a pair of movie star sunglasses two times too large for her face.

“It’s four,” she replies, but it lacks some of her usual bite.

“They don’t educate past 4pm, hm?” he asks, plopping himself down in the Detective’s chair. If her offspring can take his chair, he can certainly take hers.

“Nope,” she says.

He waits, expecting an onslaught of verbal effluvia pertaining to her school torture exploits. Most recently it’s been something about a playground game, an annoying boy named Travis, and her mean maths teacher. He’s been slowly planning a punishment for the aforementioned Mr. Randle, a villain's moniker if ever he’s heard one.

The girl merely sits in the chair, looking out at the bullpen through those silly sunglasses. He thinks they’re a spare pair he’s seen on the Detective once or twice. They’re ridiculous on her face as well, but more fetching than adorable.

He takes a sip of the coffee he’d meant for the Detective and peers at her child. The silence is beginning to grate on him. He doesn’t enjoy the urchin’s prattle, but it’s normal. It’s the way things should be. And he’s a smidge invested in the playground antics. He could certainly use a distraction to keep his mind from obsessing over his mother’s sentence as Charlotte Richards.

He begins to worry when the silence stretches beyond five minutes. This quiet, subdued child is not normal. It sets his teeth on edge.

“Urchin, shouldn’t you be trying to liberate snacks from the vending machine or something?” he prompts.

She doesn’t look over at him. Instead, she adjusts the over-large sunglasses on her little cheeks. Something about this isn’t right. But he’s not—her hand twitches on the way back to her lap.

“Beatrice, what’s wrong with your knuckles?”

There’s a cut on her knuckle, dried blood crusting between her fingers. She immediately hides her hands in her tutu and he feels himself straighten his spine.

“Urchin,” he repeats, wheeling himself close to the girl and hunching his shoulders to get down to her level. “What’s happened?”

He reaches out for the sunglasses and she leans away from him. But she’s very small, and there’s nowhere to go, so he plucks them from her face. His intuition is never wrong, but he wishes this time it were. Because Beatrice Espinoza has a spectacular shiner blooming across her right eye.

The growl he lets out is entirely reflex. But the child doesn’t shy away from him. In fact, her little shoulders slump.

“Who did this to you?” he hisses.

She shrugs without meeting his eyes and ducks her head, fiddling with her battered hand. And as he looks her over, he notes the rips to the knees of her leggings, the scuffs on her brand-new shoes. She was so proud of them last week when she came for her Thursday visit.

Something has happened to his urchin. Someone hurt her.

He glances around but doesn’t see either the Detective or Detective Douche, which he supposes means neither has seen her either. Even distracted as they both have been by the divorce legalities, if he could clock something off with the little thing, surely they would have as well.

He looks back at the child and finds her shoulders curled further inward. As if she’s waiting for a punishment.

“Did you throw the first punch?” he wonders. She shakes her head, still staring down at her lap. “Did you throw the last?”

She looks up at that, a sudden glint in her eye. She raises her hand for him to see. “Yeah. I broke his nose.”

He feels a feral smile spread across his face. “Well done, urchin.”

She smiles for a moment and then glances around. “Mommy’s going to be mad.”

He sits, confused. “Why? Wait,” he says, holding up a hand before she can respond. “How did you get here? Surely your father or mother would have been informed if you broke a child’s nose?”

The girl’s eyes go shifty. “I…left the playground and caught a bus.”

Lucifer would be proud, if he didn’t think the Detective would panic. “Does either of your parents know you’re here?” The child shrugs.

He reaches into his pocket and grabs his phone, punching out a quick text to let the Detective know her spawn is in the precinct and not to worry if the school calls saying she’s missing. Made it all on her own, such a grown-up little thing.

He knows the Detective won’t appreciate it, but he hardly cares. Before the urchin gets scolded for her self-sufficiency, he thinks someone ought to tend to her injuries, and possibly buy her a pony.

He pockets his phone and meets her eyes. “How about we clean you up before mum and dad get here, and then steal the whole vending machine?”

“Okay,” she says, face widening in a smile, before she winces, reaching up with her injured hand to prod at her blackening eye.

“Come along,” he tuts, standing and pushing in the Detective’s chair before reaching down to hoist the child into his arms.

He thinks there’s a first aid kit in the kitchen. Good enough to take care of the worst of it, certainly. He marches them inside, grateful to find it empty, and plops the child onto the counter, reaching up to rummage in the cabinets to find the kit.

He opens the freezer and retrieves one of the many ice packs kept inside for just such occasions. Though usually the victims are not adorable seven-year-olds with killer left hooks.

He wraps the pack in his handkerchief and hands it to the child. “Hold that to your face,” he says, nodding when she lifts it to press gingerly against her eye.

Then he leans forward, a hand on either side of her little hips to duck down and meet her eyes. “Now. Who am I ripping apart?”

The child looks up at him, lip between her teeth. She’s lost an incisor recently, so there’s a little gap. It only serves to make him angrier.

“Who, Beatrice?”

“Travis Westley,” the girl says quietly, eyes casting down to her knees. “After school when we were on the playground waiting for pick up, he tripped me, and said my mommy is a snitch and deserved to die. When I got up and told him he was wrong, he punched me, and I fell down again.”

It’s then he notices the scrape on her other palm. It’s hard to focus, though, because everything is red tinged with rage.

He breathes forcefully through his nose, attempting to keep a cap on the wrath billowing up his chest. “And then what happened?” he asks, his voice still and calm, controlled.

“Then I got up and I tackled him, and punched him so hard I heard his nose crunch.”

She looks up to meet his eyes, little face hard and proud. Then she gasps, jerking backward.

“What?” he asks, but it comes out more of a growl.

Beatrice watches him with wide eyes—eye—her face growing pale.

Oh, Dad, no, his face.

He glances toward the lone window and, of course, staring back at him is his Devil Face. The little maggot punched the Detective’s daughter and hurt her, and he’s so angry he lost control.

He shutters it away immediately, breathing hard. It takes everything he has to turn and look at the child again, fear spiking up his back.

“Don’t be frightened,” he says inanely. Speaking to himself, he supposes.

Because of course she’s frightened. His face scares the hardest of criminals, the evilest of the vile. One innocent seven-year-old can’t possibly—

“Does it hurt?”

She’s not screaming, she’s not crying, she’s not losing her entire mind. Instead, the tiny child is staring up at him with concern, that ice pack still held to her bruised eye, the rest of her battered and so very small, breakable.

Does…“Does what hurt?”

“Your red face. It looks like when Mommy burned herself on the stove. Do you need a Band-Aid?”

Her other hand reaches toward the first aid kit, grabbing the largest plaster there and holding it out to him.

“Do I need a Band-Aid?” he repeats back at her, utterly baffled. “Aren’t you frightened?”

The urchin shakes her head, slowly lowering the plaster. “Your eyes didn’t go red though. Can you do the eyes?”

He blinks. “Can I—”

“I only saw them for a second in the—with the bad man, last time.”

She isn’t frightened, isn’t running away. She seems completely content there between his arms, calm and inquisitive, like always.

“I suppose,” he says, unsure of how else to respond.

He flashes his eyes and her whole little face lights up.

“That’s so cool,” she whispers. He startles when her free hand comes up to pat his cheek. “You’re not scary, Lucifer.”

He stays there for a moment, just gawking at the child, before coming to his senses. He turns his eyes back and straightens up. Her hand falls back to her lap, but she doesn’t stop smiling up at him.

“I am very scary, child,” he harrumphs, plucking the plaster from her hand to return it to the kit. “And I shall prove it to you, hm?”

“How?” she asks, watching placidly as he tears off a few paper towels and squirts them with Bactine to clean her wounds.

“Once we have patched you up and seen you stuffed to the gills with candy, you shall tell me where I can find this Travis fellow.”

“Are you gonna ‘viscerate him?” she whispers.

He snorts. “I rather think your mother would frown on me disemboweling a child.”

“I guess,” she says gustily.

“Now stay still,” he says, bending to wipe the Bactine on her little knees.

He notes her hand curling into a fist, but other than that, the child doesn’t make a peep. She allows him to clean and bandage her knees and wipe her scraped palm without comment. Brave little thing.

“All right, this one will hurt more,” he says softly.

He swaps her hands, so the scraped one crosses her body to hold the ice pack to her eye while he takes her other, with the split knuckle. He tears open a small alcohol wipe and grimaces at her before patting it over the wound.

Beatrice hisses but doesn’t speak, her eyes screwed shut.

“It will cease quickly,” he says, going for comforting.

He has a feeling if her mother were doing this for her, there would be tears, and cuddles, and much more chatter. He’s not sure whether her stalwart performance is touching or concerning.

Either way, he makes quick work of putting the generic antiseptic ointment over the cut and then bandaging it up so she’ll still mostly have use of the hand while it heals.

“All finished,” he says, taking the ice pack from her.

She blinks up at him with tear-rimmed eyes, but they don’t fall. “Thanks, Lucifer,” she says softly. 

He tosses the melting ice pack into the garbage. “You’ll want another of those once you get home. Be sure to tell your mother.”

The urchin nods solemnly. “Okay.”

He nods back and then, without thought, scoops the girl up to hold her on his hip. Her arms come around his neck and he leans in, conspiratorial. “Now, when will you next see the brute who accosted you?”

“Travis plays at the playground on Saturdays,” she whispers back.

“The one you and your mother often visit around two?” he confirms.

“Yep.”

“Right. Consider it done. Now, I would like every single chocolate bar in the vending machine, wouldn’t you?”

“And all the Sour Patch Kids!” she enthuses, squeezing his neck.

It’s rather like being gripped by a clinging octopus, but he finds he doesn’t really mind. Her giggles when he frees all of the treats with one pound to the metal of the vending machine are likewise rather pleasant, and sitting next to the Detective’s desk with the little thing on his lap, both of them tearing into her treats is—he’s Devil enough to admit it—fun.

The Detective’s disapproving stare when she spots all the wrappers on her desk is delightful, though it’s marred the moment she looks at her daughter.

“Baby, what happened?” she asks, kneeling immediately at his side to look up at her daughter.

Beatrice glances at him, a flash of fear crossing her face for the first time in nearly an hour. Not afraid of his Devil Face, but terrified of disappointing her mother. Isn’t it somehow always the way with children?

“It’s all right, Beatrice, you can tell her,” he intones softly.

The Detective looks at him in surprise, but he just jerks his chin toward her daughter, listening as the urchin recounts the sorry tale again. He hopes she really did break the sniveling fiend’s nose.

The Detective, to her credit, takes her daughter’s story in stride. “I’m glad you defended yourself, sweetheart, but you can’t run away from school. And violence,” she pauses, glancing at him, and then back to her daughter. “Violence is never the answer.” Beatrice wilts back against his chest. “But I hope you broke his nose.”

He grins at the Detective while the urchin giggles and leans forward so the Detective can wrap her arms around her. It leaves them a rather awkward pile of limbs, but he smiles down at the both of them, watching the way the Detective runs her hand over Beatrice’s head.

Oh, Dad, what’s happening to him?

“Thank you,” the Detective whispers. He meets her eyes, surprised. “For taking care of her.”

“Of course, Detective,” is all he manages in return. Because there was never an alternative.

(...)

It should be more of a surprise to see Lucifer striding across the playground, but like everything else with him, it somehow feels inevitable. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks as he steps up beside her, dressed in yet another impeccable black Burberry suit.

She wishes she were more put together. Her ratty LAPD sweatshirt and leggings, her hair up in a messy braid—it all seemed perfectly fine when she left the house. Now she feels a bit shabby by comparison.

“It’s a beautiful day, Detective,” he replies, smiling guilelessly.

She doesn’t buy that for a second. “And you’re choosing to spend this beautiful day at a children’s playground? I thought you had family business to attend to.”

“I had other business in the area, and the urchin has mentioned your usual Saturday schedule. If you weren’t so predictable, I wouldn’t have bothered to swing by.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “‘Stable’ is the word you’re looking for. And you’ve known our schedule for months, but you’ve never shown up here. What gives?”

“Nothing,” he says, rocking on his heels.

“Lucifer,” she insists, but it’s drowned out by another, louder, far more gleeful—

“Lucifer!”

Trixie sprints toward them, a smile stretched across her face, almost hiding the still-purple and green bruise by her eye. Every time Chloe looks at it she wants to punch something. Maybe that’ll be a good use for her partner.

Who isn’t moving, or guarding himself, or preemptively getting out of the way. Which is odd.

Instead, Trixie slams into his legs with brute force and he doesn’t so much as huff.

“Yes, hello, spawn,” he says, looking down at her, completely unperturbed. He even pats her head. “Healing nicely?”

“Maze said I look badass,” Trixie says with a grin.

Chloe groans. “Trixie.”

“I do!” she insists, looking over at Chloe, her cheek pressed to Lucifer’s stomach.

He’s still just standing there, unbothered. It’s…suspicious.

“It’s a bad word,” Chloe says. Trixie’s grin settles into pursed lips.

“Tough, hard-boiled, fierce, or rough and tumble, would be suitable substitutes…while your mother is within earshot, urchin.”

Trixie looks up at him, eyes sparkling. “Thanks, Lucifer! Will you help me do the monkey bars?”

Chloe feels her eyebrows go up.

“Of course. But tell me, what have bars to do with monkeys? They can’t imbibe, as far as I’m aware,” he says.

Trixie steps back and then reaches out to snag his hand. He doesn’t even try to shake her off, allowing her to pull him away without so much as a word in Chloe’s direction.

“Okay, what the hell?” Chloe mutters.

She’s too surprised to follow them, watching instead from afar as Lucifer effortlessly lifts Trixie up to the monkey bars. His hands stay poised on either side of her torso, following her across as her little monkey swings her way from one side to the other. She doesn't need his protection, but even Chloe can see the way she beams when he lifts her back down to the ground.

She takes his hand and Chloe watches, agog, as he lets himself be pulled all over the playground. She can tell they’re chatting while they go, can hear Trixie’s delighted giggles at whatever he’s saying. She hasn’t laughed like that since they told her about the divorce.

“Who is that?”

Chloe turns to find Kaitlin’s mother, Mrs. Maitlen, standing next to her, fanning herself with her baseball cap.

“That’s Lucifer,” Chloe replies, tilting her head back in exasperation. She hadn’t thought about the moms. He’s going to be insufferable.

“Like the devil?” Mrs. Maitlen asks. She doesn’t sound deterred at all.

“Like the devil,” Chloe agrees. “He’ll tell you the same.”

Though he doesn’t look so much like his normal self, pushing her daughter on the swings. She’s going awfully high.

Chloe steps forward but Trixie’s peal of laughter stops her in her tracks. He’ll keep her safe. He always has. And her daughter hasn’t looked this happy all week.

It’s vexing.

“Your daughter certainly seems taken with him,” Mrs. Maitlen says, her voice appraising.

“Yeah, she does,” Chloe agrees. She always has. Has liked him from the moment they met, even though until recently it seemed he barely tolerated her.

Though that’s not really true at all, and she knows it. He still makes a big show of finding Trixie sticky and loud, but he never actually does anything about it. And he’s made zero protest of her spending Thursday afternoons at his penthouse for months. Really after the first few weeks he rarely said anything, come to think of it; he just kept allowing Trixie over.

“Are you?”

“Sorry?” she says, dragging her eyes away from the sight of Trixie launching herself off the swing and right into Lucifer’s arms.

“Are you, taken with him? Is he taken?”

Mrs. Maitlen has the same look they all do, lightly predatory, lightly turned on, and far too interested. Desperate, she thinks, though that hardly seems fair. Who wouldn’t be a little bit desperate for the dapper man letting her tiny urchin drag him around a playground in his three-piece suit?

Oh, no, she’s not going to start referring to Trixie as ‘urchin.’

It could never sound so soft coming out of her mouth as it does out of his.

God, what is he doing to her?

“I see he is.”

She blinks and looks back at Mrs. Maitlen. “No, well, he’s—my partner,” Chloe says weakly.

“In many ways,” she says slyly. “We were all worried when we heard you and Daniel had separated, but it seems you’ve made a speedy recovery, and why wouldn’t you?”

Chloe opens her mouth to protest, or at least say…something in her own defense, or rebuff the statement—something—but there’s a howling scream.

They both turn to look back at the playground and Chloe sees Lucifer and Trixie standing over Travis Westley by the swings, easily identifiable by the giant bandage still on his nose. The boy’s down on the ground, crab scrabbling away from them and blubbering. And wetting his pants.

Jesus Christ.

“Lucifer!” she shouts, leaving Mrs. Maitlen without a word and jogging across the grass and up onto the playground.

She reaches Lucifer and Trixie, who really are just standing there, Trixie’s hand in his, both of them looking down at the boy. She looks from her daughter, to her partner, completely unflapped, and down to the sniveling little boy.

“Everything all right?” she asks.

“Perfectly fine, Detective. Right, Beatrice?”

“Uh-huh!” Trixie says brightly. “Can we go get ice cream now? Lucifer said he’d pay.”

Chloe looks from her daughter to the weeping little boy and back. He doesn’t look harmed, at least…not physically. And they were just standing there.

Jimmy Burns’ terrified face flashes across her mind for a moment. But that’s absurd. If Lucifer had…done something to this kid, Trixie would be terrified, not swinging on his free hand.

“All right,” Chloe says, glancing at Lucifer, who nods placidly.

She notes Travis standing up on shaking legs before sprinting off across the park.

“A pathetic little beast, isn’t he?” Lucifer asks.

“Lucifer,” Chloe warns.

But Trixie’s grinning up at him like he lit the sun and honestly, whatever he did, whatever they said, the little shit had it coming for assaulting her baby.

“Fine. There’s a good ice cream parlor a few blocks away if you’re both okay to walk,” she says, shaking her head.

“Lead the way, Detective,” Lucifer says.

Chloe starts walking, trusting them to follow. They fall in line with her immediately, Lucifer’s arm brushing hers. She notices the looks they’re getting at the same time he does. Half incredulous, half jealous, the moms (and a respectable smattering of dads) are gawking at them.

She can feel it coming a moment before his arm drops around her shoulders. She has to turn her face into his chest to hide her smile.

“You’re the worst,” she mumbles.

“Oh, live a little, Detective. All they’ll remember now is that I left the park with the two cutest ladies here, and that little cretin won’t be more than a blip on anyone’s radar.”

She doesn’t know where to focus. That he thinks she’s cute? That he’s happy to play happy partners in front of this many available women? Or that he clearly did something to Travis he feels needs obfuscation?

“You should kiss, really prove the cover,” Trixie says, her voice light and mischievous.

“Detective?” Lucifer asks eagerly.

She rolls her eyes. She’ll focus on getting him to buy her and Trixie the largest sundae known to man, that’s what she’ll do. Anything else is going to give her a headache. Let Lucifer be Lucifer.

“Shut up, both of you,” she says.

They just laugh, and it’s possibly one of the sweetest sounds she’s ever heard.

Chapter Text

“Lucifer?”

He jerks his head up, looking blearily over toward the elevator, where Beatrice has just emerged and is standing wide-eyed, staring out at the destruction he’s made of his penthouse.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

“It’s Thursday,” she says, clutching at her backpack. 

SHIT. Is it already?

“Are you okay?”

He blinks. She’s looking at the shattered coffee table, the cracked piano, the still smashed and dripping bar, the chunks he took out of the walls in his rage. How long has he been sitting here? When did his mother leave? Uriel—he killed—his brother—a day, two days ago?

Beatrice takes a step toward him and he lurches up by reflex, crunching glass beneath his feet. It doesn’t even register.

“Beatrice, stay right where you are,” he barks.

She jumps, her arms coming up around herself, chin trembling.

Dad save him, he’s not in form for this at all.

He closes and ties his robe, running a hand through his sweat-matted hair, and then heads for the little urchin. He approaches slowly, not wanting to further frighten the poor thing.

“I did not realize it was Thursday, child, or I would have had this cleaned up. There’s no need for fear,” he promises.

“What happened?” Beatrice asks, looking up as he reaches her, her eyes bright and confused.

“I,” he starts, unsure of what to say, how to explain.

“Maze said your brother died?”

His chest tightens painfully and he nods, unsure of how else to respond.

“I’m sorry, Lucifer,” Beatrice says softly, stepping forward to wrap her arms around his torso, her head butting into his stomach.

He feels a tear slip down his cheek. He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve Beatrice at all.

“Thank you, child,” he whispers. Because he is weak, and he is greedy, and he wants to be worthy. Wants so badly to be worthy of the innocence that looks up at him as she pulls back from him.

“Should I go to the precinct instead?” she asks. He can see how much she doesn’t want to—how sad it would make her, despite the firm set of her little jaw and her kind, soft offer.

“No,” he says. “No, you can do your homework in the den, and then we’ll watch a film, if you like.”

“Okay,” she says, gracing him with a smile. “Um,” she adds, glancing around them.

He looks down at the floor. Everything is shattered glass. Hardly safe for a little girl.

“All right, here, urchin,” he says gruffly, lifting her into his arms, backpack and all.

She hangs onto his neck and he walks them back behind the bar, glass crunching painlessly underfoot. At least the child doesn’t seem to make him vulnerable like her mother. Thank mercy for small favors.

He stops at the door to the den to wipe his feet against his black pajama bottoms, wanting to ensure the child has a pain-free environment. He’ll need to get the cleaners in ASAP so her mother doesn’t worry when she arrives in a few hours to take the girl home.

“Set yourself up, poppet,” he says, pushing into the den and flicking on the lights.

Beatrice nods, letting him set her down. The television takes up nearly the entire wall, the opposite filled with another large, buttery brown leather couch, with a wooden coffee table on the shag carpet in between. He rarely finds use for the space, but sometimes visitors wish to watch television, or play the insipid video games.

Slowly, Beatrice moves into the room and plops down on the carpet with her backpack. She looks back at Lucifer, eyebrows creased.

“I’m going to go take care of…everything, and then I shall return with a snack.”

“Okay,” she says.

He waits until she begins pulling out her schoolbooks and then turns on his heel, heading back into the destruction that is his front room. He surveys the damage he’s wrought. Two VIP cleaning crews will be necessary.

Thirty minutes, one harried club manager, and the ding of the elevator announcing the arrival of his standard crews later, he splashes some water on his face and slips into a shirt and slacks. He can’t do much for his gaunt, haunted face, but at least he looks a bit more like himself. Enough not to scare the urchin, he thinks.

He returns to the den with a plate of cheese, her favorite terrible crackers, and a juice box. Beatrice is curled up on the couch, her schoolwork on the coffee table.

“Done already, you clever thing?” he asks, closing the door against the impending sound of shop vacs in the front room.

He places her snack down on the coffee table and glances at her papers. It seems she actually has completed her torture for the day. If he had the right, if he were worthy, he’d be proud of her. Smarter each and every week.

But he isn’t, so he simply walks around the coffee table to sit a few cushions away.

“Broken glass is bad, Lucifer,” Beatrice says, looking over at him, almost accusingly.

“It is,” he agrees. “Someone’s putting it to rights now.”

“You could have hurt yourself,” she adds.

He shakes his head. “Broken glass can’t hurt the Devil, darling.”

Beatrice frowns. “Then why are you hurt?”

The question is soft and earnest and it punches him through the chest. “I’m not—”

“You don’t trash your house if you’re happy,” she says simply.

He can’t argue with that. “I was…angry,” he admits. “But I’m all better now.”

He gives her what he thinks is a decent smile, but it doesn’t do a damned thing against her pensive little face.

“You don’t have to be all better,” she says. “Mommy says sometimes when we have big feelings, they take a long time to heal, and it’s okay to be sad or angry.”

It’s a little pathetic how much her words pound against his ribcage, expanding in his lungs. “Your mother is a smart woman. I’m glad you listen to her.”

Beatrice nods. “She said I’d be less angry about Daddy working so much with time and I…am,” she says thoughtfully. “So maybe with time you’ll be less angry about your brother.”

“I hope so, Beatrice,” Lucifer manages.

It’s not all anger. Grief, sadness, guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt. Because it’s all his fault. It’s all his fault. All his fault.

“Lucifer?”

He startles, Beatrice’s little hand pressed against his stubble. “I’m fine,” he says automatically.

“I’m really sorry he’s dead,” Beatrice says, curling up against his side.

“I am too,” he whispers.

She snuggles into his side, an arm across his stomach. His breath hitches. She shouldn’t hug him. She shouldn’t comfort him.

It’s his fault his brother is dead. He killed him, stabbed him. Beatrice, made of light and laughter, mischief and innocence, shouldn’t—Monstrous—he is a monster, and—

“You’re not a monster, Lucifer.”

He blinks and looks down to find her looking up at him. He didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“I am,” he replies, raising a shoulder. “You’ve seen my true face.”

“Your face doesn’t make you a monster,” she says, digging her chin into his chest as she shakes her head. “If it did, that would mean all ugly people are evil and all pretty people are good, and even Disney knows that’s not true.”

He gives her a cracked laugh. “That may be so of humans, little Decker, but I am not human. I am a monster, and what I did—what happened—was monstrous.”

Beatrice stares up at him and he takes a shuddering breath. She’ll pull away, call her mother, ask to leave, to be protected from the big, bad, evil—

“Mommy says sometimes when someone is going to hurt someone else, there isn’t always a choice. Was your brother going to hurt someone?”

He doesn’t know if she understands what she’s implying, what she’s saying, who she’s hugging. “It isn’t so simple,” he says.

“Was he?”

“Yes,” he says, because he cannot lie, not to that face, not to those big eyes.

“Was he going to hurt me, or mommy?”

The words come out on a strangled breath, “He was going to hurt your mum, and mine.”

“Then you’re not a monster,” Beatrice says with conviction.

“Someone dying is always monstrous,” he whispers, chest stuttering when it comes out. He didn’t mean to admit—he cannot admit to Beatrice that he—that he—that it was he who—

“Then you’re our guardian monster and you keep us safe,” Beatrice decides.

She looks so convinced, so sure, so calm there against his chest. Like this is the safest place she could be, with the safest person. Like it’s simple and clean. Good and bad, right and wrong.

“Guardian Monster?” he repeats.

She wrinkles her nose. “No, that doesn’t sound right.”

Of course it doesn’t. He isn’t—a monster isn’t some kind of protector…

“Fairy Dad Monster,” Beatrice says after a moment.

He chokes on air. “What?”

“Well, you don’t say God, right? You call him Dad. So, that makes you mine and mommy’s fairy dad monster then.”

“That is a ridiculous moniker,” he says, trying to hang onto a thread of sanity, like Beatrice Espinoza hasn’t declared him a fairytale protector without so much as a single doubt.

“Disney would agree with me,” Beatrice says seriously.

“I really doubt he would.”

“Not the guy,” Beatrice says with a roll of her eyes. “The…you called it a brand, right? The princess brand? They’re all about fairy dad parents. So, if you’re a monster, then you’re my Fairy Dad Monster, okay?”

He works his jaw for a minute, completely lost.

“Can we watch Frozen?”

A semblance of normalcy floods through his veins. “Using my weakness for your gain, urchin?”

“Like you taught me.”

Later, after one and a half Frozens, two slices of chocolate cake, and more giggles than he can remember in a while, Lucifer carries Beatrice toward the elevator. The cleaning crew is just about finished, brushing the last of the shattered bar up when the doors open and the Detective walks through.

“Hi, Mommy!” Beatrice exclaims, looking up at Lucifer in permission before wiggling down to run and give her a bear hug. “We watched Frozen and we had cake!”

“Oh, excellent,” the Detective says sardonically, giving him a look. But then her eyes widen. “Lucifer, what happened to you?”

He blinks. He’s dressed. The apartment looks…mostly no worse for wear. There’s still the chunk missing from the wall where he threw the coffee table, but that’ll take a few days on order.

“What?” he asks, extending Beatrice’s backpack toward her.

“You look awful,” she says softly, stepping forward to reach up and touch his cheek.

“Well, thank you,” he huffs.

“Are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine. Beatrice did a bang-up job of cheering me up, didn’t she?” he says, looking toward the little girl, who grins up at him. “No need to worry, Detective.”

He smiles brightly, pushing a little mojo into his eyes. It won’t draw her in, but it might placate her. Showing Beatrice the dark, twisty parts of him is one thing. Exposing his raw and beating heart to the Detective would certainly be another.

Never mind she might bring him in on murder charges.

“All right,” the Detective says warily. “I’ll see you Monday?”

“Monday,” he says, watching as she guides Beatrice toward the elevator.

“Bye, Lucifer!” Beatrice calls, smiling and waving.

He nods to her and watches the doors close behind them, taking any semblance of ‘all right’ away with them. He turns back to the apartment, clean and spotless, and frowns, that unease, that horror, that grief cutting up his chest again.

Without the child there to stay steady for, what’s the bloody point?

(...)

He doesn’t know what possessed her to hug him—he just thought she ought to hear from someone that her father would be proud of her—but he can’t say he minds. The Detective smells lightly of coconuts, and her head is warm against his heart. There’s a strange feeling of peace settling over him, even as he’s still concerned that he made the woman cry.

“Okay, Mommy, I’m ready!”

He and the Detective both stiffen, turning to look down at Beatrice, arms still wrapped around one another. She stares up at them with a huge grin, now in jeans and an over-large Nirvana tee shirt that certainly can’t belong to her. She’s just finishing the last of her eggy bread.

“Sorry, are you having a ‘moment’?” she asks, using air quotations, crumbs spilling from her mouth.

Maze is a truly terrible influence.

“Yeah, Monkey, we were,” the Detective says.

Her arms tighten around him. He grips back instinctively, before she unceremoniously pulls herself away. She moves around him to grab the child’s knapsack, her eyes meeting his, still wide and bright. He can’t help but smile back. She ducks her head and busies her hands with the knapsack. He turns back to the urchin, trying to get himself back together.

 Beatrice looks up at him, swiveling her hips in that annoyingly adorable way children are wont to do.

“Very rude of you to interrupt, urchin,” he says, adjusting his lapels.

“You’re happy,” she says.

Oh, no, he’s not playing this game. “That you are almost off and away to spawn containment? Yes, I am,” he says imperiously.

She rolls her eyes. “You’re silly.”

“And you’re almost late. Come on, honey, we’ve gotta go,” the Detective says, rounding him again to hand Beatrice her bag.

“Carpooling, are we, sweetheart?” he asks, just to see the Detective roll her eyes.

But her lips are quirked up, and he can tell she’s still a little emotional. Despite his sniping, he’s rather choked up still himself. But he can’t let on, or the urchin will know. She’s staring at them far too knowingly as it is.

“Can Lucifer come with us?” the child asks brightly.

The Detective looks between them. “If he wants.”

Beatrice looks up hopefully and the Detective raises an eyebrow at him.

He sighs dramatically. “If the spawn insists.”

“The spawn insists,” Beatrice says, overloud.

The Detective laughs and shakes her head. “All right, carpool, come on.”

He follows them out into the driveway, watching Beatrice skip to the Detective’s car and clamber inside. He doesn’t really know why he should go with them—why Beatrice would want him to. But she’s asked, and he can still vaguely feel the Detective’s arms around him. He finds he truly does want to go with them. Perhaps domesticity suits him? That can’t be right. 

The Detective glances back at him when she reaches the driver’s side. “You comin’?”

He nods and lurches forward, climbing into the car with an attempt at his usual aloof air. He can’t let on that he might actually enjoy—that he might truly like to be here, can he?

“What are you learning in school today, Monkey?” the Detective asks as they pull out of her driveway.

He supposes he’ll have to come back here at the end of the day to pick up his car.

“We’re talking more about the solar system, and then we’re doing our biology plant project. My lima bean is doing the best in the class.”

“How come?” the Detective asks.

“Maze told me to play heavy metal music for it, so I do,” the urchin says.

Lucifer glances back at her, surprised and more than a bit amused. “Which band?”

“Maze’s favorite,” the girl says, eyebrow raised, like it’s a test.

“Ah, Iron Maiden. Both her favorite band, and one of her favorite torture devices.”

“That’s exactly what she said!” Beatrice nearly yells, grinning at him.

“Trixie, babe, volume,” the Detective chides. “And she would say that.”

“It was a fantastic device. Not really a long torture though,” he says, smirking when the Detective looks over and rolls her eyes.

“There aren’t any records of the iron maiden actually being used for torture,” the little voice pipes up behind them.

The Detective sighs gustily and shoots him a glare. “What?” he asks.

“Where else could she have learned that?”

“From Maze, of course,” he replies, playing at scandalized. He’s rather sure she learned it from—

“It was in one of your books, Lucifer. We looked at it together,” Beatrice says slowly, like he’s forgotten and is also a bit of a doofus.

“Play along better, urchin, or there won’t be any more snacks at the precinct,” he says, shooting her a glare between the seats.

But the child doesn’t look bothered, nor like she believes him.

“Like you’d give up your excuse to stuff yourself full of candy any time she’s there,” the Detective mutters.

“I do not,” he says, turning back to look at the road and adjusting his lapels.

“You so so do,” she says.

“Your mother has a tenuous grasp on reality,” Lucifer says, meeting the child’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Oh, yeah, I’m the one with a loose grip on reality, Mr. Devil Face.”

He watches Beatrice frown. “Perhaps your version of reality is simply too narrow-minded for the both of us,” he says, smiling as the girl’s face lights up.

“Keep telling yourself that,” the Detective says.

“We will!” Beatrice says brightly.

He’s pretty sure the Detective is biting back a smile.

When they reach the school, he’s treated to the ingenious evil that is the drop-off line.

“We really underutilized this as a form of torture in Hell,” he mutters.

The Detective snorts. “How so?”

“Screaming children, nowhere to go, the clear false show of cheer from the greeters? It’s pure nightmare fuel,” he says.

The Detective laughs. “Okay, you’re not totally wrong. They are a bit creepy,” she says, nodding toward one of the greeters who’s talking to a parent through the passenger window six cars ahead of them, face split in what looks like a truly uncomfortable smile.

“Don’t forget guilt,” Beatrice says from the back.

The Detective’s mouth falls open but he’s already turning to look at the child. “How so?”

“Some parents drop their kids before the line and make them walk, and some are on calls the whole time, and they don’t listen,” Beatrice says with a little shrug. “When their kids are all grown up, won’t they wish they had paid more attention?”

Lucifer stares at her for a moment. “That’s very true, Beatrice,” he decides. “Well spotted.”

Beatrice smiles at the compliment, as she always does, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. He wonders how many phone calls Detective Douche has taken while in the drop off line.

“I’m sorry, Monkey.”

He turns, surprised, and finds the Detective twisted in her seat to look around her headrest at Beatrice with him.

“I know sometimes Mommy has to take calls from work while we’re here. I’ll try to send them to voicemail more, okay?”

Beatrice cocks her head, confused. “You never take phone calls, Mommy. If you have to, they’re like thirty seconds!”

The Detective’s shoulders drop and he finds himself reaching over without thought to squeeze her forearm. “In fact, sometimes your mother asks too many questions, doesn’t she?” he asks the girl with a wink.

“So many!” Beatrice agrees, grinning at her mother while she rolls her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I could phone a friend to answer you.”

“Oh do you?” the Detective asks, making a silly face at her daughter before a horn honks behind them. “Really?” she mutters, turning back to inch them one car-length forward.

“Seems like that parent might be destined for a school drop off Hell loop,” he says, laughing as Beatrice winks theatrically at him.

She can’t really wink, both of her eyes closing in sequence. It’s thoroughly adorable.

“Oh, she is,” the Detective says quietly. “That’s Ruby Sunday.”

“A ridiculous name,” he says with disgust.

She laughs, her shoulders lowering further. “She’s head of the PTA and a high-powered divorce lawyer who always sides with the deadbeat dads.”

“Oh, do I detect a grudge?” he asks, glancing between the Detective and Beatrice, who’s nodding. “What did Ruddy Wednesday do to you, Detective?”

Beatrice giggles. “She yelled at Mommy at the bake sale last year for bringing store-bought sugar cookies, even though they never, ever taste the same when we make them.”

“Well, pride is a sin, so that’s a knock against her,” he says.

“And she’s the world’s biggest gossip. There were parents I’d never met who knew about…well,” the Detective says, eyes flicking to the rearview to look at Beatrice. “And she may have…shown interest where it wasn’t wanted.”

“To you or Daniel?” he asks.

The Detective laughs. “Dan!”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss your assets, darling,” he says, proud when she wrinkles her nose and purses her lips. “Any woman or man would be so lucky.”

“Yeah, Mommy, Maze says you’re hot.”

“She what?” he and the Detective exclaim at the same time.

Beatrice nearly falls over with laughter and the Detective shakes her head. “This is your fault,” she says as they inch forward by a couple car lengths.

“How on earth?”

“Maze is your friend.”

“So you being attractive to all genders is somehow my fault? I can’t help it if Maze can see what’s in front of her,” he says, even as a clench of mine twists in his gut.

“Oh cool it, Romeo,” she says. The car lurches to a stop and she turns back to Beatrice. “Have a good day at school, Monkey.”

Beatrice grins at her and extricates herself from the complicated child seat belt with ease. Which suggests she absolutely only wears it at her mother’s behest.

“I will. Bye, Mommy, bye Lucifer, love you!” she says, pushing the passenger side door open to hop out onto the sidewalk and run toward school, her backpack bouncing against her back.

Something stirs in his chest, warm and treacly and foreign. He’s not sure what to make of it, how to feel, how to react. Beatrice—he knew she was fond of him. But he didn’t know she—

“Lucifer,” the Detective says softly.

He turns to look at her, finding her regarding him with those big blue eyes, wide and shining and looking much like she did before she hugged him that morning.

And then someone taps on his window, making them both jump.

“Truly, this should be in the next development meeting in Hell,” he mutters.

The Detective laughs, their moment breaking, and reaches out to roll down his window.

After five minutes of PTA and after-school instructions, there’s no reclaiming any semblance of their moment as they pull away. He notes the Detective drives out of the lot at well above the school-safe limit.

“You’re right.”

He blinks and looks over as they clear the school property and turn back onto Santa Monica Blvd. “About what?”

“You should use that in Hell.”

He’s smiling all the way to the precinct.

Chapter Text

“Come on, Detective. Friends help each other out,” he says.

She can’t bring herself to say no. Not when they’re sitting there at his piano. Not when she can still feel the phantom echo of his arms around her, dancing her through the club. Not when she can still hear his laughter in her ears. Not when he’s looking at her like that—hopeful and mischievous and maybe a little bit cracked open.

“Okay,” she says. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

It doesn’t need to be…more than it is. Unless they decide they want it to be.

“Excellent. Now, it’ll take me an hour or two to call in the favor and grease the right palms for the perfect table. I know the urchin is with Daniel tonight so why don’t you—”

Her phone rings just as she’s thinking it’s a little bit remarkable that he knows who’s taking care of Trixie right now.

Of course, when Dan’s name flashes across her phone screen, she feels the edge of giddy anticipation dying in her stomach. “One sec?” she asks.

He nods, already turning back to the piano, a cute little smile on his face.

She stands up and walks a few feet away, her own smile breaking out when he starts playing and softly singing “My Girl” behind her. It’s one of Trixie’s favorites. She wonders if he knows that. He must.

“What’s up, Dan?” Chloe asks, biting the proverbial bullet.

“Chloe, I need to drop Trix with you. I know it’s my night, and I’m sorry, but I just got called in for a stakeout, and I don’t have the…weight to throw to get out of it.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. It’s—well, it is his fault, but this, in this moment, isn’t. Still, Trix was so excited to spend the night with him. They were going to go to the park, and get pizza, and her favorite ice cream, and there was something about a stupid TV show…

“Yeah, okay,” Chloe says, shaking her head. “Where are you guys? I’m at Lux. It’ll take me a bit to get—”

“Great! We were headed to WeHo anyway, so I’ll drop her on my way back, if that’s good?”

Chloe stands there staring up at the club lights. What a difference a few months makes, huh? He’d never have been okay with dropping Trixie here before. It doesn’t make it better though.

“Okay. See you in—”

“Fifteen. Thanks, Chlo. And Trix and I will make this up on the weekend, won’t we?” she hears, before the phone clicks off.

She sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She’s exhausted. She’d absolutely been planning a microwave meal and a quiet night falling asleep early to her own stupid TV show before about five minutes ago. And now—

“Did I hear the sounds of Detective Douche crashing our plans?”

Chloe snorts and turns around to find Lucifer draped artfully over the piano, his head in his hand. It’s so ridiculously charming she can’t help but laugh and let herself be drawn back to him. She sits down beside him with a nod, letting her shoulders slump.

“He got called back into work, and he needs to drop Trix with me.”

“Mm, and a fine dining experience is not quite the urchin’s speed, is it?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Not unless you really want to try the staff’s patience for buttered noodles.” He makes a face like he’s actually considering it and she reaches out to touch his forearm. “As much as I appreciate you going to bat for Trixie, I think a raincheck is probably better.”

She feels as disappointed as he looks, which doesn’t scare her as much as she thought it would. She was actually…excited about this dinner. About the opportunity to see him outside of their usual routine. About spending time with just him.

“Well, that can certainly be arranged,” he says, his eyes trailing over her face before falling to rest on the heritage site paperwork. “But, I can’t let this evening go without some kind of thank you.”

“You don’t need to do anything,” she says, and since her hand is still on his forearm, she squeezes gently. “I didn’t do this so you’d give me something pretty or take me out, or…repay me in some way. I just wanted to make sure you could keep this place.”

His eyes swing back up to hers and she thinks it’s true disbelief staring back at her. Like maybe no one’s ever done something for him just because they wanted to. The thought makes her ache.

“Still,” he says, swallowing for a moment before his usual sly smirk falls back into place. “It sounds like the urchin will be disappointed by the absence of whatever lackluster plans her father had in store.”

Chloe sighs. “She loves spending time with Dan,” she defends, even though all she wants to do is laugh.

Lucifer wants to one-up Dan constantly when it comes to Trixie. She knows he says it’s all to make Dan feel inferior, but she knows it’s always really because he wants to see Trixie smile. Even if he wouldn’t admit that to anyone, much less to himself. But she knows.

“But the Douche is abandoning her tonight—”

“Getting called into work is hardly abandoning—”

“So perhaps we should turn our attention to a way to buck up your spawn before she spends the night whining your ear off.”

Right. That’s why. Not because he hates to see her daughter sad or anything so absurd. Of course.

“What do you have in mind?” Chloe asks, because there’s clearly no point in fighting it.

And at least this way she still gets to spend the evening with Lucifer.

“I believe we have two options,” he says, looking perfectly serious.

“Do we?”

“One, I take you ladies out to a more…child friendly establishment, and we order everything on the dessert menu, plus whatever vegetable matter you deem necessary.”

She has to bite her lip against a smile. Trixie would love that. “Or?”

“Lux isn’t set to open tonight, so we have the entire place to ourselves. Some take out, karaoke, and a lights show, followed by a movie night upstairs, if it pleases the ladies.”

Oh, wow, she actually doesn’t know which to pick. The dinner suggests they’ll go their separate ways afterward, which would be fine. It is a school night. But partying at Lux with just Trixie and Lucifer, and then falling asleep on his couch doesn’t sound bad either. It’s almost as comfortable as her bed, after all.

“I think—”

“Mommy!”

Chloe turns to find Trixie running across the empty club toward them, her face streaked with tears. Chloe turns on the piano bench in time for Trixie to slam into her knees, already crying. She runs her hand over Trixie’s head, lip between her teeth.

She can’t get mad at Dan. She can’t. But dammit, she really, really is. If he hadn’t—

She blinks when two hands reach down to relieve Trixie of her backpack, moving her daughter gently to slip her arms from the straps. It lets Chloe haul Trixie up onto her lap where her daughter curls up, sniffling into her shoulder.

“Daddy had to work,” Trixie whimpers.

“I know, Monkey. I’m so sorry. You guys will get your daddy-daughter night sometime soon, though, I promise.”

“It’s not fair,” Trixie says.

“No, it’s not,” Chloe agrees.

She feels Lucifer’s hand fall to rest between her shoulder blades and turns her cheek against Trixie’s head to meet his eyes. His expression is soft and sad. Despite it not being at all what she’d initially had in mind, she finds the idea of spending the night with both of them a warm and welcome prospect.

“I know it’s not what you planned, but Lucifer had two really great ideas for how we could spend tonight.”

Trixie’s little head lifts off her shoulder, just as she expected. “You did?” she asks, looking up at Lucifer.

“We can either go out and stuff our faces with every pie at House of Pies, or I can have them all delivered and you, your mum, and I can have our own private party here at Lux, close the place down. Or, absolutely anything else you like.”

Trixie’s teary eyes have gone wide as saucers and Chloe withholds a fond sigh. She’s been very recently reminded of Lucifer’s vast and unknowable wealth. Yet somehow, she never remembers to worry about his spoiling abilities when it comes to Trixie. He probably would do absolutely anything Trixie wanted to do right now. And he could afford it.

“We can have all the pies?” Trixie asks, her voice stuffy but filled with awe.

“All of them,” Lucifer says solemnly. “And broccoli.”

“Why?” Trixie exclaims.

Lucifer bends down to get on her level, leaning in conspiratorially. “Because mums are mean.”

“Hey!” Chloe cries, glaring. “I’m a delight.”

“But you’re gonna make us eat broccoli?” Trixie asks, playfully aghast, her tears already mostly forgotten.

She glances at Lucifer, who raises an eyebrow, and then both of them are pouting at Chloe, heads cocked in exactly the same way. She can’t help it, she breaks, letting out a wild laugh.

Lucifer’s pout dissolves almost instantly into a grin, while Trixie holds out, the little sneak.

“Broccoli?” she repeats, sounding perfectly horrified.

Chloe hugs Trixie to her, still giggling, and meets Lucifer’s eyes. “I suppose, just this once, and since some of the pies will be filled with fruit, we can have nothing but pie for dinner.”

Trixie cheers and then leans back on her lap to look up at Lucifer. “And we can have a dance party, with lights and everything?”

“Indeed we can. Your mum spent her day making sure that I get to keep this place, and I can’t think of any two people I’d rather celebrate its continued existence with.”

The look he gives her, soft and grateful and so very happy, takes her breath away.

“She did?” Trixie asks.

“She did,” Lucifer says, tapping the folder on the top of the piano.

“Wow,” Trixie says, looking up at Chloe. “That’s so cool!”

“Isn’t it?” Lucifer agrees.

He leans in and taps Trixie’s nose before hesitating a moment. Chloe waits, not sure at all what he intends to do. The soft kiss to her cheek is tamer and somehow better than anything her mind could have come up with.

But then he’s pulling back. “I’m going to put this upstairs, place our order for pie, and get the system set up. Why don’t the two of you decide where we will eat our feast.”

He stands up and does a dramatic spin, which makes Trixie laugh. Then with a wink, he’s bounding up the stairs, the deed for Lux under his arm. They watch him go, sitting there at his grand piano in the middle of his nightclub.

The elevator opens and shuts at the top of the stairs and Chloe looks down at Trixie. “I know Lucifer’s got a great plan for us, but if you want to do something else, you just let me know, okay?” she says, smoothing Trixie’s messy hair back from her face.

As much as she’s looking forward to Lucifer’s madcap plan, she’ll give it up immediately for Trixie. Kisses to the cheek that make her tingle and all.

But Trixie shakes her head rapidly. “I wanna stay here with you and Lucifer,” she says eagerly. “And I think we should eat at that booth,” she adds, pointing to one of the corner booths along the sunken floor. “That’s where you can eat without getting whacked.”

Chloe closes her eyes. “Which one of them showed you the Godfather?” she asks.

“Maze,” Trixie says immediately. “Lucifer said it was too long and boring.”

Chloe opens her eyes and meets her daughter’s gaze. “Oh, good.”

“He likes TV shows more anyway.”

“Do I want to know?” Chloe wonders.

“Nu-uh,” Trixie says with a little grin. “Now come on, Mommy.”

Chloe lets Trixie clamber off her lap and then takes her hand. Together they walk over to the big booth in front of the railing at the side of the sunken dance floor. Chloe helps Trixie up and in, the two of them scooting around until they can look out at the whole club.

“What’s it like all full of people?” Trixie asks.

Chloe stares around at the empty space. It seems smaller, empty. Calmer. His.

“It’s chaotic, but it’s fun,” she decides, wrapping her arm around her daughter. “But I think I like it like this more than anything,” she admits. “Well, maybe with Lucifer playing piano.”

“He sings so pretty,” Trixie agrees.

Chloe looks down at her. “Does he sing when you’re here on Thursdays?”

“Sometimes,” Trixie says. “Mostly he plays while I do my homework. He says he’s giving me a tour of the greats.”

That absolutely sounds like him.

“Do you think he’ll play for us tonight?”

“I think if you ask him to, he absolutely will,” Chloe says.

Trixie grins and leans into her. Chloe looks down, about to make sure she’s still all right when “Barbie Girl” begins blasting out through the speakers and the whole club inexplicably turns pink.

Trixie shrieks with glee and Chloe laughs, looking up to find Lucifer coming back down the stairs carrying what looks like an entire bucket of glow sticks, tiaras, and feather boas. She’s sure it’s usually reserved for bachelorette parties, but Trixie’s already giggling and hell, who cares why he usually has them?

Lux is theirs for the night.

“All right, everyone suit up,” he says, plopping the bucket onto their table.

He immediately drapes a pink feathered boa around his neck and grabs a pair of neon yellow glow-in-the-dark glasses frames. She’s not sure what’s more ridiculous, the choices, or how well they work for him. He looks hot, even like this. Maybe especially like this, bent over as he is in just his vest and shirt, helping her daughter dig through the bucket with the same enthusiasm he usually reserves for foursomes all named Brittany.

“Detective,” Lucifer prompts.

She laughs and takes a few glow-stick necklaces and a pair of pink glasses. “What do you think, Monkey?”

But Trixie’s already out of the booth, spinning around on the dance floor in her own boa and tiara, all previous upset utterly forgotten. Chloe watches her for a moment, a piece of her broken heart slotting back into place. And then Lucifer’s at her side, a hand outstretched.

Dancing with him yesterday was delightful. Dancing with him and her daughter tonight is a joy. “Barbie Girl” fades into “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and she shakes her head. They’re definitely having a mini bachelorette party.

If she ever gets married again, maybe Lux is where she should have hers. Though she doesn’t think she could, if it wasn’t for her engagement to the owner.

She stops dancing for a moment, caught up short by the very thought. She can’t—she wouldn’t—she’s not that far gone, is she, to be thinking casually about marrying Lucifer Morningstar?

His hand snags hers and he spins her into a dip, beaming down at her.

Shit, maybe she really is falling for him.

But Trixie’s laughing at them. The lights are making her a little giddy, and there’s hardly time to dwell when three delivery drivers walk into the club with what looks like thirty pies.

“You ordered full pies?” she shouts above the music.

The volume instantly goes down and Lucifer looks over in surprise. How did he do that?

“Of course! One slice per pie, you’re thinking small, Detective.”

“We can’t possibly eat all of this!” she says, watching the delivery men place the pies on all of the club tables in the dance area.

Lucifer rolls his eyes at her, like she has no imagination. She watches him tip the guys out, with what looks like hundreds a piece. He bounds over to the bar and returns with forks, plates, napkins, and wet wipes.

“Have at it, urchin,” he says, handing Trixie the first fork.

Trixie whoops and spins in a circle. “There are so many,” she says in awe. “What kinds are they?”

Lucifer’s got Trixie up and in his arms before she can blink, and Chloe trails them around the room as they survey the pies. They keep stopping to debate over the ones they’re not sure about, and Chloe gets tired of it by the second table.

She grabs one of the forks, finds the ‘boring apple pie,’ sits down, and digs in.

It’s fantastic and she moans around her fork, looking up to find Trixie and Lucifer staring at her in absolute betrayal. She snickers and keeps eating.

“You were taking too long,” she says.

Trixie and Lucifer look at each other and then back at her.

“Fine,” Lucifer says haughtily. “What do you think, Beatrice? I think this deserves punishment.”

“Yeah!” Trixie agrees. “We’re eating the whole chocolate cream pie, and you can’t have any.” It comes out in the world’s worst British accent and Chloe can’t help dissolving into giggles.

“Fine,” she gasps out. “I don’t like chocolate cream anyway!”

“Blasphemy, Detective,” Lucifer exclaims, picking up the aforementioned pie and bringing it over to her booth.

She watches him sit down, Trixie still in his arms. He opens the pie and they attack it together, jostling each other. Trixie’s cheeks are quickly getting smeared with chocolate, and she sees more than one blob of the gooey pie hitting Lucifer’s white sleeves, but they hardly seem to care. Trixie’s grinning and Lucifer looks years younger than normal, his whole face lit up.

It’s the happiest she’s seen either of them in a while.

“What?” Lucifer mumbles around his next bite.

“Nothing,” Chloe says. “You guys are cute.”

He lets out an indignant grumble while Trixie laughs and Chloe decides that this, right now, is her favorite memory of Lux, by miles.

Of course, four hours later, when Trixie is passed out on the banquet behind the piano, entirely sticky, dead to the world, and still smiling, she and Lucifer sit down at the piano. The two of them side by side, his fingers trip over the keys. He’s singing softly in deference to Trixie sleeping a few feet away.

She’s getting sleepy herself. She doesn’t think they’re going to make it to that movie night, not with her impending sugar crash.

She leans her head onto his shoulder and feels him tense for just a moment before he relaxes under her, his cheek coming to rest against her forehead. He keeps playing and singing, a slow, almost haunting acoustic cover of “Mr. Brightside,” that made her laugh when he started.

Now, it’s just beautiful. He is just beautiful.

“Thank you,” she whispers when he reaches the instrumental break.

He simply hums and she lets herself settle against him.

This. This is her favorite part of Lux, her favorite way to be here. She hopes she gets to experience it for a long time to come. 

Chapter Text

“She’s welcome to join if she wants,” Jana says, shirt falling off her shoulders.

“I…didn’t realize you were expecting company,” the Detective says.

“I wasn’t,” Lucifer says quickly, reaching out to catch her wrist. “I truly wasn’t,” he insists, ignoring Jana continuing to strip in his periphery.

“It’s fine,” the Detective says, glancing at Jana before tugging at his hold. “I’ll just get out of your way.”

“No,” he implores. “No, wait, Detective please.”

“It’s fine, Lucifer,” she says, but he can hear the hitch in her voice, can see her clenching her jaw.

There’s an ache in his chest and a desperation tripping up his throat. He doesn’t want her to go, not like this, especially not like this.

“Lucifer,” Jana says.

He glances over and she’s fully naked. Dad save him. “No,” he says, firmer.

“No?” Jana repeats, confused.

“Nice to see you. Hope you’re well. Please put your clothes back on, free drinks for you downstairs, and kindly get out,” he says, still holding on to the Detective’s wrist. “Detective, please, I swear I didn’t know she was coming here. I didn’t ask her to. I’d love nothing more than to finish our evening.”

She looks back at him, a mix of hope and frustration on her face. “It’s fine, we’ll…we’ll do it another night. Deal with—” she sneaks a glance at Jana, still there, mostly still naked. “And we’ll talk at work.”

“No, please,” he says, stepping around her to turn his back on Jana and block her from view. “Chloe.” It comes out unbidden and rough, and he’ll admit, a bit desperate. She meets his eyes and they’re bright with unshed tears. “Please. Stay.”

“Your loss, Lucifer,” Jana says grumpily.

He hears Jana walk toward the elevator and doesn’t bother to acknowledge her. He keeps watching the Detective, waiting until the doors close behind them. Slowly, he reaches out to take her other hand, giving her ample time to pull back. She doesn’t, but nor does her face clear, or her smile come back, the easy camaraderie between them utterly broken.

“So, women walking in and stripping naked, your normal Tuesday or was this special?” she asks. There’s a bite to her words, but they’re too brittle to be anything but hurt.

He blows out a breath and squeezes her hands. “A few months ago, a rather normal Tuesday. But not lately,” he says honestly.

“Except tonight,” she presses.

“Jana has previously had a standing invitation, usually with notice. But I didn’t—” He spots his phone still on the piano. “I was rather preoccupied this evening,” he says, looking back at her. “Wasn’t looking at my phone. If she texted, I’d have no idea. I was much more interested in this,” he says, tugging on her hands. “Please. At least finish your dinner. Can’t send you home to your spawn unfed.”

She huffs and looks down at their hands, but doesn’t pull her fingers from his. He’s clutching her a little too tightly, he thinks, but she just squeezes his hands.

“Trix is at Dan’s tonight.”

“Well then. Can’t send you home on an empty stomach to an empty house, either.”

He takes a step backward, drawing her back to their chairs and she lets him. He holds his breath until she sits down, her empty fingers twisting in her lap. He follows suit and they sit there in uncomfortable silence, all of the ease, all of the delight, all of the promise of their earlier moment blown away.

He doesn’t know how to make this better. She slowly eats a few fries and he does the same. The silence is painful. He casts about, looking for something to distract them, anything. He’s never been ashamed of the way he lives his life, but this—he’s never thought it was hurting someone else before.

He didn’t know it could.

Beatrice’s favorite blanket is still on the couch from last week. It’s cozy. He’s found himself curling up under it while he reads some nights. Which makes him remember the notebook he found last week. He’d been meaning to return it, but maybe she’ll like it. It’s not what he thought their evening might be leading to, but he’ll take a smile at this point.

“I found something you might like,” he says.

She startles, dropping the fry she was reaching for. “What?”

He stands too quickly, rattling their little table. “It’s,” he starts, striding across the room to pull the notebook from the drawer where he’d stashed it, lest his brother or mother happen upon it. “Well, I realize, maybe you’ve already seen it,” he says as he comes back to her. “But I was impressed. The urchin has real talent,” he says, shrugging a little before passing it over and sitting back down across from her. “I keep meaning to bring it to work to return it to her.”

“Oh,” she says, taking the notebook and flipping to the first page.

It’s her daughter’s. What is he thinking, showing her something she probably already knows about?

“Oh!”

She’s looking down at a drawing of herself on her couch, laughing at a TV show, wine glass in hand. It’s no Rembrandt, but he thinks it's rather good for a seven-year-old.

“Wow,” she whispers, turning the page to see the next one, a very accurate rendering of one of Mazikeen’s knives. “I haven’t seen these,” she says, a little breathless. “Thank you,” she adds, glancing at him with a smile before turning the page.

Mission accomplished.

He sits back and sips his wine, watching as she turns page after page, delighting in her delight. It’s quiet, and peaceful, and… the regret for what could have been flares brightly, but this is still good.

He doesn’t know when still good became good enough. The thought of passionate kisses and leading the Detective to his bed still permeates his senses, but this is something else. Something calming and soothing and lovely.

“Wow, she really got you.”

He leans forward and she turns the notebook around to show him his favorite sketch. He’s sitting at the piano in his shirtsleeves, playing something. The bar behind him is lit with the sunset.

He stared at it for an hour when he found it.

“I do hope she’s getting good marks in art class,” he says.

The Detective laughs, turning the notebook back around to stare down at the drawing. “She is.”

“I’d have to intimidate the instructor if not,” he says into his glass. He still has plans for the mean maths teacher.

“Thank you.”

He meets her eyes. “For what?”

“For being a surprisingly good influence on my kid.”

He will not blush. Nor will he concede, “Good seems a tad unnecessary, but it is…” he pauses, glancing at the notebook in her lap. “I am fond of the urchin. It’s no trouble.”

Well, the urchin is assuredly trouble, but the good kind. Even with Maze’s influence.

“She’s ridiculously fond of you too,” she says, her face going soft again.

“Well of course she is, I am ridiculously wonderful,” he says, rewarded with her loud laughter.

“You are,” she says when she calms down. He nearly chokes on his wine. “I meant what I said, Lucifer. You’re the best partner I’ve ever had. And you’re a good man.”

She smiles shyly while he stares at her, winded. She reaches down to place the notebook on the floor. He watches her pick up her burger and take a bite, her face screwing up.

“Oh, that’s cold,” she mutters, putting it back.

It brings the breath back to his chest. “Should we order more? Or…” He pauses. It’s not how the evening looked to be going initially, but he doesn’t want to give up on their evening as it is now either.

“Or Carney’s is still open,” the Detective suggests, eyes lighting up.

“That it is,” he says, standing and holding out a hand. “Redo without the stewardess interruptus?”

She grins and takes his hand, letting him pull her out of her chair. “Deal.”

If he doesn’t let go of her hand until they’re at Carney’s, well, that’s necessary for her safety really. The fact that they close the place down, eating burgers, sipping milkshakes, and playing footsie needs no excuse, because she’s grinning at him, cheeks pink. She’s happy.

And after the day in court they had, it feels like a victory. The lingering kiss she leaves on his cheek when he walks her to her car in the garage makes him feel like he could fly without his wings. He floats up to the penthouse on the whisper of that kiss and the memory of “you’re a good man,” and falls into a deeply contented sleep.

Two days later, he feels nothing of the kind. A parade of his ex-lovers singing his praises in bed, and distinctly little else, has left a bad taste in his mouth. Not to mention whatever the Hell his mother thinks she’s playing at. Daniel claps him on the shoulder (and doesn’t that rankle) and slips out of the observation room, giving him a moment alone.

He loves sex. It’s marvelous. And all the people he’s had it with have been equally marvelous. But this—this feeling in his chest, foreign and ugly and painful—he doesn’t care for this at all. He is universally incredible, and meaningless.

He sits on the table, staring through the two-way mirror, unsure of how to walk out and face the precinct. Getting slapped on the back by all of the men, and some of the women, suddenly doesn’t have the same appeal.

“So, it doesn’t seem like any of our…subjects are related, nor do they have any connections to—Oh.”

He turns and finds the Detective just inside the door, a folder in hand. “Glad to know I haven’t bedded a serial killer, then, as far as we know,” he says, trying to sound jovial about it.

It falls flat enough that the Detective closes the door behind her, the two of them alone in the quiet.

“Can’t imagine that was very fun to listen to,” she says.

“Not entirely, no,” he agrees.

She walks over and places her folder down on the table before hopping up next to him. He feels like he should shy away from her, but her presence is comforting. She can still stand to look at him, at any rate. He’s not sure he can say the same.

“They’re all pretty interesting. You’ve got good taste,” she says.

It’s so far from what he expects that he laughs. She bumps his shoulder with hers and he sighs, turning to meet her eyes. “Doesn’t seem like they think the same.”

“Well, they’re idiots, then,” she says, offering him a smile.

“Kind of you to say,” he says.

Her hand falls to rest on his knee. “They’re missing out. I’m sure the sex is mind-blowing,” she says and he laughs again, warmed by the twinkle in her eyes. “But passing on having milkshakes at 2am and debating the best episodes of the X-Files? Their loss.”

He takes the first deep breath he’s been able to take all day. “Anytime, Detective,” he says, letting his hand fall to cover hers.

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” she says softly.

“Please do.”

(…)

It’s just as good as she always secretly imagined it would be. His lips are soft, and supple, and talented. His stubble beneath her fingertips is rough and lovely, and there, he’s finally touching her back. His palm is broad and warm on her hip and it’s just…perfect.

He’s strange, and beautiful, and weird, and possibly deeply delusional, but no one has ever seen her like he does. No one has ever looked at her like he does. He says he’s not worth it, not worthy of her, but how can he not be, when he sees her like that? When he pays such close attention? When he’s so wonderful to her kid, so wonderful to her? When he makes her laugh and brightens her days and fights so hard for the job, for her, for them, every day?

“Detective,” he mumbles, pulling back to search her eyes, even as his hand grips at her hip, his other coming to cover hers on his cheek. “I don’t understand.”

She smiles, stroking her thumb beneath his eye. “Some things aren’t about understanding,” she says honestly.

They don’t make any sense on paper. He doesn’t make any sense on paper. But the world isn’t a case file. And how she feels, how she’s felt for months, doesn’t have to make sense.

“But I’m not—”

“You are,” she says, smiling up into his confused, hopeful eyes. “To me, you are.”

He just stares at her, searching her gaze, and she tries to give back the confidence she always feels when he looks at her. His hand is trembling against hers on his cheek and she realizes maybe he needs more from her.

He sees her like no one else ever has. He must not think she sees him the same way, as special, and wonderful, and delightfully weird. She hasn’t made that clear enough. Hasn’t shown him enough, if he’s still so unsure. But she can do that. She can show him. She trusts him, unknowable past and all.

“Trixie’s waiting for me to pick her up. You wanna join us for dinner?” she asks, stepping back and turning her hand in his to squeeze his palm.

He blinks and wavers there in the sand, clearly still baffled by her.

“We can stop for ice cream at that spot you love by the school,” she says, jiggling their hands a little.

“Which ice cream spot?” he asks, his voice gruff.

“The one you take Trixie to at least once a week and think I don’t know about,” Chloe says, smiling at his little huff.

She tugs gently and this time he jerks forward, letting her lead him back toward the parking lot. She glances up at him as they walk, slipping a little in the sand. His eyes are still far away, but his hand is strong in hers, holding tight, and she decides that’s enough for now.

They have time. There’s no rush.

“How do you know I take the urchin there every week? She’d never have squealed.”

Chloe laughs and stumbles intentionally toward him to bump his arm with hers. “The owner told me Trixie is just the cutest thing when she’s there with the handsome man in the suit. Apparently, he lets her get a large with every topping, and gets one for himself, every time they’re there.”

“That could be anyone,” he says.

She snorts and squeezes his hand. “Come on,” she says, dragging him off the beach and into the parking lot.

It’s not so far from her apartment that they can’t leave the Corvette here. She’s not ready to let him go, and not entirely confident he wouldn’t just bail if they took separate cars. He still looks a little shell shocked.  

She pauses when they reach the passenger side of her car. He’s already looking down at her, his head cocked, like she’s a puzzle he’s trying to solve. She smiles back, hoping to put him at ease. He tentatively smiles back and she arches onto her toes to kiss his cheek.

She hears him sigh as she falls back to the flats of her feet. “You wanna drive?” she asks.

His eyes widen and she waits, withholding a laugh as his shock slowly melts into delight.

“Absolutely,” he says, already leaning forward to slip his hand into the pocket of her jacket and extract her keys. Because he knows where she keeps her keys.

He opens the passenger side door for her and then nearly skips around her car to clamber into the driver’s seat. He messes with every seat setting, because of course he does. Adjusts her mirrors and changes the direction of the vents, and even lowers the steering wheel.

But it doesn’t bother her. It just makes her smile, because he looks like a little kid in, well, an ice cream shop. And the smile he shoots her way just before peeling out of the parking space and swinging them through the lot is just…dazzling.

For a man with so much money, so much caprice, and so much…life experience, the simplest things seem to truly delight him. She just needs to focus on giving him more of them.

Because the man grinning at her daughter as she clambers into the back of her cruiser deserves to feel the way he made her feel on the beach.

She watches the two of them in front of the ice cream counter twenty minutes later, debating the merits of Reese’s Pieces and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on peanut butter ice cream. The proprietor, an aging portly gentleman with a truly fantastic smile, is watching Lucifer and Trixie too, thoroughly entertained.

“What can I get you, miss?” he asks when the debate continues for another minute. “It’ll take them a few.”

Chloe laughs and steps forward. “Can I get a small mint chip?”

“No toppings?” he asks.

She glances over at Trixie and Lucifer. Trixie’s still staring, narrow-eyed, at the toppings, but Lucifer’s looking over at her, an eyebrow raised.

Who is she to argue? “I guess some chocolate sauce and whipped cream wouldn’t be bad,” she says.

Lucifer bobs his head back and forth and then leans back down at a tug on his jacked from Trixie. The proprietor laughs.

“You’ve got it, miss.”

She watches him make her ice cream and passes behind Lucifer and Trixie to head to the register with him. She lets her hand brush across Lucifer’s back, smiling when she feels him press back into her hand, seemingly on instinct, given he and Trixie are still arguing.

“How long do they usually do this?” Chloe asks while the proprietor rings her up. “And I’ll get theirs too.”

The man grins and takes her card. “It’s generally a solid fifteen minutes.”

Chloe shakes her head and takes her ice cream, making sure to leave the guy a good tip on the check-out screen.

“They’re always a hoot,” he says.

Chloe smiles. “Yeah, they are.”

“Glad they finally dragged you out. She’s the spitting image of the two of you.”

Chloe blinks and continues smiling, even as she sees Lucifer stiffen down the counter, Trixie already giving her order to one of the high schoolers behind the display case.

“Thanks,” Chloe says, taking a spoon and nodding before heading to one of the tables by the window to wait for the picky pair.

She’s not totally surprised. She can see how someone would make the mistake. Though it’s probably not their looks that really give that impression. It’s got to be the way Trixie and Lucifer are standing in the exact same pose, hands clasped behind their backs, watching their ice cream get mixed with their toppings.

She slowly eats her own ice cream, unsurprised to find herself unbothered by the owner’s mistake. Dan is a great dad, when he shows up. But it doesn’t hurt for Trixie to have other people in her corner. And if Lucifer’s so good with her that a random stranger thinks he’s her father, well, that’s just confirmation that Chloe’s not making a mistake. With either letting Trixie spend time with him, or with her own heart.

Because how can the man who makes her daughter look that happy think he’s not worthy of a chance?

Trixie bounces over to join Chloe at her table while Lucifer stands at the register, holding his wallet and ice cream, frowning at the owner. The owner winks at Chloe, hands held up, and Chloe smirks when Lucifer turns around, eyes narrowed in her direction.

She’s going to show him that he deserves to be taken care of, just like he’s been doing for her and Trixie for…over a year at this point. Baby steps.

“You should have gotten all the toppings, Mommy,” Trixie says, clambering into the chair beside Chloe’s and taking an over-large spoonful of her gargantuan ice cream.

“If I ate like that, I’d get sick,” Chloe says with a laugh, watching Trixie smear ice cream around her lips.

Lucifer arrives at the table, dropping a stack of napkins between Trixie and her ice cream, muttering something about “sticky urchins,” that hardly sounds genuine.

He sits down much more gracefully across from Chloe, taking a bite of his own enormous cup of ice cream.

“Lucifer never gets sick,” Trixie says, frowning up at her.

“Well, he’s much bigger than Mommy,” Chloe argues.

Lucifer’s eyebrows go up while Trixie huffs. “So?” she asks.

“So, he can deal with more sugar than I can,” Chloe explains.

Honestly, she’s not sure how he doesn’t fall over after that ridiculous level of sugar, but he seems to be able to handle just about anything without side effects.

“Don’t you think Mommy should have more toppings next time?” Trixie demands, turning to Lucifer.

Lucifer looks from her to Trixie and back. He takes a large bite of ice cream, chewing thoughtfully, presumably just to annoy Trixie, who slumps in her seat. He glances at Chloe, a little sparkle of his usual playfulness coming back through.

“I think your mum knows her own limits, but could certainly stand to push them every so often,” he decides.

Trixie sighs and tucks back into her ice cream, grumbling something that sounds suspiciously like “stupid adults.”

But Chloe’s more focused on Lucifer’s slight challenge. “I think I can do that,” she says.

“Do you?” he asks.

She smiles and shifts in her seat to slide her foot across the floor and brush against his ankle. He goes perfectly still, and she smiles. “Yeah, I do.”

(...)

They sit in the Detective’s—in Chloe’s car for a quiet minute when she pulls up to her building. The sun is just fading over the beach a few blocks away, and everything feels like possibility.

He looks over at her and finds her looking back, smiling softly. She’s haloed by the golden sunset behind her. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He can’t help reaching out to brush a strand of hair behind her ear.

She leans into his hand, smiling shyly. “You wanna come in for dinner?” she asks.

The feeling of her holding him outside the lab building—the idea that he could hold her again, could build something with her, flares through him. A foreign, giddy tenderness fills his chest. This is real. This is right. This is theirs.

“Trixie will be happy to see you, if that sweetens the deal,” she adds.

He laughs softly. “I don’t need inducement,” he promises. “Though I’d be happy to see the urchin. I can cook.”

She turns her face and kisses his palm. “We can order in. You don’t need to cook.”

“Afraid you’ll get used to it?” he asks.

“I plan on it,” she says, her smile stretching wide across her face.

Oh. Oh, he’s not sure he’ll survive this, but what a way to die.

Her eyes flick to his mouth and his mind boggles as she leans in toward him. He’s pulled toward her, like gravity, their bodies inching closer and closer until—

His mobile blasts out, startling them both, Me & My Demons filling the car.

“Damn, that’ll be Maze,” he mutters.

She shakes her head, knocking his hand with her chin. “Check it.”

He reluctantly takes back his hand to fish in his pocket. He pulls out his phone, missing the call by a moment. Never one to wait, a text chimes out a second later, and he sits frowning down the message: meet me at McLaughley’s, 30 minutes, URGENT.

They don’t do “urgent” unless there’s truly something dire afoot. But he doesn’t want—

“Raincheck?”

He looks up and meets Chloe’s understanding eyes. “I don’t want to,” he says. She nods in understanding. “Leave,” he adds quickly, just in case she—

“I know,” she says easily. “Go find out what’s up. You can come back for dessert, maybe, or a game, or just…to…hang.” Her cheeks go so prettily pink there in the sunlight.

“I will,” he promises.

“Okay,” she whispers, offering him a bright smile before unclicking her seatbelt and climbing from the car.

He follows her out and stands there, watching her walk up her walkway. What’s an hour, or two? He can last another two hours before wrapping his arms around her and never letting go. He can.

She looks back when she reaches her door and laughs. “Go,” she calls.

Go, so he can come back. He can do that.

He’ll deal with whatever Maze needs, and then he’ll come back.  

(...)

It starts when she sends Trixie into her room to pick out a bedtime story.

Lucifer still hasn’t come back, hasn’t texted, but she’s not worried. God only knows what Maze needed from him, could be anything really. It’s not like they don’t have time.

She sniffles while drying the last dish, wondering if she’s coming down with something. She wipes at her nose with the back of her wrist, blinking when it comes away bloody. Damn Santa Ana winds.

She reaches out and grabs a paper towel, wiping her nose before wiping off her wrist. She gives it a quick rinse but has to sniffle again. She quickly dries her hands and presses the paper towel back to her nose.

“Can we read more of Percy Jackson, Mommy?” Trixie asks, leaning out of her room, now in her pajamas.

“Of course, honey,” Chloe says, shaking her head as Trixie’s eyes go wide. “Just a nosebleed. You know how Mommy gets with the dry air. Into bed with you.”

She’d kind of been hoping Lucifer would be here for this. Trixie loves the voices he does—even though they’re both on pain of death should they ever tell anyone he does silly voices.

It’s not until they’re halfway through the chapter that Chloe starts to worry about the nosebleed. It’s still going. She’s gone through four of Trixie’s tissues while keeping her voice animated. She doesn’t want to scare her kid. But she’s starting to scare herself.

Thankfully, Trixie drifts off to sleep after another couple paragraphs and she’s able to slip off the bed. She carefully pulls up Trixie’s blanket with one hand and then gathers her bloody tissues. She tiptoes out of the room and closes the door, leaning back against it for a moment until the uncomfortable drip of her nose forces her back into the kitchen.

She tosses the tissues and reaches out for another paper towel, pulling her current tissue from her nose. It’s completely red. Completely red.

Shit. This isn’t just the Santa Ana winds and their stupidly dry air. It could be—

No, she’s just freaking herself out. She’s just being a hypochondriac, worrying about this instead of why Lucifer hasn’t come back, or texted, since he left. Worrying about whether he might change his mind about the two of them. Worrying about whether she’s been reading everything wrong between them, and he’s really not here because he wants to let her down gently.

Ugh, her nose is so uncomfortable. She has to see it. Has to look. Has to make sure—

She’s being silly. Still, she takes the stairs a bit too quickly, heading up to her bathroom, where there’s little chance Trixie will come barging in. She flicks on the lights and blinks, everything tilting for a second. She can’t have lost that much blood, can she?

She shuffles over to the mirror and pulls the paper towel away from her nose, peering at her reflection. She’s pale, that’s for sure. And her eyes look a little bright. And her nose is raw, red dripping steadily from her right nostril, dark and deeply unsettling.

She’s not being a hypochondriac. She’s not making this up. She’s in big fucking trouble.

“Detective?”

She blinks at her reflection. She must be hearing things.

"Detective!”

She slumps in relief. Lucifer’s here, he’ll help her. But, wait, why is he yelling? Shit, he’ll wake Trixie, and Trixie absolutely can’t see her like this. Chloe turns to hurry out of the bathroom and the room tilts again. She stumbles to the doorway and grips at the door jam, blinking and trying to right her vision.

“Lucifer?” she hears her daughter ask.

“Oh, urchin,” he says, like he’s surprised to see her. Chloe’s confused. He knew she was home. “Go on back to sleep, child.”

“What’s wrong?” Trixie asks.

Chloe tries to move, but the floor tilts again and she sighs, leaning against the doorway, breathing steadily.

“...nothing,” he says, but she can hear from his tone that something definitely is. Did something happen with Maze? Is that why he wasn’t here earlier?

“Are you sure?” Trixie asks, because if anyone can see through Lucifer, it’s Trixie.

There’s a pause and she wishes she could see them. But she can’t seem to let go of the wall.

“Nothing’s wrong, urchin,” he says. “Just…celestial nonsense. Which I hope is truly nonsense.”

Oh, of course. Sure. Celestial nonsense, like always. What’s it going to be this time?

“Mommy has a nosebleed,” she hears Trixie say.

There’s another silence and Chloe winces. “What?”

“It’s really bad. It bled all the way through Percy Jackson.”

Shit. She thought Trixie hadn’t noticed.  

“Detective?” Lucifer calls his voice instantly on alert.

Chloe swallows, grimacing at the slide of blood down the back of her throat. “Up here,” she calls, and her voice is thready. “Go back to sleep, Monkey, I’m okay.”

“Stay down here, urchin. I’ll see to your mum.”

Chloe hangs onto the doorway, listening to Lucifer practically vault up the stairs. He crashes around the landing and comes to a stop when he sees her slumped in the doorway.

“Chloe,” he whispers, jerking forward to grab her elbows just as she loses the battle with her knees.

“It won’t stop,” she says, panic finally bubbling up in her chest now that there’s someone to panic with—now that he’s there with her. “Lucifer, it won’t stop.”

He stares down at her, eyes a little wild, almost like he’s looking at her for the first time, but that’s ridiculous. His eyes clear after a moment and he seems to launch into motion, tugging her into him so she can rest against him while he works his phone out of his pocket. She presses her cheek to his chest, one hand still holding the paper towel to her nose, the other gripping into his lapel.

“Maze, I need you back at the Detective’s, now.”

“Lucifer, don’t do anything—” she hears Maze start.

“We need you to stay with Beatrice. It’s—Mazikeen, it’s urgent.”

Chloe tries to pull back to look up at him, closing her eyes briefly as even that seems to make the world wobble. “What did Maze want earlier?” she asks when he slips his phone back into his pocket.

He looks down at her, raising one hand to brush her hair back from her face. He hesitates for a second, before his face softens. “Nothing important. Nonsense. Can you walk?”

She nods slowly. With his arms around her, helping her, she thinks she can. But— “Wait, I don’t want to scare Trixie.”

He shifts them so he can support her with an arm around her waist and pulls out his handkerchief, which is blue and purple today. She takes it, tossing the bloody paper towel back into the bathroom before pressing the handkerchief to her nose.

“All right, small steps,” he says, holding her free arm and walking them steadily toward the stairs. “Any other symptoms?”

“Dizzy, but that could just be the blood loss,” she whispers as they start down the stairs. She’d look down into the living room for Trixie if she didn’t think it would make her stumble.

"We’re going to the hospital,” he mutters, taking it one step by agonizing step.

"No,” she groans, swallowing against a rise of nausea, whether from the blood, or the dizziness, or the thought of the hospital, she’s unsure. “And we can’t leave until—”

 "What happened?” Maze demands, bursting through the front door.

"Mommy’s sick!” Trixie exclaims as they hit the final step.

She blinks across the room, where Trixie’s now clinging to Maze, watching Chloe and Lucifer with wide, worried eyes.

“I’ll be okay, Monkey. We just need to—”

"Take your mum to a doctor quickly,” Lucifer supplies. “Mazikeen will stay with you.”

“And Lucifer will give us updates as soon as he can,” Maze adds, her arm around Trixie. “Right?”

“Yes,” Lucifer says, leading Chloe across the room toward the front door.

“I’m probably overreacting,” Chloe says, looking to Trixie.

“You told her?” Maze asks.

Lucifer scoffs. “To the nosebleed, Maze. Nothing to tell otherwise.” Chloe tries to look between them, but it makes her head spin. “Be a good girl, Beatrice. You too,” he adds to Maze.

Maze snorts, but hauls Trixie up off the floor and onto her hip. Why can everyone carry her kid around like that?

“I’ll be okay, Monkey, I promise,” Chloe says, trying to smile around Lucifer’s handkerchief.

Lucifer’s arm tightens around her, for the lie, she supposes. But she has to assume she will be—that this is just one terribly timed major nosebleed.

“We need to go,” Lucifer says firmly.

Chloe nods and lets him lead her out of the house, the door clicking shut behind them with a sickening finality. She’ll be back. She has to be. She can’t—it can’t be the poison. It just can’t be.

He helps her into the passenger seat of her car and almost in the blink of an eye, he’s around and slipping into the driver’s seat. She stares at him as he manhandles her seatbelt over her waist, and then they’re tearing out of her driveway. He hits the siren the second they’re around the block.

“It could just be a nosebleed,” Chloe says, trying to convince herself even as she grabs onto the handle above her door while Lucifer swings them through a speeding wide turn. He looks over at her, unconvinced. “How could he even have injected me? I didn’t get one of the flu shots.”

“What about when you went after him?” Lucifer asks, his voice tight.

“I don’t know. I tackled him and we struggled,” she says, trying to remember. It was fast, and brutal, and she was more worried about Lucifer back in the lab than— “If he injected me, it would have had to be—”

She lets the handkerchief fall, going for the bottom of her shirt at the same time he does with his free hand. She looks down and groans at the bruised, rapidly swelling injection mark on her stomach. Oh, God, she—that means she only has 24 hours to—

“Can’t this go any faster?” Lucifer grunts, pushing her car to its limit.

“No, we can’t go to the hospital,” Chloe insists, bracing herself through another turn. “Going to the hospital didn’t save any of the other victims.”

Lucifer looks across at her again, his eyes panicked, his jaw tight.

“We need the antidote, otherwise I’m—”

“All right!” he says brusquely. “All right.” He swings the car around with one hand, his other coming to rest on her thigh, squeezing. She lets hers fall to cover his, taking strength from his grip. They can do this. They have to.

“Call Miss Lopez.”

“Lucifer, if something happens—”

“Chloe,” he says, shaking his head, determined. “Call Miss Lopez.”

Chapter Text

The whole world is still tilting, everything too bright, too warm, too raw, but he manages up the stairs, stumbling through the hallway and into Chloe’s room. His lungs burn, his chest feels like it’s on fire, but he drags Amenadiel away from the doorway, patting his shoulder. They did it. The formula is with Ella and Daniel. The doctors can keep treating the Detective.

He doesn’t take a full breath until her bed’s been removed from the room, her body convulsing so painfully, all those machines beeping. He stands heaving in air, sweat pouring down his face, shaken and battered, but triumphant.

And then he hears it—a quiet, mournful, terrified sob.

He turns and sees her curled up on the floor in the corner. She must have snuck herself in. Beatrice.

He crosses the room in a moment, bending down to pick up the weeping child, unsurprised when her arms lock around his neck, her legs a vice around his torso. “It’s all right,” he whispers to her head, his own panic slipping away. “It’s all right, child. Your mum will be just fine.”

“Lucifer,” she cries, her tears smearing against his throat where she’s shaking her head against him.

“It’s all right now,” he promises. “I’m here, it’s all right.”

He sways slowly, turning to look out into the hallway and finding his brother in the doorway instead. Amenadiel stares at him, wide-eyed.

“What?” he asks. It comes out half snarled, Beatrice tensing in his arms. He runs a hand over her head in apology.

“Luci,” Amenadiel warns, as if he’s done something unfathomable, something wrong, something dangerous.

Dying to go back to Hell, that was dangerous. More dangerous than he thought it would be. Perhaps the most dangerous thing he’s ever done. Save for falling in love with—

“You were gone and mommy got worse,” Beatrice whispers.

Lucifer breaks his eyes away from Amenadiel and turns away, facing them toward the window, toward the light. “I had to get something for your mum, so the doctors can make her better. It took longer than I thought it would,” he intones softly.

"No, you were gone,” Beatrice insists, pulling back from him. “I couldn’t—couldn’t feel you anymore.”

Lucifer blinks. Amenadiel makes a plaintive noise behind him. “What does that mean, child?” he asks.

Beatrice meets his eyes in confusion. “You weren’t in the world anymore. You were gone gone.”

“How did you know I wasn’t in the world anymore?” he asks, ignoring Amenadiel’s repeated noise of consternation.

“Your light was gone,” Beatrice says, so simply and innocently.

“My light?”

She nods, fingers gripping almost painfully into the hairs on the nape of his neck, hanging on. “When you’re nearby there’s a light.”

“Where?”

Lucifer turns, glaring at his brother, but Amenadiel isn’t looking at him. He staring at Beatrice, calculating. It makes Lucifer want to put her down, stand in front of her, protect her. From what, he’s not really sure.

“Where is the light, Trixie?” Amenadiel insists.

Beatrice glances at Lucifer, as if asking permission to speak. Lucifer inclines his head slightly. He doesn’t like Amenadiel’s tone, but he too wants the answer.

“Here,” Beatrice says, unwinding one of her arms to press her little palm to Lucifer’s chest, right above his heart. And then she moves her hand to her own heart. “It’s always here.”

Lucifer stares at the urchin, the breath knocked from his chest.

“Luci, what did you do?” Amenadiel asks.

Beatrice’s face goes sour. “Stop it,” she says, glaring at Amenadiel. “You’re scaring Lucifer.”

Lucifer would scoff if it weren’t true. Because if Beatrice feels a light between them, between his heart and hers, then maybe he has—oh dear Dad.

“You bound yourself to—”

“I didn’t,” Lucifer says, kneejerk.

“He didn’t do anything,” Beatrice says fiercely. “He’s my friend. He’s my Fairy Dad Monster, and you’re being mean to him when he saved my mommy.”

“Fairy Dad Monster?” Amenadiel repeats. “Luci, what on—”

“STOP IT,” Beatrice shouts.

A wind seems to explode around them, fierce and fraught. Only there for a nanosecond, it dies immediately, but it’s enough.

“Lucifer,” Amenadiel says firmly.

But Lucifer can’t look at him. “Beatrice,” he says very softly. She slowly turns her head to look at him, her big brown eyes wide and shining. “It’s all right, darling, I’m not in any danger.”

“But he’s scaring you,” Beatrice says.

“I’m not scared,” Lucifer tells her. Because he isn’t. Not anymore. “Neither of us needs to be scared, all right?”

“Because you saved mommy,” Beatrice agrees.

“Because your mummy is going to be just fine,” he says, nodding. “And the light is back, isn’t it?”

Beatrice closes her eyes for a moment and then nods, opening them with a little smile. “You promise?”

“I promise. And what do I never do?”

“You never lie.”

“I never lie,” Lucifer says solemnly.

Beatrice gives a heavy sigh and lays her head down against his shoulder, arms wrapping back around his neck, her body going limp against him. He rubs at her back, closing his eyes, just for a moment.

“Lucifer.”

For the love of—

“What?” he growls, turning back toward the door.

But it’s not Amenadiel this time. Linda and Maze stand in the doorway, his mother leaning against Maze, a hand to her chest.

“I need to check you,” Linda says softly.

Lucifer looks from Linda to Beatrice and back.

Maze muscles her way around Amenadiel, all but pushing his mother into his brother’s arms. “I can take Trix—”

“No,” Beatrice says, holding tight to Lucifer.

He withholds a groan. The Detective must not be that far away, because for the first time in minutes, he can feel his burned chest.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Maze says, her voice gentler than he’s ever heard it. “And Lucifer and Doctor Linda will stay right here, or we’ll go with them.”

“No,” Beatrice says, lifting her head to glare at Maze. Mazikeen’s eyes dim and he hears Beatrice take a short, sniffling breath. “I can’t let go. He might go away again.”

“Beatrice,” Lucifer intones.

“No!” she exclaims, butting her head into his chin there in his arms.

Lucifer sighs and glances around, spotting the lone chair by the window. “Doctor, if you can give me a once-over around the clingy limpet?”

Beatrice snorts into his neck and he can’t help but smile. Maze shakes her head but waves Linda in, stepping back while Lucifer lowers himself shakily into the chair. It’s hard and terribly uncomfortable, but it’s a wild relief to sit down.

“Trixie, can you scoot back just a little? I need to look at Lucifer's chest and listen to his heart,” Linda says, crouching beside them.

Beatrice nods and shuffles backward on his lap, but keeps her hands fisted in his open dress shirt.

“I’m fine, Beatrice,” he says, trying to catch her eyes.

But of course she’s staring at the…burn marks on his chest while Linda gently prods at them. They sting less than they did, though it still feels like someone crashed an electrified mac truck into his ribs.

“You were really gone gone,” Beatrice whispers, looking up to meet his eyes while Linda listens to his chest.

“Only for a few minutes, and then I came back,” he says firmly. He covers one of her little hands. “And I’m here now. And none the worse for wear.”

“Lightly worse for wear,” Linda corrects. Beatrice lets out a small sound of distress, looking between them in askance.

“Must you?” Lucifer asks, meeting Linda’s eyes.

“Only lightly,” Linda insists, reaching up to rub Beatrice’s back. “A few good cuddles, lots of water, and perhaps…what did we decide, four hundred feet or so? And he’ll be good as new,” Linda tells Beatrice.

“I think the vending machines on the other side of the floor would be just beyond that,” Maze says, pointing down the long hallway out the door.

Lucifer nods. “All right. Urchin, why don’t we go get a treat for your mum, for when she wakes up?”

“Okay,” Beatrice says, her voice small.

Linda stands up and Lucifer follows suit with a groan. Linda goes to turn away and Lucifer reaches out, snagging her wrist. “Linda,” he says.

She turns and looks up at him, her face still pale, sweat still gathered at her temples, eyes still a smidge too wild.

“Thank you,” Lucifer says.

“There was no alternative,” she says firmly.

“Still,” he says, hiking Beatrice up in his arms. “If you’d had less…faith, I wouldn’t be here and,” he glances toward the empty space where the Detective’s bed should be—will be.

“There’s no keeping the Devil down,” Linda says, a little too brightly, hiding the horror of the past twenty or so minutes.

“No, there’s not,” he agrees, smiling when she wiggles her wrist so she can free her arm and squeeze his hand in hers. “Isn’t that right, Beatrice?” he adds.

“Right,” the girl says, hardly her usual exuberant self, but it’ll do. “Thank you, Dr. Linda.”

Linda takes her hand back to squeeze Beatrice’s shoulder. “Anytime kid. Gotta keep your Fairy Dad Monster safe, huh?”

Maze snickers and Amenadiel makes another noise by the door. Lucifer had rather forgotten about him. His mother’s still leaning against him, too exhausted and wrung out to react to this, he supposes.

Which means he’ll have her reaction yet to come. Goody.

He sighs gustily and his ribs twinge. He can’t handle this right now. “All right, I need a chocolate bar. Out of our way, thank you,” he says, striding with as much grace as he can toward the door with his bruised, burned body and the urchin in his arms.

“Lucifer,” Amenadiel says, catching his arm as he tries to clear the doorway. He glances at their mother, then appraisingly over Lucifer and Beatrice. “We need to discuss this…development.”

Lucifer meets his eyes and shakes off his hand. “We really don’t.”

He leaves the Detective’s room and follows the hall, walking as quickly as he can, putting distance between them and wherever Chloe is so his ribs can heal and Beatrice might stop looking quite so haunted.

“Can I get two things for Mommy?” Beatrice asks, face still tucked into his neck.

“As many snacks as your grubby little hands can hold,” he tells her, proud to get a little giggle for that.

“Who was that woman?” she asks as they get to the end of the hall.

He looks left and right and spots the sign for the hospital break room. Jackpot. He heads toward it and rubs Beatrice’s back.

“That was my mum.”

“Are you still mad at your mommy?”

He turns into the thankfully empty breakroom and stands in front of the lone vending machine with Beatrice. The light above them has a faulty bulb, flickering sadly. The whole room is little more than four white walls, a pathetically dinged up table, a shabby refrigerator, and the vending machine. It’s the most peaceful place he’s been in the last day.

He sinks slowly into one of the ratty chairs around the table with a groan. He can feel his skin healing, his ribs growing less bruised.

“My mum just helped save yours, so I can’t be too mad at her,” he says honestly.

“I should have said thank you!” Beatrice says abruptly, pulling back to look up at him with a little pout, like it’s his fault an injustice has been wrought.

He can’t help but chuckle at her. “You absolutely needn’t. In fact, I don’t want you to talk to my mother or my brother without me there.”

Beatrice cocks her head, peering at him. “Why not?”

Lucifer considers his little friend and thinks about the lengths to which both his mother and brother have gone to try and control him. The human lives they’re willing to gamble with. Beatrice cannot become one of those lives.

And her mother—

Well, his mother has already driven that wedge as far as she can.

“Is it because you did some kind of…bound-y thing?” Beatrice continues.

“Bound-y?” he repeats.

“Men-diel said you bound yourself to me?”

He refuses to think her too adorable. But he’ll absolutely be pronouncing Amanadiel’s name that way for the rest of time in his head.

“I bound myself to protect you ages ago,” Lucifer says honestly.

He’s not sure exactly when, but now that she’s pointed it out, there’s been a…light above his heart for a while now. A sense of safety and home and care that wasn’t there before. Purpose.

“My brother and mother might tell you things—things that could be upsetting, or confusing. And my mother is not…above using mortals to try and manipulate me. And you, dearest Beatrice, do not deserve to be part of any of her plans. You are your own person.”

Just like the Detective is, his brain supplies. But that is a worry for later, when she wakes up.

“Okay,” Beatrice says with a little shrug. “Men-diel’s mean anyway.”

Lucifer huffs a laugh. “He is.”

“Can I have snacks now?” she asks and he laughs more.

“Have at it,” he says, relaxing his hold so she can scramble off his lap. But she doesn’t move. “Beatrice.”

“I can’t see all the way to the top on my own,” she says with a pout and her biggest puppy dog eyes.

He shakes his head but stands up, feeling almost back to normal. “I see five different chocolate bars, ranch puffs, and gummy bears that require rescue.”

“And the Sour Patch Kids.”

“Uck,” he says. Beatrice giggles. “You want to do the honors?” he asks and she nods, reaching out to tap the vending machine in quick succession on top of each desired treat. They fall with satisfying plops and she giggles again.

“Is that a Devil thing?” she asks, hanging onto his neck as he bends to retrieve their snacks.

“You’re the one that made them fall,” he grumbles, snagging all of the bags in one go before standing back up.

“Is it a Fairy Dad Monster thing, then?”

“It would a Guarded by a Monster thing, wouldn’t it?” he replies, stuffing the snacks into her arms before hiking her up on his hip again.

“Can I do it without you?” she asks, and he can see the glint in her calculating little eyes.

“Not if I’m not within seeing distance,” he says. He’s not sure how he knows, but he does.

“Damn,” she grumbles.

Lucifer snorts and she looks up at him guiltily. “Your mother would ask me to suggest better language to you.”

“But you’re not gonna, because you’re my monster and “darn” doesn’t sound as good,” Beatrice says confidently.

He nods seriously. “Exactly. But still, don’t tell your mother. About the naughty word or the theft.”

“Okay,” Beatrice says easily, carefully opening her Milky Way bar while keeping the rest of the snacks balanced in a basket made out of her shirt. “Are you healed enough to go back to Mommy?”

Lucifer stares at the little girl. “How did you—”

“Because when I come over on Thursdays you don’t get hurt—you can walk on glass—but if you’re at our house you cut yourself when you cook,” Beatrice says simply. “It’s all really obvious, Lucifer.”

The laugh that bursts forth this time is free and a little wild. Of course it’s obvious to Beatrice. Everything’s so simple to her, so easy, so real.

 “All right, clever girl, let’s go see your mum.”

Beatrice hums in agreement, mouth full of chocolate, and smiles up at him. Precious and innocent and perfect, he can’t help bending forward to press his lips to her forehead. There’s that brief rush of wind again and he pulls back to meet her eyes.

“All right?”

She nods with a smile, chewing happily, and he nods back. All right, they can do this, together.

It’s not so simple when he walks them into the Detective’s room. The woman of the hour is back in place, but still pale and drawn and too small in the damn hospital bed. Worse, she’s still unconscious, but now with an IV drip of life-saving antidote flowing into her veins.

Progress. It’s progress, and they’ll have to take it.

Linda, Maze, and Amenadiel are hovering at the end of the Detective’s bed, his mother hunched over in the bedside chair, which leaves only the space by the Detective’s hip for Lucifer and Beatrice. It’ll do.

He rests gingerly beside her hip, the urchin still held in his arms. Gone is the chocolatey smile. Beatrice stares at her mother, eyes wide, little body tense with apprehension.

“She’ll wake up soon,” Lucifer promises, reaching gently between them to free their haul before it melts. He places the snacks all over the Detective’s lap, earning a wan smile from her daughter. “Why don’t you lie down beside mum, cuddle her back to consciousness.”

Beatrice hesitates, one hand still wrapped into his shirt, glancing between them. “You’ll stay?”

He meets her wide little eyes, the answer immediate and sure. “I’ll stay.”

And the damn wind kicks up again. But this time it’s like he can feel it in his bones. It zips, almost like electricity. Almost like the light Beatrice was talking about.

“Holy shit,” he hears behind him.

But he doesn’t look back at Linda or Maze, who’s giggling now. Instead, he looks at Beatrice, whose little face has taken on an angelic haze. She is covered in light, practically exuding it.

“It tickles,” she says brightly.

He huffs out a startled breath. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Lucifer,” he hears behind him.

“All right, urchin?” he asks the girl, ignoring Amenadiel’s growl.

“Yep,” Beatrice says, her face relaxed, eyes twinkling.

And then she wriggles out of his arms and onto the bed, snuggling in next to Chloe, like nothing’s happened at all. She closes her eyes and grips at her mother’s hospital gown, taking slow, deep breaths. The glow around her slowly fades, but her smile doesn’t.

He’s relatively sure he’s—

“You created a Nephilim,” his mother croaks from the chair in the corner.

Lucifer doesn’t move. He can’t talk about this, not with Beatrice in the room. Not with her miracle of a mother still comatose beside her. But Beatrice, the darling girl, has already dropped off to sleep, so he has little ammunition to fight the incoming celestial shit storm behind him.

“Lucifer,” Amenadiel repeats, firmer.

He gives a great sigh. He just died, for Dad’s sake. Can he not get a moment’s peace?

“What, brother?” he asks, slowly standing to turn and face the little assemblage at the bottom of the Detective’s bed.

“It’s forbidden,” Amenadiel says immediately.

“What is?” Linda asks, glancing between them and then over to Beatrice.

“Creating immortal/human children,” Maze says lowly. “Intentionally, at least.”

“Well, this hardly seems intentional,” Linda says firmly. “Was it?”

He shakes his head, grateful beyond measure for the doctor and rather ready to push his brother through the large window letting in the fading golden sunlight.

“Still, it’s too far, Luci. What if Father catches wind?” Lucifer scoffs at his choice of words. “Angels have been punished for eons for less.”

“Well, that’s already happened to me, so sue me if it’s not a proper deterrent,” Lucifer bites out. “Not that I—I didn’t…she isn’t…” He didn’t beget her. He didn’t form her. He didn’t set out to create a miracle. He simply…“I chose her, I did not make her,” he says softly. “And I certainly did not intend to imbue her with any sort of power.”

“Well you have,” his mother says, rising stiffly from the chair. “And now we need to figure out what to do with her.”

Lucifer steps back, his hand coming out protectively to hover over Chloe and her daughter. “Nothing,” he hisses.

“Luci, we can’t just—”

“You will not touch a hair on this child’s head. You will not touch a hair on her mother’s head. They’ve done nothing but stumble into my path.”

“We can’t just let them be, who knows what could happen,” Amenadiel says.

“We’ll take the girl back to the Silver City with us when we figure out how to go. The Detective will be safe once you’re gone,” Mother says.

“Get out,” Lucifer growls.

“Now, Luci, we—”

“Get. Out,” he repeats, feeling his eyes going red, his whole body shifting rapidly back and forth from his Devil Face.

“What if you’re just playing into his plan?” Mother says, her voice warm, comforting, concerned.

But it’s all a lie. If she cared, if she wanted what was best for him, she would never, ever have suggested—

“What if this is what your Father put her here for?” Mother continues, gesturing to Chloe.

Lucifer looks down at the sleeping woman, at the child curled peacefully in her arms. A day ago, it felt like his heart had shattered into pieces. The idea that this woman who he—that Chloe was created for him, outside of both of their control, made him sick. He thought it meant neither of them had chosen this. That it’s all been just a machination, a sick and twisted plot, a game, a temptation. He thought it meant none of this was real, just part of his father’s almighty plan.

But how on earth could Beatrice be part of that plan?

And if Beatrice isn’t part of the plan, then maybe there simply isn’t A Plan.

Maybe Father had Chloe made on a whim, an experiment.

Maybe he just liked Penelope Decker.

They cannot know his intentions. He never tells, never explains.

Yesterday it made Lucifer angry. But today, he takes it as a choice, his to make.

“Then she’s here, and I’m choosing her—them—and sod whatever Dad’s plan is,” Lucifer says, the words coming sure, and deep, and brilliantly freely.

“Lucifer,” Amenadiel intones.

He looks back at his brother. “If you come near even the air she breathes, I will rip you limb from limb. You cannot take this child from her mother. I don’t care what celestial precedents it sets. She belongs here, with her mother, with me.”

It’s not wind this time, but light, red-tinged and pulsing. It emanates from every pore of his body and crawls across the bed, enveloping Chloe and Beatrice. They all watch it seep beneath their skin, where it glows back suddenly white and pure and perfect.

“For the love of—” Amenadiel groans.

“What? What did he do?” Linda asks.

“Pretty sure he just made Decker Queen of Hell, and Trixie its princess,” Maze mutters. “I’m not bowing to either of them,” she adds, giving him a pointed look.

“I have not,” Lucifer says. He thinks, at least. “They are simply mine to protect, mine to give safe harbor. If you try and take them, Hell shall befall you.”

He thinks. There’s not much to go on, here, really.

Amenadiel’s glaring at him, like he’s trying to figure out how hard to fight to overpower him. But Lucifer won’t be moved. He’s staying here with Beatrice, with Chloe. They are his now, whatever that means to them.

“All right, maybe it’s time we break up this celestial intervention,” Linda says firmly. “Amenadiel and…Mama Morningstar, let’s get out of here. Maze, choose your fighter.”

“I’m my own fighter,” Maze replies instantly. Lucifer snorts, as does Linda. “What?”

“We need to get the urchin a video game console, I think,” Lucifer says.

“Oh, they have those shooter games, right? Excellent, yes, let’s do that,” Maze says, a glint back in her eye. “You good here?”

“Yes,” Lucifer says, his hand curling along the guardrail at the side of the bed. “Flank the good doctor.”

“As you wish,” Maze says with a wink. She’ll not bow to him either anymore, but she always has his back. “Come on…are we really going with ‘Mama Morningstar’?”

“Well she’s sure as shit not Charlotte Richards,” Linda says, taking Amenadiel’s elbow to try and push him out of the room.

Lucifer’s affection for the good doctor might have tripled today.

“Lucifer, we will need to discuss this,” Amenadiel says, standing still even with Linda pushing at him with her full weight.

He knows they will. If only so he can ensure his brother’s promise to protect them. He’ll negotiate with his mother to stop meddling in exchange for…what, he doesn’t know.

“When the Detective and her spawn are safely at home, hale and healthy, we will meet at Lux. Until then, get out.”

Amenadiel nods, finally stepping forward. Maze has to reach out to catch Linda. Lucifer laughs, can’t help himself, and the doctor glares at him.

“The tipple of your choice, darling, at my next session. Text me,” he says.

“I want a Mercedes,” Linda says.

He blinks. “Yes, all right.” She did save his life, and Chloe’s, and likely Beatrice’s as well.

Linda stares at him, mouth agape. “Right, good,” she says quickly while Maze snickers behind her.

“And my finder’s fee?” Maze asks. “I did kill your mom.”

“Whatever’s in the safe is yours. If it’s under ten grand, you have my accounts.”

Linda’s jaw drops again and Maze grins. “Excellent. Linda, we’re about to have one Hell of a girl’s night.”

“Sounds like it,” Linda mutters.

And then they’re gone, taking Amenadiel and his mother with them. Lucifer stands staring after them, trying to take peace from the silence. He slowly buttons up his shirt, running a hand through his hair. Tries to put some of his armor back in place, feel more like himself and less half cleaved open and raw.

It would be easier without the incessant beeps from the life-saving machines.

He turns to look at the Detective and Beatrice. Chloe looks serene, still held down by anesthetic, her body healing. But Beatrice is not so sanguine. Her face is scrunched up, body gone rigid, and then he realizes one of the sounds is not coming from the machines, but from Beatrice herself.

He stoops without thought, picking up the child to hold her against his chest. He walks slowly around the bed to sit in the chair his mother last occupied, stroking the girl’s back. “It’s all right, it’s just a nightmare,” he whispers to the crown of her head.

Slowly, the girl stops thrashing. He feels when she wakes, her hands gripping into his shirt. “Mama?” she whispers.

“She’s sleeping, child, that’s all,” he says.

“What’s a nephew-lim?”

He sighs, staring at the Detective, at the sure rise and fall of her chest. He isn’t in any state to explain this to himself, let alone to Beatrice.

“Heard that, did you?”

“Like in a dream,” Beatrice says, nodding against his shoulder. “Men-diel was mad.”

“Men-diel is always mad,” Lucifer says.

“What’s it mean?” she asks again, clearly not about to let it go.

But at least she’s not staring at her comatose mother. And no longer crying, or glowing.

“It means you are…that I have,” he pauses and swallows hard, exhausted and strung out and he just died for Dad’s sake. “It means that my Fairy Dad Monster status has celestial approval,” he decides.

Beatrice pulls back to meet his eyes, her own narrowed, like she knows he’s purposefully talking around a lie. “What does that mean?”

But it’s not a lie, not really. It’s also not…

“It means that you are mine, Beatrice, in the eyes of the celestial…everything.”

Oh, Dad, she’s glowing again. They both are. Damn it all to Hell.

“And that’s called Nephew-lim? But I’m a girl,” Beatrice says.

He’s startled by his own laughter. Her lips quirk too, the two of them smiling at each other, bathed in that golden glow.

“Nephilim,” he corrects. “Gender neutral. It’s a celestial word, urchin, do not bother yourself about it.”

“Men-diel was really bothered,” she argues.

“Well, Men-diel can suck it,” Lucifer says honestly. Beatrice giggles and the golden glow around her body seems to ripple. “All that matters is we are both here, and you are mine to protect from the celestial nonsense that seems destined to plague us. All right?”

Someday, a later someday, he’ll grapple with the true reality. Someday, when he’s told Chloe what he is—when he’s shown her, if she hasn’t gone running for the hills, Beatrice clutched to her chest—maybe someday, an impossible someday, he’ll tell Beatrice the entire truth.

“You guys are glowing.”

Getting her to stop projecting an angelic halo is probably more pressing.

Because Chloe Decker is awake and staring at them, eyelids fluttering, a sleepy smile on her miracle of a face.

“It’s just the window, Mommy,” Beatrice says, pulling herself from Lucifer’s arms to clamber off his lap.

And just like that, their light dims, but it doesn’t fade all together. Instead, he feels it deep in his chest, like Beatrice said earlier. Where it’s been for some time. But now it’s warmer, stronger, like a small second heartbeat.

Her little hand reaches out to pull him with her as she presses up against her mother’s hospital bed and he goes, of course he does. He stands stooped over the Detective, the urchin between them gripping at her arm.

“I didn’t die?” Chloe asks.

“You didn’t die after all,” Lucifer says, allowing her to search his eyes to see the truth there. “Makes one of us.”

Beatrice squeezes his hand too tightly.

Chloe blinks slowly, head tilting. Her brow furrows adorably. “How’d you get the antidote?”

He opens his mouth, but Beatrice knocks against his legs, trying to climb up into Chloe’s bed. He tuts and bends, hoisting her up to lay her gently against the Detective’s side, their snacks crinkling on the bed.

“A bunch of celestial nonsense you wouldn’t believe,” he says honestly, smiling as Beatrice giggles.

“‘Course it was,” Chloe mumbles, shaking her head. “You okay, Monkey?”

Beatrice nods. “Lucifer kept me safe.”

“‘Course he did,” Chloe says and he feels himself take a deep breath. “Thank you,” she adds, raising a heavy hand to lay it over his. “Stay?”

He needs time to figure out what all of it means. How he feels about each momentous revelation across the last day. How the idea of his choice sits in his chest.

But he can’t ignore a request like that.

“He already promised he would,” Beatrice whispers, burrowing against Chloe’s side. “Said he has celestial approval.”

Lucifer huffs. “Beatrice.”

“You did,” she says, cracking an eye open to look back at him.

“I didn’t think you approved of celestial approval,” Chloe says, eyeing him curiously. “It’s usually a big no-go for you.”

Lucifer reaches back to grab the chair, sinking into it so he can look over both girls. Even without Beatrice’s golden glow, they’re still framed by light, spotlit by the last of the sunset through the window. Heaven sent, celestial, and his.

They are his choice. If Free Will is the domain of earth, then he will take his greedily.

“The intricacies of what is my Father’s Will and what is merely celestial seems an awfully big topic for a woman just returned from the brink. Far too philosophical for such exhaustion.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe starts.

“He’s really tired Mommy. He died and came back to life. We need to wait to ask hard questions,” Beatrice mumbles, eyes still closed.

Chloe looks down at her daughter, then at Lucifer, eyes wide. “Oh-kay. But I—” she hesitates, then flips her hand to tangle their fingers together there on the bed rail. “I know the whole…almost poisoned thing kind of got in the way of a discussion you and I were having,” she whispers. “Can we make a firm raincheck?”

He can’t help the smile he feels split his face. And perhaps there’s his true answer. She is what he wants—who he wants—who he chooses. “We can, Detective.”

She smiles back, eyelids fluttering. “Now be a good Devil and stay, huh?”

Her eyes slip closed, but she doesn’t pull back her hand. He chuckles softly and settles further in the chair. Keeping watch is the least he can do.

Chapter Text

“I’m fine,” Chloe insists, glaring up at Lucifer.

“Humor me just this once,” he says, perfectly poised, not rising to the bait at all.

She huffs, crossing her arms like a petulant toddler, while her own daughter calmly walks around the car to join Lucifer, the two of them watching her through the open passenger side door.

“I can walk into the house on my own.”

“And have you passed out for the rest of the afternoon just for your pride?” he presses.

“I’m not going to pass out,” Chloe argues. Probably.

Getting ready to leave the hospital had her sitting down multiple times after she showered and got changed, Lucifer and Trixie hovering like she was a broken doll. She just wants this to be over. There’s an edge to the way they’ve been looking at her, this little united front of concern.

She doesn’t want Trixie looking at her like that.

She doesn’t want Lucifer looking at her like that. Like he has to protect her from something.

“Mommy, just let Lucifer carry you so we can go inside,” Trixie says, her own petulance shining through.

Chloe sighs, shaking her head when Lucifer grins. “Fine. This is the last time.”

“Whatever you say, Detective,” he replies, stooping down while she holds out her arms.

He extricates her from the car like she weighs nothing at all. His arms are steady and sturdy. She’s not surprised by how safe she feels, how cared for. How nice it is to lay her head on his shoulder. How he’s also got their overnight bags slung over his back, like it’s nothing. How she doesn’t see a key in his hand when he unlocks her front door, like he always seems to be able to do.

She doesn’t want to question it. Instead, she closes her eyes and lets herself breathe in the scent of his woodsy cologne and the faint tang of cigarette smoke. She hates that smell, but somehow, on Lucifer, it’s nice. Which is absurd.

He never smokes around Trixie though.

“Couch or straight to bed, dear?” Lucifer asks.

Chloe slowly opens her eyes, staring out at her living room, which looks like it’s exploded with balloons. “What the hell?”

He chuckles. “Oh, so very not. Beatrice asked Maze to decorate the house for your return.”

The balloons make no sense. Happy New Year, Congratulations, Happy Valentine’s Day—there’s even one that looks like it’s for Guy Fawkes Day by the TV. And some lewder ones she doesn’t want to think about explaining to Trixie.

“Mommy, what’s a g-string?”

Chloe groans and Lucifer laughs loudly, the sound rumbling under her ear.

“Couch, and you explain. Maze is your fault,” she says, which only makes him laugh louder. “Where even is that one?” she adds, peering around as Lucifer dutifully places her softly down onto the couch.

“In the kitchen. Along with multiple banners about bananas.”

“Oh my God,” Chloe says, covering her face.

“Hardly the best banana of the bunch,” he says.

She looks up through her fingers at his smirk. “Shut up.”

Lucifer just grins and steps away. She shifts on the couch, getting comfortable. Her whole body is still a bit sore. Something about the poison having an effect on her nerves that should dissipate within a few more days.

She’s not sure why she thought that once she had the antidote that would be it. Instead, she spent two days under observation, with Trixie tucked up beside her and Lucifer flitting in and out to fetch them anything they wanted. 

She sighs, reaching around to rub at her stomach over the injection site. It’s still bruised. They said it might be for a week or more.

“Why did Maze get Mommy a balloon about a guitar?” she hears Trixie ask.

“What an innocent answer, Lucifer,” she calls.

She hears him scoff in reply, followed by, “is there another meaning for g-string?”

“You are the worst, Detective,” he calls back.

She laughs and stares up at the ceiling, rolling her eyes when she spots the streamers. Which are covered with—damn it, Maze.

“I’ll just—” Lucifer’s hand reaches up and snags the offending penis streamer. She watches in amusement as he folds it meticulously and slips it into the inner pocket of his blazer.

“Gonna reuse it?” she asks.

“Many a bachelorette party would appreciate it,” he says with a shrug. “Beatrice is unpacking her bag. Do you need anything, or should I get started on dinner?”

Chloe looks up at him. He’s impeccably dressed, as ever, but she can see the exhaustion around his eyes, the slightly longer than average stubble on his cheeks. He’s barely left their sides for the past three days, and Trixie keeps saying he died.

“Sit down for a minute,” she says, extending an aching arm toward him.

He hesitates for a moment and then does as told, settling onto the coffee table in front of her. She snags his hand, ignoring the minute twitch before he squeezes her fingers back. Still always a little shocked when she touches him.

“We’re okay,” she says, watching the way his shoulders slump a little. “Safe and sound, not at all dead.”

“Of course you are,” he says immediately, cheerful and just a smidge over-bright.

“Relax a little,” Chloe insists, letting her thumb stroke at the back of her hand. “We can order in, watch a movie.”

“After three days of hospital food, I think not,” he says, looking a little insulted. “I promised the urchin mac and cheese with garlic bread.”

And if he promised the urchin, that’s what she’ll get, isn’t it?

“Sit for a little while first, okay?” He frowns at her. “You need a break.”

“I am perfectly well, Detective,” he counters, eyes tracing up and down her body. But it lacks the usual undertone of lust. He’s cataloguing her position, whether she’s comfortable. “Do you need another pain reliever?

“I’m fine,” she says. “Really, stand down, Lucifer. I’m home, I’m safe, and you’re here. What could go wrong?”

She holds tight to his hand against the slackening of his expression. She doesn’t want him to get up, doesn’t want him to pull away from her. Before she was poisoned, they were…they were starting something.

He looks down at their hands, his brow furrowing. “A surprising amount seems to be able to go wrong despite my best efforts,” he says, almost too softly to hear.

“But I’m here,” she says, tugging on his hand to get him to meet her eyes again. “And so are you. So. Pick a movie before Trixie does and come rest, just for a little while.”

He lifts his eyes to hers and she smiles, trying to prove to him that everything really is okay—that he can let go of the frantic edge to every sentence, every look, every touch.

“Hot Tub High School?” he asks after just a moment too long.

“Lucifer!”

He grins and lets go of her hand, leaning forward to brush his fingers along her cheek. “Take a pain reliever, and I’ll behave.”

“That sounds like a deal,” she huffs.

“A mutually beneficial one,” he says.

But there’s still that shine of terror there behind his eyes, his touch just a bit too light, his posture still too stiff. So she nods and lets him give her another one of the Tylenol with Codeine they sent home with them. Lets him arrange her on the couch so she’s resting with her head on a pillow in his lap, his hand settled warm and large over the injection site on her stomach.

It helps more than she thought it would. As does Trixie worming her way into his other side, practically draped over him so all three of them can fit on the couch with her lying down. He puts on a show of being annoyed, but she can see the way he’s clutching at her daughter.

She pretends to focus on the movie, but it’s hard. He picked “Frozen,” which she knows he hates. But Trixie’s laughing and quoting through the whole thing, and he doesn’t seem at all bothered. It’s so peaceful, here with both of them. Right, her mind whispers. She could so easily get used to it.

She knows she shouldn’t, not yet. Knows that as doting as he’s been, Lucifer has a life outside of her house, outside of their partnership. Knows that he’s still hesitant about them. Knows that he needs assurances too, before this will feel real.  

But then he whispers something to her daughter that has her shaking with laughter. Chloe looks up to see him grinning proudly for making Trixie laugh. His hand is warm on her stomach, and for the first time in three days he looks relaxed. He looks happy.

She falls asleep before she can do anything about it.

She wakes many hours later in a haze. She thinks he woke her for dinner, has a fuzzy memory of eating the best mac and cheese of her life while curled up against his side there on the couch, Trixie on her other side, commentating through…some film. Then she passed out again.

When she blinks her eyes open it’s dark in the living room. She cranes her neck, absurdly comfortable, and finds her head back in Lucifer’s lap, his hand on her stomach as she lays on her back beneath Trixie’s favorite blanket. It looks like he fell asleep sitting up with her, but he’s awake now, eyes heavy-lidded, looking around the room, a hand rubbing at his chest.

“Lucifer?” she whispers.

He looks down, startled, and gives her a sleepy smile that might be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. He’s so pretty he almost glows.

“Go back to sleep, darling,” he says, his hand moving to stroke at her forehead. Her eyes slip closed of their own accord. “I’ll see to Beatrice.”

See to—

And then she hears the door to Trixie’s room open.

“Everything’s all right, child,” he murmurs.

Her body rocks a little, something brushing over her cheek. She slits her eyes open and finds Lucifer settling Trixie against his side and tucking her blanket around her. Wait, isn’t that what’s covering her? When did she get two?

“Your mum is just fine,” Lucifer whispers.

Trixie sniffles and Chloe tries to open her eyes wider, tries to reach up to comfort her daughter, but her body won’t cooperate. Lucifer’s other hand falls to rest against her stomach again, rubbing circles that threaten to pull her under.

“Mommy wouldn’t wake up, and then you came but you fell down, and you were gone gone, and the light—the light went out and I was crying but I couldn’t make either of you wake up and I—I—”

Lucifer hums, the sound seeming to reverberate around them, low and thready and comforting. “We’re both right here,” Lucifer says. She drags her eyes open and looks up at him, Trixie’s head tucked beneath his chin, his arm wrapped entirely around her as she cries into his collar. “The light won’t ever go out, and your mum is going to be just fine. She’ll be up and fighting before you know it.”

Her eyes flutter shut again.

“I’m scared,” Trixie whispers.

Chloe feels a tear drip down her cheek. She wants to comfort her daughter. She wants to hold her.

 “I know you are,” Lucifer says.

“Are you scared?” Trixie whispers.

Chloe lays there, wishing she could force her eyes open against the drugs. That she could move her hand to take Lucifer’s. She’s so heavy, but she wants to touch him, wants to wrap her arms around them both.

“I’m terrified,” Lucifer whispers, his voice raw.

“But you’re the Devil.”

Lucifer chuckles, a wet, ragged sound. “Even the Devil gets scared, darling.”

“How do we make it stop?” Trixie asks and Chloe’s heart breaks. Her daughter should never need to sound like this. Lucifer hums again. He should never need to sound like this.

“I think we sit here with your mum and listen to her snore,” he says. She’d scoff if Trixie’s watery giggle didn’t release the rising tension in her chest. “And I think being scared doesn’t ever…stop, Beatrice. We just get better at dealing with it. At least, that’s what Dr. Martin seems to think.”

“I don’t think I like that,” Trixie mumbles.

“You and me both, urchin,” Lucifer agrees with a sigh.

“But we can be scared together?”

"Of course,” Lucifer whispers.

Darkness drags at her consciousness and she strains to stay awake, listening as Lucifer begins singing softly, his voice wrapping around the three of them like some kind of benediction. She doesn’t recognize the song, or the language, for that matter, but it’s beautiful and haunting. It gives her the strength to finally move her arm enough to cover his hand with hers.

His voice hitches but he doesn’t stop singing. She lets sleep drag her back under, content in knowing they’re safe here with him. Even if the ‘Devil’ gets scared too.

(...)

He and Maze sit quietly on Chloe’s couch at 3am the next night. He slept fitfully from midnight until two after he helped Chloe up to bed. Tomorrow, she’ll make it up the stairs on her own, and the day after, won’t need him here looking after her at all. He’s not sure how he’ll manage.

“What does it feel like?” Maze asks.

He closes his eyes, raising a hand to rest over his heart where the gentle thrumming of Beatrice’s light resonates against his rib. “It’s like a faint heartbeat,” he says.

“And you didn’t notice?”

He opens his eyes to glare over at her. “She’s very small.”

He’s not sure how he didn’t notice. He doesn’t know when it happened. He can’t pinpoint a moment where he sat and thought, “this child is mine.” Can’t decide when it was he started to love the little urchin.

It seems like a design flaw that one can accidentally celestially adopt a child based on affection alone.

“Can you undo it?” Maze asks.

“I don’t know how I did it in the first place, so I’d have no idea how,” he says, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose.

“Do you want to?”

The question is soft. He looks over and finds Maze watching him with more understanding than he expects.

“It would be safer for her if I did,” he says. The very thought seems to tug painfully against something deep in his chest.

“Would it?” she asks.

“I don’t know. It’s not like there’s a bloody instruction manual.”

“You sure?” Maze asks.

“Don’t tell me you spent the day on a celestial text hunt,” he says.

She laughs. “No, but Amenadial might.

“I don’t want to draw any attention to her,” he says.

Maze bobs her head. “So there’s a little wind and sometimes she glows. Hardly the end of the world.”

He snorts. “Yes, I’m sure the Detective will see it that way.” He glances toward the stairs, but all is quiet. Both girls are sacked out, down for the count after staying awake through as much of Star Wars as they could.

“Decker knows you love the kid. She might not be that horrified.”

He meets her eyes and they both crack into exhausted laughter. “Right.”

“She’ll find out eventually though,” Maze says when they’ve both calmed down.

“Yes,” he agrees, trying valiantly not to let it terrify him. He needs to stave that moment off until he can be sure Beatrice is safe from his mother and brother, at the very least.

And if he can’t…

“If she runs, would you follow her? Protect them?” he asks, looking toward his friend—his longest, closest companion, for eons and eons. “I know you have your own life, your own work. You needn’t agree, but—”

“Of course,” Maze says, fast and sure. “I don’t bow to the Lord of Hell, but for its Princess? Sure, boss.”

Her cheeky grin can’t counteract how the moniker sets his teeth on edge. “She isn’t—”

“She is,” Maze says easily. “If she’s yours, then she is.”

“She’s Chloe’s and…Daniel’s,” he says gruffly.

No matter how he feels, no matter what celestial powers have indicated, Beatrice isn’t his. He’d never dream of taking her from her parents.

“Yeah,” Maze says with a shrug. “But she’s yours now too. It’s not bad for her to have the protection of the Lilim.”

“Beatrice doesn’t belong anywhere near Hell,” he says sharply.

“Well duh,” Maze replies. Her expression, eerily similar to Beatrice’s, almost makes him laugh. “But if she needed it, if you called for it, we would rise and protect her. That’s all it means right now. And I guess when she dies, she can have dominion over Hell too.”

“Oh, Dad, no,” he says, folding forward to put his head in his hands. He hadn’t gotten there.

“She’ll be a menace,” Maze says gleefully.

“Shut up,” he replies, massaging at his temples. “Chloe will kill me.”

“She’ll already be dead, and in Heaven, before Trixie ever takes her seat.”

“There is no seat,” he says, sitting straight to glare at her. “Beatrice will go to Heaven, just like her mum.” The very thought of the alternative chills him down to his bones. Hell is no place for the urchin, at any age.

“I’d think she could travel between now, couldn’t she?” Maze asks.

“She doesn’t have wings,” he says. He shivers. Chloe would never—he would never want that to happen.

“Maybe she gets them in Heaven,” Maze says with a casual shrug.

“Will you stop?” he says, panic gripping at his chest.

“Oh, come on, Trix? With wings? She’d be unstoppable. You have to bring me back if she gets them, so she can visit me in Hell.”

“Maze,” he warns, but she looks back at him, something soft and vulnerable there on her face.

“You’ll bring me to visit someday, right? When they’re gone?”

The thought of gone knocks him back. “When they’re gone, we’ll go back,” he says simply. What else would there be to stay for when they’re both gone?

“That’s a long time,” Maze observes.

He opens his mouth, and the door to Beatrice’s room rolls open.

“Lucifer?” Her voice is tremulous.

“Here, child,” he calls softly, opening an arm for her as she scurries around the couch and nearly launches herself into his side. “You’re safe, everything’s all right,” he says, ignoring the way Maze is watching them with wide eyes.

Yes, he’s cuddling Beatrice into his side. Yes, he’s covering her with her favorite blanket. Yes, she’s nearly on top of him, sobbing into his neck. But it doesn’t mean—it’s not—

“Hey, Princess,” Maze says, settling on Beatrice’s other side.

He glares over at her, but the child turns and looks up at her with delight, even through her tears, and he knows he’s done for.

“The Devil and a demon in the house, nothing bad can happen,” Maze promises.

Beatrice nods and grabs her hand, pulling her along as she turns back into Lucifer’s side. Maze ends up wrapped around the girl, her hand resting over Lucifer’s heart, right where the light beats.

“Under our protection,” Maze says in Lilim.

He freezes but Beatrice smiles and mumbles, “S’pretty.”

“Isn’t it?” Maze says, smirking at him.

“Safe?” the child asks once more.

“Very safe,” Lucifer says immediately. “Do you want your mum?”

“No. But stay here,” she whispers.

So they do, the three of them a pile of limbs and soft breathing. Maze worms her way under Beatrice’s blanket and the girl sighs, drifting off to sleep clutching at them both.

“See?” Maze whispers.

He sighs and rests his chin on Beatrice’s head. “Maze.”

“I bet I can teach her.”

He meets her eyes, wanting to forbid it. Nothing of Hell should touch Beatrice. But there’s something in Maze’s eyes, something raw and yearning. And if she really does grow up to inherit his wretched kingdom, she’ll need to be armed with all the tools they can give her.

And Chloe is always saying learning new languages is good for children.

“Not where the Detective can hear you,” he says with a sigh.

“Princess Trixie will kick ass,” Maze says in Lilim.

Despite all his misgivings and the worry that piles on his shoulders every time he thinks about Beatrice’s sudden celestial burden, he can’t help but laugh, just a little.

Maze grins, showing all of her teeth.

Chapter Text

“We’ll be fine,” Chloe insists, her hands braced on the counter. She’s standing, she’s dressed, she’s healthy again. “Really, Lucifer.”

He hasn’t spoken with his mother or his brother in four days, and at this point, his phone is likely to die of exhaustion if he doesn’t. He needs to check on Lux. He needs to deal with the life outside of Chloe’s house. He just desperately doesn’t want to leave.

“If you’re still here when Trixie gets home, she’ll cry when you leave,” Chloe says.

…he wasn’t trying to stall for that, he really wasn’t.

“You need to go deal with your family,” she says, softer. “We’ll be fine. Really.”

“Amenadiel can wait another day or two for my glorious presence,” he says, withering under her appraising look.

Certainly with him there with his family, nothing can happen to her, nor to Beatrice. But it doesn’t seem to help the tightness in his chest. Anger and rage and pain he knows. Worry, and protectiveness, and concern are new to him at these levels. He finds himself off kilter. But she nearly died just days ago. Surely he’s allowed a bit of unease in leaving.

She sighs and comes around the counter toward him. “Lucifer,” she says, her voice chiding. He doesn’t know what to say, and her hands on his biceps don’t help. “I’m fine, Trixie is fine, you don’t need to worry about us.”

“Afraid that’s impossible,” he says.

Her hands glide up to cradle his jaw and he has to fight against leaning in, fight to hold himself upright. Tenderness crackles in his chest and his hands find their way to her hips of their own accord. She sighs and tugs him down until his forehead can press against hers.

“I’m okay,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says, nodding against her. His hands glide around to her back, holding her to him. “I know. I just—” It breaks off in his throat and she hums. He doesn’t know how to do this.

“Go take care of your brother, and Lux, and then come back,” she says.

Relief crashes over him and quite out of his own control, he pulls her in closer. Her arms wrap around his neck, and he curls himself around her in a hug that’s more desperate than he intended. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

He feels her lips press against his throat. It makes him shiver, addictive and tender and wonderful.

“Bring us dinner.”

He laughs and feels her smile, just as she intended. But she’ll have to pull back, because he doesn’t think he can. She stays for longer than he anticipates, her breath warm against his throat, her fingers toying with the hair on the back of his neck.

Maybe if he just stays here, just holds her, she’ll—

“Go, Lucifer,” she says, gently pushing back from him.

He goes, his whole body bereft for the loss of her touch, the echo of her door closing behind him ringing in his ears the whole way back to Lux. But he can come back.

The thought carries him through overseeing the deliveries, the staff rosters, the set line ups for the next week for the club. It’s tedious but comforting work and he finds himself slipping back into it with relative ease. There was a balance, before Chloe got poisoned. He’ll find it again. He’s a quick study.

Of course, then he walks into the penthouse and his mother and brother are there waiting for him, and balance is the last thing he thinks he’ll find. He’s unprepared for the flare of anger that skitters up his spine seeing his mother standing there in the sitting room, smiling like she didn’t try and rip his world apart just days earlier.

It hasn’t left his consciousness, the idea that Chloe was put here, placed here, for him to stumble into. Anger at his Father lives rent free in his head. At the same time, the shimmering feeling of being with Chloe and Beatrice, the rightness of spending nights with them, of taking care of them, of simply existing in their presence does much to outweigh the anger.

His father gave Free Will to humans. He may have intervened to ensure Chloe’s existence, but nothing from that point on could be predetermined. A million million choices from her conception to the night she caught Delilah’s murder could have intervened. A husband, a child, her father’s death—too many obstacles fell into her path for her conception to rankle what’s been growing between them.

But his mother was counting on it ruining them, ruining him.

“You’re certainly the most cheerless welcoming committee I could imagine,” he says, detouring to the bar to pour himself a whiskey before facing whatever remonstration is clearly coming his way.

“It’s been four days, Lucifer,” his mother says, her voice tight.

“Yes,” he agrees, sipping his drink, the bar and most of the room still between them. “And are you recovered? Sleeping well? No dreams of Uriel begging you to remain there with him?”

It comes out like acid, bitter and burning. His dreams, in the scant hours he’s been unable to avoid falling asleep on Chloe’s couch, have been marred by terrible visions. Chloe dying, choking blood and air. His mother and Amenadiel ripping Beatrice from his arms and ascending to Heaven without him. Uriel Uriel Uriel dying over and over and over.

He pours another drink while his mother stares at him reproachfully, Amenadiel behind her, arms crossed, glaring at him.

“We’ve been worried about you,” Mother says.

“I am perfectly well.”

“This obsession you have with playing into the trap set by your Father,” Mother starts.

“The trap you were dedicated to ensuring I walked into just five days ago? You change your tune so often, Mother, I’d think you had preset channels.”

His mother looks at Amenadiel. “What does that even mean?”

“Luci, we’re just worried. This business with Beatrice—”

“Your Nephilim,” Mother adds, nearly spitting the word at him.

“It complicates things.”

“Yes,” he agrees, slamming his glass onto the bar, the tenuous hold he’s had on his control starting to fray. “It does. I thought I made myself extremely clear at the hospital.” They don’t move, just staring at him. “I am allowing your continued presence here only because you went to great risk for them both, but do not tempt my leniency.”

He feels his eyes flare, too tired to hide it. Amenadiel steps back. His mother doesn’t.

“You were emotional,” Mother says, taking a step toward him instead, her face melting into that look of compassion that’s meant to tug at his chest. “But you can’t stay here, Lucifer. You belong in the Silver City, with us.”

He scoffs. “You’re not still speaking of Heavenly rebellion. Been there, done that, big fall. I don’t recommend it.”

“You know why you lost that fight,” Mother says.

“Not enough cardio? The fact that dear old Dad’s slightly almighty?” he offers, sardonic and starting to get a headache, which is saying something with Chloe still across town. “Because I was young, woefully foolish and—”

“Unarmed,” his mother says. He sees Amenadiel shift behind her. “You know that if you had possessed the flaming sword, you would have won that rebellion.”

He stares at her. “What are you talking about?”

“What if I told you it’s on earth and already in your possession?”

“I’d say coming back from Hell knocked a screw loose,” he mutters.

He’s too tired for this. He just wants to change his suit, pack a bag, and go back to Chloe’s. He’d watch Frozen eight dozen times to escape this never ending merry go round of nonsense.

“The flaming sword is Azrael’s blade,” his mother says, another step closer, and louder, firmer, colder. “We have everything we need to go home, right now. To storm the gates and fight our way into Heaven.”

He will not look toward the wall. He will not give them the blade—will not loose it on the world, when Beatrice… He will not entertain this madness. He needs another drink.

“Only you can light it, Luci,” Amenadiel says, not without effort, it sounds like.

“Once you do, we can all go up to Heaven. Even that little…parasite you’ve become so fond of.”

“No,” he says, smashing his glass onto the countertop. It shatters and Amenadiel at least has the grace to jump. “I told you. No one is taking Beatrice anywhere.”

“We can’t leave her here, Luci,” Amenadiel says.    

“You’ve given her power,” his mother adds sourly. “And we’ve seen, haven’t we, what divine power can do to humans.”

“I haven’t given her anything,” Lucifer says gruffly. “I didn’t sit down and decide to tamper with the Detective’s offspring. It just…”

“Happened, we know,” his mother says, her voice softer again, tempting. “But this way, you won’t have to totally leave this little earthly life you’ve built. You can take part of it with you. I’m sure your…siblings would welcome a child.”

Lucifer glances at Amenadiel, whose eyebrows have risen halfway up his face.

“We’ll protect her,” Mother says, holding up her hands. “But you won’t have to leave her, so you shouldn’t feel like you have to stay.”

“No,” he shouts, hands crunching onto glass. “She is not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere. This…talk of rebellions and swords is the way of lunacy, Mum. A one-way ticket back to Hell, for both of us. And you,” he adds, looking to Amenadiel. “All your talk of protecting the humans, about the sanctity of life, and you’re just going along with this?”

“We protected the sanctity of life when we saved your Nephilim’s mother,” his mother says archly. “And we’ll help you with the girl, but Lucifer, please, you must listen to reason.”

"Taking Trixie to the Silver City would be protecting her,” Amenadiel adds. “Left here on earth without you, she’ll be vulnerable to anyone chasing divinity. We’ve seen the lengths to which people will go already.”

"Well, she won’t be here without me, because I am not going,” he says easily.

“You have to,” his mother insists.

“I don’t,” he says.

“Without you, Luci, we can’t go home,” Amenadiel says, moving around their mother now, standing feet away but on her level, two against one. “And without you we can’t hope to light the sword. We need your help.”

“You have to come back with us,” his mother says, plaintive, trying every tone, every way to convince him. “We’ll take your little—”

“No!” he roars.

“Mom!” Amenadiel says, throwing his hand out, like that might stop their mother.

“She is not going anywhere,” Lucifer snarls. “If you so much—if either of you so much as suggests to her, talks to her, tries anything to harm her or move her, I will—”

“We’re not,” Amenadiel says quickly. “We’re not. Calm down, Lucifer, we’re just talking.”

His mother shoots Amenadiel a mutinous look and Lucifer feels himself growl, feels the flicker of hellfire crawling beneath his skin. Mother looks at him and stumbles backward. He doesn’t think he’s gone full Devil Face, but if he has, good.

“This is all just talk, for now,” Amenadiel says. “Lucifer would need to show us the blade, and prove he can light it before it’s anything more than that.”

“Of course he can light it. He’s the lightbringer,” Mother says. “My lightbringer,” she repeats, meeting his eyes, smiling tremulously. “You shine so brightly for those you love.”

“Stop it,” he says, trying to take a deep enough breath to stall the fire beneath his skin. “Just stop it, Mother.”

“I know you can do it,” she says, stepping forward again. “And if you won’t come with us, I know you’ll at least help us, won’t you? You wouldn’t leave your brother and I here forever.”

He takes a deep breath, glancing toward Amenadiel. “We just need your help,” he agrees. “And whatever you want, Luci. We’ll help you with Beatrice.”

He opens his mouth, ready to continue shouting.

“Yes. Whatever you want, darling,” his mother says.

He looks between them. Leaving them stranded here might pose as many problems as sending them back to Heaven. At least leaving them at the Gates would mean they wouldn’t be here to put Beatrice and Chloe in danger. They wouldn’t be here to muck about in his life, upsetting the fragile peace he can barely hang onto on his own.

“Though, I think, when you see the Gates again, when you see the Silver City, you’ll see that nothing here on earth can compare to your home,” his mother says.

“Mom,” Amenadiel warns.

Lucifer laughs, a hollow, wretched sound that bounces around them. He stares down at the broken glass on his countertop. “Heaven was never home,” he rasps. “Hell was a prison. This is the only place I belong.”

“Once we’re there, you’ll see—” Mother says.

“Stop,” Amenadiel says. “Stop. This is enough. Today, this is enough. We’ve given Luci a lot to consider. We’ll meet in a few days, all right?” Lucifer breathes heavily. “All right, Lucifer?”

He slowly raises his eyes to meet Amenadiel’s questioning gaze. “All right,” he says.

“But,” Mother starts.

Amenadiel takes her forearm and guides her back toward the elevator. “Give him a few days,” he insists. “Luci,” he adds as they stand waiting for the elevator. “Just…think about it, all right? We could be happy there.”

He shakes his head and Amenadiel sighs. He guides their mother into the elevator and Lucifer watches the doors close, heart pounding in his chest.

He turns, grabs one of the glasses, and spins to hurl it across the sitting room with a shout. It does nothing to quiet the rage in his chest, the worry, the hurt. He throws another. And another, until the bar behind the counter is devoid of glasses and more than one bottle of top shelf.

He stands heaving in air, feeling like there simply isn’t enough of him. Not enough to help his mother, his brother—to shoulder the celestial burdens that somehow only he can lift despite his fall, despite his banishment. Not enough of him to protect Beatrice and Chloe from his mother, from those who would do them harm. Not enough of him to understand what he’s done to Beatrice, how the simple act of loving her has irreparably scarred her little life.

Not enough of him to explain it to Chloe. To beg her forgiveness. To supplicate himself to her mercy, because if she knows, if he told her, she’d take the girl and run and he’d be here alone. All alone, again.

He’s not sure how long he stands there bent over the bar. He knows he could knock through the wall right now, grab the sword, and be done with it. He could toss it at his brother, tell him to bring his own damn light. Or he could leave it. Could pretend he did away with it, somehow. His brother can clearly keep celestial secrets, why couldn’t he?

He needs someone to ask about Beatrice. He needs answers. But there’s no one to ask. The only person he could—he needs to keep his mother as far from Beatrice and Chloe as humanly possible.

He needs to be so much more than he is.

He phone pings.

He looks up and it’s dark, the penthouse barely lit, the sky black beyond the balcony windows.

He fumbles in his pocket and pulls out his phone. Chloe’s name pops up with a text message: Trixie wants pizza. I desire garlic knots. ETA from Tonioni’s?

A year ago, he would have dropped the phone on the counter and gone downstairs to drown himself in liquor and women. A year ago, he would have pretended not to see her text. A year ago, he was someone else.

But a year ago, he didn’t have a reason to stay on earth.

By the time he arrives back at Chloe’s house, he’s acquired pizza, enough garlic knots for a small army, and a salad. A year ago, balanced meals weren’t in his vocabulary, but he knows Chloe will kick herself if he didn’t bring something green.

He stands outside their door, mostly pulled together. But there are still cracks in his armor.

When Beatrice screams, “Lucifer!” and jumps down the hall toward him he can feel an ache in his chest. She nearly pushes him inside and into the kitchen, where Chloe’s laying plates out on the table. The soft look she shoots his way almost knocks him over.

Beatrice takes the pizza and Chloe takes the bag with her garlic knots and salad and then steps close.

“You okay?” she asks.

He forces a bright smile. “I’m here,” he says by way of an answer.

It makes her smile, but her eyes continue to study him throughout dinner.

She maneuvers him onto the couch after they eat and Beatrice climbs up to cuddle into his side, turning on some insipid children’s television program. She gives him a running commentary he does try to follow, but his eyes keep glazing over.

“Lucifer?”

“It was a…difficult afternoon. My head isn’t very clear,” he says, blinking down at her.

She considers him, eyes combing over his face. “Is something wrong at Lux?”

“No,” he says. “No. It was…my family.”

“Family can be rough,” she says, with the air of repeating something she’s heard but doesn’t truly understand.

“That it can,” he agrees. Maybe she does understand more than he thinks. Things haven’t been easy for his…for Beatrice in the last year.

He doesn’t know if he’s just made them easier or harder, either.

Chloe settles on his other side, and he glances at her to find her smiling sadly at him. She raises her arm to rest her elbow along the back of the couch. His hand falls to rest on her knee and she covers it with hers, her other hand coming to rest on the back of his neck, stroking through the hairs at his nape.

“Your brother?” she asks.

“Certainly didn’t help,” he says, surprised by how boneless he suddenly feels. “My mum has…strong opinions.”

“Moms can be like that,” Beatrice says on his other side.

Chloe scoffs and he chuckles. “Careful, little miss,” Chloe cautions.

Beatrice just grins and burrows into his side.

“Not your mum, though, right urchin?” he says.

“Right,” she says, a little sarcastic.

“Good try,” Chloe tells him. Her fingers on the back of his neck are starting to lull him to sleep. “Can we help?”

“I’m already here,” he says, surprised by the truth of it, by how much it helps to simply sit with both of them.

Chloe smiles and shifts to curl closer to him as well, squeezing his hand.

He could never leave this, could never leave them. 

So he’ll have to figure out how to protect them, and how to get his mother and brother away for good, so nothing ever threatens the peace of the three of them here together like this.

(…)

“This isn’t the way to my school,” Beatrice says, neck turning as she clocks the street signs.

She always looks a little ridiculous in the bucket seat of his Corvette, but endearingly so.

“We are going to a different place of child torture for a visit, a very posh one,” Lucifer says, going for nonchalant.

“Why?”

“Because I need some celestial answers, and I believe you will be the key to giving me access,” he says honestly.

He glances at her and she’s staring back at him, eyes narrowed. “At urchin jail?”

He snorts, can’t help himself. “They teach a technique I may need to perfect. Are you truly upset about skipping your morning classes? Don’t you have maths this morning?”

“Yeah,” Beatrice says, shrugging and sitting back in her seat. “But you owe me.”

“Name your price.”

It comes almost too quickly, “I wanna learn to drive.”

He hums. “A reasonable bargain. Though you’re rather short to reach the pedals.”

“You do the pedals, I’ll do the steering,” she says firmly.

“Done,” he says, rather looking forward to it. “Now, when we get there, we’ll need to engage in a bit of subterfuge. Follow my lead, I’m sure you can keep up.”

“‘Course I can,” Beatrice says.

He shakes his head fondly and speeds up to hear the girl laugh. She’s been quieter lately and it’s a welcome sound. If nothing else, he can show the urchin a good time on the drive there and back.

“Wow, Lucifer, look at the view,” Beatrice says when they finally pull up to the school.

He follows her pointed arm and looks out at the water. “Certainly impressive,” he says, unbuckling. “Now, our bargain?”

“Play along and I get to drive us home.”

He snorts. “Urchin.”

“I drive or no deal, Morningstar,” she says, sounding so very like her mother.

“Deal,” he says. Shouldn’t be too hard to steer around her if necessary. “Now, shall we?”

“Okay!” Beatrice says, beaming at him and hopping out.

He heads around the car and meets her on the passenger side, holding out his hand. She grins and takes it, swinging their arms between them as they head toward the school. It shouldn’t make him smile. She’s often still rather sticky. And yet.

A blonde man comes bounding out of the front doors. “Ah, Mr. Morningstar?”

“Yes,” Lucifer says.

“Hey, Mr. Taylor. You here for the Starford Tour?”

“I am indeed,” he says, giving the man his best smile. “And this little creature is absolutely delighted to be here, isn’t she?” he adds, jostling Beatrice’s hand.

She squeezes his fingers and then lets go. “Trixie Morningstar, nice to meet you,” she says, holding out her hand.

Mr. Taylor takes it, entirely charmed. Clever deceptive little parasite, Lucifer thinks fondly. Her hand slips back into his as they follow Mr. Taylor into the school, letting him drone on about the class sizes and extracurriculars.

“It’s really bright,” Beatrice whispers.

“Yes, rather,” he agrees, taking in the yellow walls that bounce the incoming sunlight from the seemingly infinite windows. “Must be an oven in the afternoons.”

“And lots of kids in the hallways,” Beatrice adds, moving a little closer to him.

It is rather crowded. Shouldn’t all these urchins be elsewhere?

Mr. Taylor turns back to them and they both look over, pretending at attention. “So, usually we start with—”

“Actually, I’ve heard such amazing things about your emotional intelligence curriculum, could we begin with the classes on harnessing emotions, turning them into…productive pursuits, I believe it was?” he says.

“Oh,” Mr. Taylor says, glancing at Beatrice, who smiles up at him with practiced guilelessness. “Is she having emotional issues?” he asks, leaning forward to whisper as if the child can’t clearly hear him.

Lucifer glances at Beatrice. Wouldn’t want to give the child a complex, especially given she’s far better with her emotions than he usually is. Oh, his mother would yell if she knew he was putting Beatrice before her crusade.

Good.

“Sometimes I get really big feelings,” Beatrice interjects. Mr. Taylor looks down at her in surprise. “Mommy says it’s good to have them, but sometimes it’s inconvenient.” The word comes out rather British and Lucifer has to stifle a laugh.

Mr. Taylor looks at Beatrice with practiced sympathy and understanding. “Of course, sweetheart. I think—” He pauses and flips through his clipboard.

Beatrice glances at Lucifer with an exaggerated wink. She almost did it with one eye this time.

He squeezes her hand and they follow the fumbling Mr. Taylor down another long, bright hallway and up the stairs. Beatrice looks around with interest and he finds himself cataloguing things in his mind. There are far too many children loose in the halls, but the class sizes do seem decent, and there’s a fair amount of cross-curriculum lessons that incorporate movement and play—two things he’s sure he’s heard Chloe mention are good for children.

Two things he knows are good for children based on his own research. And how well Beatrice can now recite her times tables while dodging pillows and playing dodgeball with Maze.

By the time they’re seated side by side in the feelings circle, he has half a mind to tell Chloe she ought to enroll the spawn. Then again, the teacher is being awfully cryptic about how to use emotions productively. He needs an example.

A little tap to Beatrice’s leg is all it takes, clever girl, and she raises her hand.

“Trixie, do you have some feelings you’d like to use? I know it’s only your first time.”

Beatrice sits up straight. “Sometimes I feel sad,” she says.

“Why is that?” the teacher asks.

“My Mommy almost died. And my—” she glances at Lucifer for a moment and then looks back at the teacher. “And my step-daddy did, for a little while.”

His breath stalls in his chest. She’s a smart little urchin, knowing the right words for the cover. But something sticks in his ribs with it. Something warm and yearning—like the absurd notion he might like that moniker one day. Could grow even to prefer it to being her Fairy Dad Monster.

“Their job is kind of scary. But they help all these people, so I don’t want to make them have to help me all the time too, so I pretend to be okay,” Beatrice continues. “But sometimes it’s hard.”

The overly perky teacher smiles at Beatrice. “That’s good sharing, Trixie,” she says, her voice too soft, demeanor too calm.

He finds himself reaching out to take Beatrice’s hand. “The price of being clever often seems to be pain, doesn’t it?” he asks her. Beatrice nods and grips back at his hand. He waits until her brow unfurrows and looks back at the teacher. “So, you’re supposed to be quite the expert. How does the child control that pain into something productive to get rid of it?”

“Trixie can channel that energy into something creative, like a poem,” the teacher says, looking at Beatrice with infuriatingly bright and pedantic eyes.

“A poem? That’s supposed to help with existential dread?”

“Or she could draw a picture,” the teacher says, gesturing to the little boy on Lucifer’s left.

“This for $50,000,” he mutters under his breath. Beatrice giggles next to him. “And what are you channeling into artwork, hm?” he asks the boy. “Mad your mummy made you eat your vegetables?”

“No, it’s a picture of my mom killing Debbie,” he says, turning the drawing around to show one terribly drawn figure stabbing another.

“Oh, dear,” Lucifer says.

“Wow. Even Maze doesn’t do that,” Beatrice says.

“Lucifer.”

He and Beatrice turn to find Chloe standing at the back of the classroom.

“Busted,” Beatrice mutters.

He shushes her and stands up, pulling her with him. “Detective,” he says brightly. “Look, Beatrice, it's your mum. Won’t she be proud that we’ve caught the killer?”

Beatrice snickers and leans into his side. “You’re so gonna get in trouble.”

But Chloe doesn’t look angry, exactly. He’s pleased to find more resigned exasperation pouring off of her as they follow her out of the classroom.

“Really?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at him.

He and Beatrice trail behind her. “I thought their emotional training would be useful. Turns out it’s a bunch of claptrap, as reasonably expected.”

Chloe narrows her eyes and then glances at Beatrice. “You okay, Monkey?”

“Yep,” Beatrice says, smiling brightly.

“What did he promise you?”

Beatrice widens her eyes innocently. “Promise me?”

He withholds a grin, squeezing the girl’s hand. She squeezes back twice and Chloe rolls her eyes.

“Just…no more detours,” Chloe says with a sigh.

They both nod and she directs them down another hall. Beatrice keeps hold of his hand even as they make a detour back to the principal’s office to get the information on the stabby mother in question.

“I think throwing knives would be more useful than writing a poem,” she says, swinging their hands back and forth.

“Indubitably,” he agrees, leaning against the wall as they wait for Chloe to come out of the office.

He looks down at Beatrice, who’s staring around the hall, unperturbed. But her words from the classroom still weigh on him. Memories of Chloe’s poisoning are still keeping him awake. Why wouldn’t they keep the urchin awake at night as well? Why wouldn’t it weigh on her little mind like it does on his?

She should have said something.

“Dr. Martin would suggest that talking about those big feelings is likely the most helpful way to deal with them,” he says, thinking Linda will be exceedingly impressed to hear he’s using her advice with the urchin. “And you can speak with me, or your mum, anytime. No case is more important.”

Beatrice looks up at him. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” he says firmly. It feels important that she knows that. “And if you’re ever scared, and one of us isn’t there, you can feel the light, right here,” he says, placing his hand over his heart. “And know that we’ll be there soon.”

Beatrice places her hand over her heart and closes her eyes, smiling. “Okay.”

(...)

It helps that Lucifer seems as pathetic as she feels.

It’s a Friday night, he’s making an appearance at Lux, and texting her every twenty minutes. It’s helping her feel less ridiculous, and just the slightest bit giddy. She and Trixie are ensconced on her couch, snuggled into his ridiculously comfortable blankets, and they’re both pouting.

They were perfectly fine without him six months ago. Could have a fun evening without him in the kitchen making dinner, or his snarky commentary on whatever Disney movie Trixie wanted to watch. They made it by just fine without his penchant for surprise lavish desserts and his mellifluous voice reading Trixie to sleep.

Tonight they’re watching Moana for the thousandth time. Trixie’s been singing along softly, but it lacks her usual verve. Not that Lucifer has ever enjoyed Moana, but his snark about The Rock’s rapping is glaringly absent.

Her phone pings and she glances down at it, biting her lip against a laugh. He used to be perfectly fine spending his nights at Lux, surrounded by debauchery and booze.

I absolutely could sing the whole thing from memory. I’m insulted by your incredulity, Detective. There’s a little devil emoji at the end of the sentence for absolutely no reason, and it makes her smile.

She shakes her head. Prove it.

She puts her phone down and focuses back on the screen.

“Do you think Maui was lonely?” Trixie asks.

“On the island?” Chloe asks, glancing down at her daughter, who’s watching the underworld song with the giant crab with a frown.

“Yeah. That seems like a long time to be alone. And he says sorry later. Don’t you think he would have sooner if he’d been able to?”

“You think Maui would have apologized if he was given a chance earlier?” Chloe wonders.

“Maybe,” Trixie says with a huff. “I don’t like punishments that seem worse than the crime.”

“Well, he did steal someone’s heart,” Chloe says slowly. “But yeah, isolation for thousands of years seems like a very…strict punishment.”

“Nobody should be left alone like that for thousands of years. That’s millennia, right?” Trixie asks.

Why does that sound familiar? “Yeah, it is.”

“I don’t like that,” Trixie says.

“I’m sure Maui didn’t either. But hey, Moana found him, and now they’re on an adventure together. And we know he gets a happily ever after.”

“But…don’t you think it leaves scars, being alone like that?” Trixie asks.

Chloe sits for a second, staring down at her seven-year-old. “Yeah, it probably does,” she says softly.

There’s something she’s missing. Something that’s bothering Trixie. Something that’s bothering her, actually. She’s never given a lot of thought to Maui’s story in this movie, but it’s sadder than she’d thought. Sad enough that it’s actually bumming her out a bit. Which seems…odd.

Her phone pings and she looks down, laughing when a video pops up. It’s Lucifer at his piano at Lux. “Hey, Monkey, pause the movie for a sec,” she says.

Trixie fumbles for the remote and then turns in her arms. “Is that Lucifer?”

“It is. And I think you’ll like this,” she says, turning the phone so they can both watch.

She presses play, unable to stop the smile that spreads across her face while Trixie squeals. Because there, in his nightclub, surrounded by two hundred gyrating club goers, is Lucifer, singing You’re Welcome from Moana, lyric perfect.

He sounds ten thousand times better than The Rock, giving the rap a melody along with the twist of his British Accent. He keeps glancing at the camera playfully, and she can see the people behind him are baffled but delighted all the same. He really can make anything work. She can hear laughter in the background that sounds like Maze. She’s got a pretty steady camera arm.

When he finishes, there’s a cheer from the crowd and he beams into the camera. “Now go to bed, urchin,” he says.

Trixie gasps in outrage and Chloe cackles.

“Rude,” Trixie grumbles, burrowing into her in a clear attempt to avoid bedtime.

Chloe smiles and wraps her arm around Trixie again, holding her phone out in front of her. “Here, let’s give him big smiles,” she says, thumbing open the camera.

Trixie pouts and Chloe laughs, reaching down to tickle her so she laughs. She snaps the photo, the two of them wrapped up in Lucifer’s gray cashmere blankets, beaming for the camera.

“M’not tired,” Trixie mumbles. “He can’t make me.

Chloe smiles and strains to pick up the remote on her other side, clicking the movie back on. “We’ll show him,” Chloe says.

Trixie nods emphatically against her side and goes back to watching the movie.

Chloe sends the photo to Lucifer and waits, carding her free hand through Trixie’s still damp hair. Her little head gets heavier and heavier against Chloe’s side. Sure, when Chloe watches two movies and plays five rounds of Uno, she’s full of energy. But one stern directive from Lucifer and she’s out like a light.

It should bother her, but it just makes her warm.

Her phone pings and she picks it up, that warmth spreading down to her toes. Because it’s not a text from Lucifer, not yet. It’s from Maze.

Chloe stares at the picture of Lucifer, sitting at the piano, the club buzzing around him. But he’s staring at his own phone, his face lit up. She can just see her photo on the screen. He looks entirely besotted.

A moment later, another text comes through from Lucifer: Best view of the night.

She can’t deny it; the feeling in her chest at his simple words is much more than besotted.

By an unspoken mutual agreement, and likely no small amount of trauma, they’ve been taking things slowly since her poisoning. And while part of her is frustrated, yearning and wanting and a little wild, the rest of her feels more treasured than she ever has in her life.

She wants him here tonight to kiss the living daylights out of him. But she also wants him here to chat while Trixie sleeps against her side. She wants him here to watch him carry Trix to bed. She wants him here to chat while she does the dishes. She wants him here to sit with her until she’s falling asleep on his shoulder while he narrates through some TV show she won’t remember in the morning.

She watches the last of Moana, Trixie’s steady breathing where she’s sprawled halfway into her lap a welcome comfort. See, Maui’s forgiven and has a life-long friend in Moana. It all works out in the end.

Trixie snuffles in her sleep and Chloe smiles, carding her fingers through her hair. Her phone dings and she squints down at it with tired eyes.

Sleep well, darling.

He’s not here, but he’s still here with them, and that is something wonderful.

You too, handsome devil.

She sends it quickly, face squinching up. Sometimes she can’t help herself, doesn’t know quite what comes over her when it comes to Lucifer. She’s freer, and sillier, and downright embarrassing sometimes.

But then she gets a string of hearts and kisses back and her heart does a ridiculous little flip. He seems to like her just as she is, single mom, cringy jokes, awkward laughs, and all. She guesses that makes them even, since she adores him, devil-schtick and nightclub shenanigans and all too.

She sets her phone on the arm of the couch and shifts, gently waking Trixie. “Come on, Monkey, time for bed,” she whispers.

Trixie groans but lets Chloe nudge her up, guiding her stumbling back to her room. She laughs when Trixie flops half onto her bed with a groan. Chloe lifts the rest of her up and into bed.

“M’blanket?” Trixie mumbles.

Chloe shakes her head, but dutifully returns to the living room to grab Trixie’s “Lucifer blanket.” Never mind that her bed is perfectly outfitted already. Though she can’t really blame her. Chloe will probably bring her own blanket upstairs tonight too.

She spreads the blanket out over her baby and watches Trixie snuggle into bed, one arm wrapped around Miss Alien, her fingers sinking into the blanket. Her other hand curls up to rest against her heart and Chloe watches as she sinks back into sleep, a little smile on her face.

“Sleep well, baby,” Chloe whispers, leaning down to kiss her forehead before flicking off the light and tiptoeing out of her bedroom.

She rolls the door closed and stands in the quiet of the living room. It’s not that late. She could stay up, could watch something on her own, read a book.

Instead, she grabs her own blanket and heads up to her room with her phone. She slips into a deeply unsexy matching set of flannel pink pajamas and brushes her teeth. She climbs into bed and settles beneath Lucifer’s blanket, thumbing her phone open.

She opens her photo album, lip between her teeth, and lets herself look at all the photos she’s taken in the last three weeks. Lucifer and Trixie in her kitchen, frosting a chocolate cake. Lucifer and Trixie sat on the floor in front of the coffee table, coloring together, clearly in deep discussion over something. She thinks it was Mars. It’s usually Mars.

He seems to constantly have new facts. Like maybe he’s going home and doing reading about it to talk to her kid. Knowing him, he absolutely is, and it makes her melt just that much more.

She smiles at the next photo, a selfie he took of the two of them at the farmer’s market over the weekend, the two of them in front of a bunch of truly enormous melons. Because that’s a thing they do sometimes now—get together on the weekend, go to the farmer’s market, take Trixie to the playground, cook a good meal, and play boardgames until Trixie passes out. And then they sit on her back porch and drink wine and giggle together until she can barely keep her eyes open.

It’s what she’s hoping they’ll do tomorrow.

In fact, she opens their text thread, unsurprised to find he’s sent her a second string of hearts with a little sleepy face. It’s only ten. He can’t possibly be going to sleep now.

She texts: Farmer’s market at 10?

The response is almost instantaneous: Will come bearing coffee. And of course, happy to come otherwise as well.

Chloe giggles, high-pitched and over-loud. Her cheeks flush and she grins down at her phone. Ridiculous, crude, silly, beautiful man.

Down, Satan.

She gets a devil emoji and a kissy face in response and she giggles into her pillow.

Now, go to sleep, Detective.

Feeling a little giddy and ridiculous herself, she opens her camera and takes a selfie before she can think about it. She texts it to him and then reaches out and turns off her bedside lamp.

Her phone lights up a minute later. She bites at her lip and slides her thumb across the screen to pick up Lucifer’s call.

“Shouldn’t you be—”

She hears the opening chords to “Friday I’m in Love” over the sounds of Lux in the background, and then Lucifer’s beautiful voice starts singing, “I don't care if Monday's blue. Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too. Thursday I don't care about you. It's Friday, I'm in love…”

She clutches at her phone, her other hand pressed to her cheek, and listens as he sings the whole song. And then he goes into “Only Wanna Be With You.” And after that, it’s “I Want It That Way.”

He plays her an entire set of 1990’s love songs. She can hear the Lux patrons cheering in the background, can hear the normal sound of glasses and chatter, but she doesn’t care. He’s singing for her, she knows, and when he finishes his final song, a beautiful and lightly haunting version of “Truly Madly Deeply,” she reaches out to press the phone to her flushed, pink cheek.

“Lucifer?”

He hums and she shivers. “Still awake, darling? Should I keep playing?”

She smiles and clutches his blanket to her chest. “That was beautiful. I wish I’d recorded it,” she says honestly.

“Mm, well, you do have a birthday coming up,” he says, his voice rumbly and warm.

She can hear the DJ cranking back up in the background, the vibe switching firmly into Lux’s late-night techno set.

“That’s Trixie,” Chloe says, eyes growing heavy.

“Yes, well. I’ll find one of the silly ones then. National ice cream day, or some such nonsense. Now, get some sleep, so you’re not dead on your feet when your rambunctious spawn wakes you at some ungodly hour.”

“It won’t be that early,” Chloe mumbles.

Strangely, though his singing was beautiful, it’s just him talking that’s helping to put her under. Making her feel safe, really.

“I’ll see you and the urchin at ten,” he says, and she can hear the amusement in his voice.

“’kay,” she whispers.

“Goodnight, Chloe,” he says softly.

She falls asleep with a smile on her lips.

Chapter Text

He lets himself in the front door, surprised by the lack of chaos. Guests are supposed to start arriving within the hour. He expected a flurry of activity, a screaming urchin, a confounded Mazikeen. Instead, the living room and kitchen are empty, and he can see Beatrice and Chloe calmly setting out favors and snacks in the backyard.

He’s not above using the moment to his advantage, stashing his gift for the spawn in the front hall closet before strolling toward the backyard. He snorts as he passes through the doorway, reaching up to snag a rogue penis streamer. Mazikeen may be momentarily absent, but she’s left her mark.

He starts folding the streamer and steps into the yard just as Chloe’s heading back toward the door. Mazikeen’s over by the fence…hanging more banners.

“You’re here early,” Chloe says, smiling brightly up at him.

In jeans and a pretty blue blouse, she’s a vision and he can’t help grinning back at her. He reaches out, wanting to greet her properly, but her eyes stray to his hands and her face goes pinched. “MAZE!”

He hands Chloe the streamer and watches Mazikeen grin back at Chloe while Beatrice snickers on the tire swing. And then the urchin spots him, her “Lucifer!” drowning out Chloe and Maze’s bickering. Mother and daughter pass each other while Chloe stalks toward Maze and Beatrice runs at him full tilt.

He catches the speeding girl before she can slam him about the legs, picking her up by her armpits to spin around in a circle. Her giggles fill the yard.

“Happy Birthday, urchin,” he says, setting her back down.

She grins up at him, wearing a pair of jeans and a tiny Iron Maiden tee shirt that must have been a gift from Maze. Her hair is in braids and her arms are bedecked with two dozen bracelets.

“Thank you, where’s my present?”

He snorts and hears Chloe say something admonishing. “To be unwrapped later. Wouldn’t want all the other presents to feel bad.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s excellent,” he taunts and she pouts. “Now, what ruckus will you be getting up to with your sticky friends, and where should I stand to avoid it?”

She giggles and grabs his hand, forcing him to traipse around the yard to look at the various children’s games they’ve set up. It’s an odd mix of things he assumes Chloe chose (cornhole, hula hoops, and various dress up costumes) and an assortment of child-friendly weapons he assumes Maze either provided or convinced Chloe to amass (nerf guns, dodgeballs, rubber-tipped arrows). It should be absolute mayhem.

“No, Maze, I said no throwing stars,” Chloe says flatly.

Beatrice laughs and drops his hand. She speeds off to return to the house with Maze, who’s grumbling and slipping something into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Please watch her for me, will you?” Chloe asks, coming to join him where he’s wandered over to the drinks table.

“Beatrice?”

“Maze,” she says, running an aggravated hand through her hair, which is down about her shoulders and keeps blowing fetchingly in the breeze. “I don’t want some kid to end up in the ER because she hands Trixie a throwing knife or something ridiculous.”

“Beatrice has good enough aim to avoid such a calamity.” She looks up at him, glaring. “Mazikeen says she has excellent coordination for such a small human.”

“On second thought, I’ll put Dan on Maze duty,” she mumbles.

“Oh, please do, that will be hilarious,” he says.

She sighs and shakes her head before turning to look over the yard. “Does it look okay? Festive enough?”

“It looks straight out of an advertisement for Fisher Price, so yes,” he says, bumping her shoulder with his. “Everything will be fine, Detective,” he adds, noticing her sucking on her cheek like she does when the leads don’t quite add up on a case.

“Thanks,” she says, turning back to him. “And thanks for coming. I know it’s not really your scene.”

The party, no. The Decker residence?

“I’m told it’s considered rude to refuse a child their birthday wish,” he says with a casual shrug. The way she smiles at him tells him he’s not fooling her, but she’s kind enough not to comment.

In fact, it’s almost like she’s leaning in, like she might let him—

“Mommy, Kaitlin’s here!” Beatrice announces, dragging another tiny human out the backdoor with her. This one has a riot of blonde curls and is wearing blue leggings and a neon pink blouse.

“Always thirty minutes early,” Chloe mutters with a sigh. She squeezes his bicep, a fleeting, lovely touch, and then steps forward to greet the child.

The urchin and her friend are already talking up a frightful storm, so Lucifer turns to survey the snacks table. It’s a sorry collection of chips, store bought cookies, the world’s saddest fruit plate, and a wilting grocery store vegetable tray. Well, that won’t do at all.

He heads back into the house, patting the urchin’s head as he goes. Her giggle follows him into the living room and through into the kitchen.

He’s not much for idle chatter with any child other than Beatrice, but here, he can be useful. He passes the next hour cooking, plating, and generally improving on Chloe’s adorable but grossly insufficient party sustenance. No charcuterie board, no mini pizzas, no dip—the Detective is a marvel, and a miracle, but not skilled in the kitchen outside of her father’s signature eggy bread.

Linda and Miss Lopez arrive while he’s pulling cupcakes out of the oven, and both give him smiles. He counts at least six further hellions there to play with Beatrice, along with a few of their parents. They all goggle at him there in Chloe’s kitchen, but he simply keeps going, handing plates off to Linda, Miss Lopez, and a begrudging Maze whenever they meander inside.

“What are you doing?”

He turns with the whisk, reaching for more powdered sugar and finds Chloe standing on the other side of the counter, eyes wide.

“Finishing the frosting,” he says, glancing down at the mixing bowl. Rather obvious, really.

“Lucifer, you didn’t need to cook,” she says. There’s a soft look on her face he can’t quite decipher.

“Well, you had a cake, but no cupcakes, and I thought the urchin would enjoy onion rings, and really, the crudites you put out there would turn off even the most impressive vegan. You can hardly expect children to eat their vegetables if even their parents won’t, Detective.”

“You’re here as a guest,” Chloe says with a sigh, coming around the counter to survey his exploits.

He’s kept everything clean. Always does. He despises a messy kitchen, unless the urchin is cooking with him, in which case he’ll make a temporary concession.

“No wonder all of the parents are crowded around the snack table,” she says softly. “I thought they were all high.”

He snorts and grins back at her. She smiles and then dips a finger down into the frosting. He watches her lick her finger clean, his whole body tightening.

“Trixie!” someone bellows from the front door.

They both jump and Lucifer just manages to catch the bowl before it topples to the floor.

They lean forward to see Daniel pushing a pink bicycle into the house, followed by Amenadiel behind him.

“I don’t believe it,” Chloe mutters, reaching up to brush his shoulder with her hand again before walking around the counter. “Dan, I thought we talked about—”

“I know we did, but I paid for it myself, don’t worry about it,” Daniel says, grinning at Chloe.

Amenadiel nods behind her. “Thank you for the invite, Detective,” he says.

Lucifer feels his eyebrows go up. He’s rather sure Chloe didn’t invite his brother. He certainly didn’t, nor did Maze. They’re united in keeping Beatrice away from his mother and brother, and seeing him here now puts Lucifer on immediate alert. He wouldn’t have brought their mother…would he?

“…of course,” she says, polite as ever. “Refreshments and Lucifer’s culinary talents out on the lawn. Trixie will be happy to see you.”

“Great,” Daniel says, already maneuvering the bike around Chloe and heading toward the lawn with Amenadiel on his heels.

Chloe watches them go and Lucifer watches her shoulders rise toward her ears. He was there for the bicycle argument. Daniel wanted to get Beatrice the best child’s bike money could buy, a week before the party. Chloe didn’t have it in her budget after getting the urchin her own present well in advance. They agreed Daniel would come up with something else, as the bike should be a present from both of them. They agreed on Christmas.

And Daniel has broken his promise. Lucifer could see red.

“Tell me I’m not being ridiculous.” She turns to look back at him, eyes shining. “Please.”

Lucifer wipes his hands and removes his apron, walking around to join her in the hallway. “You got her a wonderful present. Did you already give it to her?”

“This morning,” Chloe says, nodding, her hands opening and closing at her sides. “She was so excited. But the Observatory’s only something we can do on the weekends, and it’s…educational. It’s not a competition,” she adds, shaking her head and closing her eyes. “I should be—he got her something great, I should be happy.”

“He promised you something and reneged. You needn’t be grateful. He’s trying to win her affection.”

Chloe opens her eyes and looks up at him. “I just—”

There’s a delighted squeal and she sighs, pitching forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder for just a moment.

“Be delighted for Beatrice, and then we’ll go find one of Mazikeen’s throwing stars, I’ll print out a photo of his face, and you can do target practice for an hour.”

She snorts and then giggles, pushing back from him. She raises a hand to cup his cheek for a moment. “Thank you.”

He’s not sure why she’s looking at him like that. It’s a sound idea.

But then she’s grabbing his hand and tugging him back out into the yard, despite his protests about cupcakes that need frosting. Beatrice is riding her bicycle around the backyard while Daniel stands with his hands on his hips, beaming.

“She needs a helmet, Daniel,” Lucifer calls.

Daniel rolls his eyes. “She’s fine.”

"Helmet,” Chloe shouts.

Daniel holds up his hands and trudges out toward the front. Beatrice rides up to them and stops, wobbling a little. They both reach out to steady the handlebars.

“I told him,” she says with a giggle. “Isn’t it cool?”

“Very cool, Monkey,” Chloe agrees. “But you always need a helmet, and you have to tell me when you’re going riding, and someone needs to go with you if you’re on the street.”

“Okay,” Beatrice says easily. “Lucifer, I bet you can run really fast. Will you go with me?”

Oh, the damage they could do together. “The Devil doesn’t run behind bicycles, you heathen,” he says, waiting until her face falls just slightly. “But I do have my own at Lux. We’ll make your neighbors rue the day they shushed us for playing hide and seek with Maze.”

Beatrice’s eyes light up and he hears Chloe groan, “They’re going to call me on both of you, aren’t they?”

“Yep,” Beatrice says as Daniel jogs back around the apartment.

“Here,” he says, marching up to them.

The spawn takes the helmet and secures it with a grin, turning the handlebars and riding precariously close to all of their toes before launching off and around the yard, her friends chasing after her.

“Nice party, Chlo,” Daniel says, looking out at the yard with them. “Great food.”

Chloe looks up at Lucifer. He tries to tamp down his smirk. He’ll get back at the Douche come Monday at the precinct, no need to be petty, now.

But Chloe’s smile turns sly. To his surprise, she turns to Daniel. “Lucifer made everything. I had chips and store-bought cookies,” she says. Daniel’s shoulders stiffen and she squeezes the hand she still hasn’t released. “What were you thinking for the cupcakes?” she adds, looking up at Lucifer.

“That was the second batch of frosting. I thought the scamps might enjoy frosting their own. Then the urchin will have a whole cake to herself for the week.”

Chloe’s eyes gleam and she grins at him. “That’s a fantastic idea. Trixie will love that. Do you need help?”

“Oh, darling, you are many things, but good with food coloring isn’t one of them,” he says, laughing at her false indignation. “I’ll take the good doctor or Miss Lopez if you can spare them though.”

“Take Linda, I need Ella for lawn games.”

“We should do capture the flag. Trixie loved that at her party last year, remember, Chlo? Highlight of her day,” Daniel says.

Chloe takes a deep breath and turns to Daniel, but her hand squeezes Lucifer’s again. “Yeah. That was fun. But we should ask her what she wants to do.”

Lucifer squeezes her fingers back and then skirts around Daniel to cross the lawn and purloin Linda from Mazikeen and Amenadiel.

“I could help you,” Amenadiel says.

“Thank you, brother, but you ought to stay here, with witnesses,” Lucifer says, taking Linda’s arm to guide her back and into the house.

“I take it he didn’t clear coming with you?” Linda asks as she follows him back and into Chloe’s kitchen

“He did not,” Lucifer agrees, passing her Chloe’s usual apron and donning his own Kiss the Devil version that now lives permanently in the Decker kitchen. He reaches up into the cabinet to grab the smaller set of mixing bowls, laying them out across the counter. “I believe Daniel invited him, which I…suppose is his right.”

Linda looks around the kitchen, then back out at the party. “It would have been good of him to check with you,” she says lowly.

“Oh, do I detect the good doctor taking sides?” he asks just as softly, passing her a few spoons and three food coloring bottles.

“As your therapist, of course not. I’d suggest you need to be able to speak calmly with Dan about your role in Trixie’s life. As your friend, and Chloe’s friend? It’s a dick move on his part.”

He snorts and gives the icing another quick whisk before dividing it up evenly across the little mixing bowls. “Thank you,” he says, gesturing for them both to add coloring and get to mixing.

“You’ve certainly kept busy today,” she observes, stirring in the blue and then adding a few more drops for a deeper color in her first bowl.

“Playing to my strengths,” he says, quickly mixing up pink and orange bowls.

“I haven’t seen you talk with anyone or sit down at all,” Linda continues.

“Mazikeen and Miss Lopez have the fun-and-games portion of the day handled, and I’ve no interest in…attracting unwanted attention from any of the parents,” he admits.

It’s adorable to see Chloe get flustered when other mothers flock toward him on the playground, but she’s been unduly stressed about the party all week. And he finds, especially here in this house, he has no interest in her jealousy. Not today. He just…wants to be here.

“Well, I’m glad to get some time with you, and I know Ella and Maze wanted to see if they could best you with the nerf guns.”

“Miss Lopez is a fool if she thinks Maze won’t turn on her.”

“I did tell her,” Linda says, smirking as she moves on to her green bowl. “But you should spend some time at the party. It’s not like you to hide.”

He stares down into his bowl of yellow frosting. He’s not hiding. He’s simply making himself of use. It’s easier to keep his hands busy, keep himself busy, than it is to deal with all of the…emotion.

Beatrice is turning eight today, and she’s bigger than when he first met her, and she’s learning Lilim with Maze, and doing well in school, and he can feel the little contented flutter of her heartbeat whenever he’s there in the house with them and it’s all…

“I’m sure Trixie would like you to play some games with her too,” Linda says.

“The urchin and I can do battle any day,” he says, his voice surprisingly gruff. “It isn’t—”

“Lucifer, your presence has been requested.”

They both look up to find Chloe in the doorway to the back patio. “Almost done,” he says.

“Linda and I can set up for cupcake frosting. Trixie wants you on her team for the nerf war.”

“Is Maze also on her team?” Linda asks with a laugh.

“No, she’s giving her to Dan so it’s something close to a fair fight,” Chloe says with a grin.

“And whose team are you going to be on, Detective?” he asks, reluctantly removing his apron.

“Oh, I’m not allowed to play. I’m an unfair advantage to either side,” she says proudly.

Linda laughs and Lucifer nods. “She is a clever little thing. Now, the cupcakes should be cool in about fifteen minutes. There’s frosting in the fridge that needs to sit out, so if you take that out now, it’ll be ready to frost them with the base layer when they’re fully cool. Piping bags are—”

“Lucifer, I know where the piping bags are,” Chloe says with a fond sigh, reaching for his apron. He passes it over, eyebrow raised. “We’ll find them,” she amends. “Now go beat Dan’s ass, will you?”

He laughs and leans down to kiss her cheek. “Yes, Detective.”

She shoos him out and he goes, listening to the lovely sound of the two women giggling behind him. He’d stay and talk with them, but he has a war to win.

“Lucifer!” Beatrice exclaims, springing up to him as soon as he steps outside, two small, but precise nerf guns in her hands. “You’re my lieutenant. I’ve got Kaitlin and Shelby as canon fodder. But Maze has Daddy and Gretchen, who’s a decent shot. You’re going to take out Daddy, and I’m gonna get Maze.”

He nods along, surveying the battlefield they’ve constructed there on the lawn. He’s not sure where all the barrels came from, nor the bale of hay. It looks a bit like a paintball course and he files the idea away for next year. Or perhaps tomorrow. Beatrice, Maze, Chloe, and himself—they would slaughter a paintball range.

“All right. Where do you want me, urchin?” he asks, taking the proffered weapon.

“I think you’ll have to use the tree, you’re too tall for the barrels. Daddy’s going to hide behind one though, I know it.”

He withholds a smirk and gives her a serious nod, following her across the lawn to take their battle stations. He’s glad he divested himself of his coat and vest before starting to cook as he crouches down behind the tree, nodding to Beatrice’s little friends. Canon fodder indeed. His celestial child is a ruthless little thing and he couldn’t be more proud.

Predictably, once Miss Lopez gives the starting call, the other children get tapped out quickly, leaving Beatrice, Maze, Daniel, and Lucifer remaining. Beatrice tosses him an additional clip of ammo—really, where did these come from, and why haven’t they played with them before?

He reloads and peeks out, trying to triangulate Maze. He’ll leave her to Beatrice, as requested, but he doesn’t want to get taken out. He needs to move. Daniel’s behind the furthermost barrel, inching toward the refreshment table. He needs to get closer.

He catches sight of Maze slinking along the ground in the shadow of the tree to climb beneath the presents table. Beatrice fires and at the same time, Daniel slips over behind the refreshments on the opposite side of the lawn. They’re trying to box Beatrice in. Not on his watch.

“Urchin, mind your elevens and threes,” he calls.

“Roger,” Beatrice says, angling herself away from both tables, the clever clever girl.

He glances behind the tree and notes the gate to the alleyway behind the apartment complex. No one said he couldn’t leave the backyard.

He slinks backward and silently unlocks the gate, slipping around the fence and over to the side of the yard, peeking through the slats at Daniel’s back. He could tap the man out right now, but Daniel might call foul. He’ll need to—

A-hah. The wood lattice above the patio sticks out nearly to the fence. He waits for a moment, tracking Beatrice, who’s making her way behind the tree. Maze is peering out from beneath the presents table, distracted and not looking at the urchin. He’ll need to give her the right opportunity.

He lays in wait, poised. When he sees Beatrice’s shadow moving toward the presents table, he crouches and springs up, vaulting the six-foot fence to grab the lattice. As soon as he’s on the lawn-side of the fence, he shoots Daniel with a whoop.

The whole yard turns to look at him and Beatrice strikes. He hears a defeated howl from Maze and grins, hopping down beside Daniel.

“Success, Beatrice?” he calls.

“Victory is ours!” she squeals.

“Foul!” Dan yells, standing up with a glare. “He was out of bounds.”

“I was not. I shot you from right here,” Lucifer says, pointing up toward the lattice.

“Did you win, baby?” Chloe asks, stepping out onto the patio wearing his Kiss the Devil apron to grin at her daughter.

“I demand a rematch,” Daniel says, stalking over to Chloe. “Your sidekick cheated.”

“Really, Daniel, this is very unbecoming behavior,” Lucifer says, meandering over to join them while Beatrice drags Maze up, the demon over-playing it, but clearly truly dejected.

“It does seem Lucifer left the boundary of the yard to get over to Dan,” Amenadiel says.

Chloe rolls her eyes and Beatrice turns to look up at Amenadiel with a frown. “We didn’t say you couldn’t leave the yard,” she says. “You can’t break rules you don’t know about.”

And doesn’t that punch him in the chest, just a bit? He hopes Beatrice never learns that you certainly can. He wants the world only to be fair to the little urchin.

“We won, fair and square,” she adds, looking up at Daniel, who’s glaring at Lucifer. “You’re being a sore loser, Daddy.”

His clever, brave little girl. Chloe’s clever, brave little girl.

“Yeah, Dan, it’s unbecoming,” Chloe says, her voice lilting just a little.

Maze snorts and Beatrice giggles. Daniel throws up his hands and stalks away to get a drink, smacking his shoulder into Lucifer’s arm as he goes.

Chloe’s eyes narrow and Beatrice frowns, but he shakes his head and steps forward, scooping Beatrice up to plant her on his shoulders.

“Victory lap, urchin?”

“We are the champions!” Beatrice exclaims in Lilim.

He blinks, but takes off at a sprint, delighting in her giggles, and confident no one but Maze will know what she said. At least for now.

The rest of the party goes by in a daze of cupcakes, screaming girls, inquisitive looks from his brother, goggles from the parents, and glares from Daniel. He returns to his post in the kitchen, watching Beatrice enjoy her party and chatting with whichever one of their friends has been sent inside to keep him company. There’s only so much childish merriment he can take, and he only has so much restraint. Daniel is cruising for a bruising, but he doesn’t want to upset Beatrice.

“Oh, that’s just mean,” Miss Lopez mumbles, helping him tidy the counter after the mess of the cupcake frosting. Somehow, every single piping bag and spatula ended up flat on the countertop.

“What?” he asks, still smiling at Mrs…Stern, he thinks, and her husband while they make their languid, almost slow-motion way down the front hall and out the door.

“Winking at both of them,” Miss Lopez whispers.

“Oh, let me have my fun. To be a fly on that wall tonight. Think maybe they both learned something about themselves just now.”

Miss Lopez snorts and hands him the last of the piping bags. “Can’t tamp your style, can you?”

“I refuse to be dimmed,” he says.

“What did you do to the Sterns?” Chloe asks, walking back into the house.

Lucifer laughs while Miss Lopez giggles. He takes the trash from Miss Lopez and turns to throw it in the bin.

“Lucifer winked at both of them after smiling,” Miss Lopez explains.

“Ah. Alan’s face was redder than I’ve ever seen it,” Chloe says. “Must you?” she asks when he turns back to the living room.

“I was merely being friendly,” he says, playing at scandalized.

“Ridiculous,” Chloe says, but she’s smiling. “Kaitlin’s mom will be here in a few, and then we’re thinking of ordering pizza, Ella, if you’d like to hang around. Trixie’s got three movies cued up.”

“If it’s the toy movies again, I refuse to watch the third one a second time,” Lucifer says firmly.

Miss Lopez turns to look at him, jaw hanging open. “You don’t like Toy Story?”

“He doesn’t like Toy Story 3,” Chloe corrects.

“Children’s playthings should not contemplate mortality,” Lucifer says simply.

Never mind that he had nightmares for a week after seeing it.

“I think we’re in for either a Renaissance Disney trilogy or the 3D princess pack,” Chloe says. “You should be happy with either,” she tells Lucifer.

“Oh my God, are you a Disney fan?” Miss Lopez asks eagerly.

“If they are the spawn’s favorites of the 1990’s, they have the best villain songs,” he says, ignoring Miss Lopez’s delight in favor of removing his apron. “And if it’s the digitally animated set, well, I appreciate the blonde long haired one’s ingenuity with the frying pan. I keep telling the Detective she ought to send the urchin to school with one, but it’s apparently ‘frowned upon.’”

The doorbell rings and Chloe turns to answer it while Lucifer pushes Miss Lopez out of the kitchen and back toward the yard where Beatrice, her friend, and their little group are still lingering in the fading sunset.

"Boy, she’s got you wrapped around her little finger twice, doesn’t she?” Miss Lopez asks.

“Trixie!” Chloe bellows past them.

Lucifer and Miss Lopez turn to find Chloe standing by the counter with…Mrs. Maitlen, he thinks.

Beatrice and the blonde-haired child—Kaitlin—come traipsing inside, arms around each other’s shoulders.

“Thanks for having me, Trixie. Happy Birthday!” the blonde one says, hugging Beatrice before skipping across the room to her mother.

“Thanks, Kaitlin!” Beatrice says, watching her friend join her mother.

She then turns and throws her arms around Lucifer’s waist and leans into his side. He huffs but doesn’t move to dislodge her, taking in her fraying braids and wide, excited eyes.

“A successful party, child?” he asks.

“Yep,” she says, smiling up at him before looking at Miss Lopez, who’s watching them with complete delight. “Thanks for coming, Ella. Are you staying for movies?”

“As long as that’s all right with the birthday girl,” Ella says happily. 

“Yay!” Beatrice says.

“Why don’t you hug the good scientist?” he suggests.

The urchin just giggles and lets more of her weight lean against him. He sighs and runs a hand over her head when she presses her forehead into his hip.

“Tired?”

“Nu-uh,” Beatrice says.

“You think maybe it was the last bowl of frosting that has you crashing out, Monkey?” Chloe asks, padding over to them and watching Beatrice with a soft smile.

“Nope,” the girl says.

Miss Lopez laughs and Lucifer’s about to ask if Beatrice might like some more Coca Cola, just to see Chloe roll her eyes, when Daniel and Amenadiel come back into the living room. Daniel’s face goes pinched when he spots Beatrice wrapped around Lucifer’s waist. Linda and Maze are still sitting out on the patio drinking wine and Lucifer considers going to join them to avoid a confrontation.

“Are you staying for movies, Daddy?” Beatrice asks Daniel.

Daniel stops glaring to look down at his daughter. “Unfortunately I can’t, honey. I got called in to work a shift. But, I’ll come ride with you after school on Monday, huh?”

Beatrice’s arms tighten minutely around Lucifer’s waist. “Okay,” she says softly.

Lucifer runs his hand over her head once more and then gently nudges her toward her father so he can give her a proper goodbye, for the child’s sake, not Daniel’s. Daniel can go eat rocks for all he cares. They all watch Beatrice walk him toward the front door.

Lucifer looks to Chloe and finds the smile gone from her face, her lip between her teeth.

“Your regular pizza place, Detective?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Chloe says, eyes stuck on her daughter and ex-husband.

Lucifer pulls out his phone and scrolls on his favorites until he finds Chloe’s usual, Mars Pizza. He’s unconvinced it’s the best pizza in the area, but the urchin loves the boxes, so it’s their go-to now.

“Three pies, salad, garlic knots, and mozzarella sticks?” he asks as the line rings.

“Yeah,” Chloe agrees. “Oh, and you liked their zucchini last time, get that too.”

He nods, glancing at Miss Lopez and his brother. Amenadiel’s staring at Lucifer and Chloe in astonishment while Miss Lopez just keeps smiling excitedly. Lucifer doesn’t know what’s so odd about him ordering pizza, nor of the urchin returning to attach herself like a barnacle to his side.

“Yes, thank you,” he says, finishing the call before looking back down at Beatrice. “Dinner in about forty minutes, urchin.” She smiles and then her face goes blank. “What?”

“Did you forget my present?” she asks, her voice suddenly small, eyes impossibly wide.

He tuts and taps her nose. “I told you, did I not, that it would make all the other presents feel bad?”

“Yeah…” she says suspiciously.

He glances out the window. It’s sufficiently dark out. He supposes now is as good a time as any. “Then I suppose we ought to ensure that there are no other presents to sadden. Have you gotten gifts from everyone here?”

Beatrice nods. “Ella gave me a really cool Mars model kit, and Daddy got me my bike, and Maze got me my shirt and a set of—” she breaks off, glancing at Chloe. “Um, pretty nail files, and Dr. Linda got me a new deck of cards with planets on them for when we learn trick taking, and Mend-diel got me a gift card to Barnes & Noble.”

He can’t help looking incredulously over at his brother. “Children always need more books,” Amenadiel defends.

“It’s a very nice present,” Chloe says, stepping up on Lucifer’s other side. “Did you say thank you to everyone, Monkey?”

“Uh-huh,” she says, looking at her mother around Lucifer’s stomach.

“Then I suppose it’s time for mine,” he says with false disinterest. Beatrice squeezes him tighter and he withholds a laugh. “If you will unhand me to retrieve it.”

Beatrice stares up at him with narrowed eyes before slowly releasing him. She follows on his heels as he walks back to the front hall closet, looking outraged when he plucks his gift out with ease.

“It was here the whole time?” she asks.

“Someone was too busy with her party to be nosy,” he says, beckoning her to follow him back into the living room so he can lay the parcel on the coffee table. “Have at it then.”

Amenadiel and Miss Lopez sit down on the couch to watch. Maze and Linda wander in and lean behind them, while Chloe circles around to stand beside him. Her hand comes up to rub at the small of his back.

Ah, he has gone a bit tense. He hopes he hasn’t overstepped, but he’s known what he planned to gift the child for nearly a year. Chloe’s gift was a perfect compliment. He just doesn’t want to overshadow it. But he could hardly keep this from the urchin for another year. Not when he knows how much she’ll—

"Really?” Beatrice squeals, pulling back the wrapping paper to reveal the top-of-the-line telescope he bought on a whim seven months ago.

Chloe’s hand goes still on his back and he blows out a breath—too late to ask permission now. “I figured you’d be learning all kinds of marvelous things at the Observatory with mum, and this way, the two of you could continue your research when you get home. It can of course come to the penthouse as well, though I’m not sure which will have less light pollution.” Beatrice stares at him, hands clasped to her chest, practically vibrating. “Of course, if there’s something you would like more—”

The urchin lurches forward, sprinting toward him. She hits the corner of the coffee table and nearly goes sprawling, but he manages to catch her and swing her up and into his arms before the night can end in calamity.

“Thank you thank you thank you,” she babbles, nearly choking him in her enthusiasm.

He blinks, finding himself rather overcome. “Yes, well, happy birthday, urchin,” he says, patting her back.

Chloe’s hand rises from the small of his back to rest between his shoulder blades, on the edge of both of his wing scars, her nails scratching lightly. It nearly makes his knees buckle, but he keeps himself steady. He turns and finds Chloe looking up at him, her eyes shining. A tear trails down her cheek and his chest clenches.

“If I’ve over—”

“It’s perfect,” Chloe whispers.

He can’t help his answering smile, nor the pride and gratitude and sheer happiness that floods through him. He made them both happy. With a stray thought he had months ago—a simple Beatrice would like that.

“Can we put it together now?” Beatrice asks.

“We can,” he says, making to put her down. She hangs onto him, giggling. “I’ll need the use of my arms, you cretin.”

She giggles more but lets him put her down, grabbing his hand and pulling him away from Chloe before he has any say in the matter. At least Miss Lopez is still here, and game. Among the three of them, it can’t be that difficult to assemble.

He gets lost in talk of lenses, and allen wrenches, and aspect ratios for a while, only vaguely aware of Chloe talking with Maze, and Linda talking…at Amenadiel. Because his brother is just watching Lucifer and Beatrice like they’re foreign animals or aliens.

He doesn’t even register the pizza arriving, too focused on the way Beatrice hangs on Miss Lopez’ every word. Perhaps they should put her into the babysitter rotation.

“Okay, star crew. Dinner, then we’ll set up the telescope outside, and the birthday girl can spend as long as she likes out there,” Chloe says.

Beatrice jumps up and they all follow her to the table, everyone passing paper plates and slices of pizza. It’s domestic and comfortable and Lucifer finds himself sitting back, listening to the conversation going on around him with a sense of deep contentment. It’s no longer a foreign feeling, not in this house, but it is with this many people.

Even Amenadiel seems to be enjoying himself, arguing with Miss Lopez about space travel.

“No, Men-diel, black holes aren’t vortexes,” Beatrice insists.

He watches Amenadiel wince at the name and has to hide his own laugh.

“Thank you.”

He turns at Chloe’s soft words, gripping back automatically when her fingers slot between his. “For what?”

“For all of today,” she says, eyes bright again. “Just…everything. I’m glad you’re here.”

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” he replies.

“Yeah, I know,” she says, squeezing his hand, almost too tightly.

He nods, a bit lost. She just gives him a pressed lip smile and takes a deep breath. He watches her lips part—

“I’m done. Can I go look at Lucifer’s stars, please, please?” Beatrice asks.

They look across the table at the bouncing urchin and Chloe laughs, while Lucifer’s breath stalls in his chest. He didn’t—

“Of course, Monkey. You wanna do the honors?” Chloe asks, bumping his shoulder.

He nods and stands up. “We’ll be back,” he tells the rest of the table.

“No we won’t!” Beatrice insists, shooting back from the table so she can sprint around and grab his hand, yanking him toward the living room.

“Find something really good to share with the class,” Chloe calls after them.

He tuts and carefully lifts the telescope, following Beatrice out the back door and onto the lawn. He sets it up and kneels down, Beatrice right at his side.

“What’s the prettiest star you made?” she asks, breathless and bouncing in place.

He stills for a moment, considering. “I was always fond of Arcturus,” he says thoughtfully.

“Can you find it?” Beatrice asks.

He nods and closes his eyes, orienting himself. He doesn’t let himself feel out into the heavens very often. Doesn’t often like to think of those days when he lit the stars, nor the nights he and his siblings would lay in the Silver City and stare up at them. But he’s never fully unaware of them either.

He stands and reorients the telescope to point west and then kneels back down, looking through the viewfinder. It’s not nearly as spectacular a view as it would be up in the mountains, but it’s still fantastic.

“There,” he says softly, blinking at the blue-white light of his favorite star. “Look right through here.”

He pulls his head back and shifts over so Beatrice can lean her head down and look through the telescope.

“Wow,” her little voice breathes out. “You made that?”

“I did,” he whispers.

She turns her cheek to meet his eyes in the dim light coming from the living room. Her eyes are shiny. He’s making both Deckers cry tonight, it seems. She reaches out and he takes her extended hand.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you, urchin,” he says, his voice thick.

She grins at him before turning her head to look up through the telescope again. She squeezes his hand and he stays there knelt on the grass, watching her look at his stars. It’s almost like he can feel the heavenly light he used to light them.

“Can we see too?” a voice calls.

The spell breaks, and he turns to find Miss Lopez, Linda, and Maze all standing on the patio.

“Yes, come see!” Beatrice says, standing up.

He nods and squeezes Beatrice’s hand before letting go. She looks up as he stands, opening her mouth in protest.

“Show your friends, urchin. You and I can spend the whole night out here tomorrow.”

“Promise?”

“Promise,” he says.

He thinks he sees a spark of her golden glow flit through her eyes, but then she’s turning to Miss Lopez and Linda. Maze squeezes his shoulder as they pass each other, and he nods at her before returning to the patio.

He sees Amenadiel talking with Chloe and pauses there between the lawn and the living room. He turns and looks out at the yard, up at the heavens. He needs a moment for his raw, cracked chest to close back up before he can face his brother. He listens to the hum of Beatrice showing Maze, Miss Lopez, and Linda his stars and tries to breathe.

“You okay?”

He startles, turning to find Chloe at his side. He twists his neck, but Amenadiel is nowhere to be seen inside.

“He said he needed to go. Some kind of family business, but he promised to spare you for the night.”

"How magnanimous,” he says, his stomach clenching. He hopes Amenadiel won’t relay anything he saw tonight to his mother.

“Not that we’d let you leave,” Chloe adds.

“Desperate for more of my company?” he asks, looking down only to find her already staring up at him.

“Yes,” she says simply, before moving forward and wrapping her arms around his neck.

He grips her back on reflex, surprised. But it’s just what he needed as well, and he quickly presses his cheek to the top of her head.

“Thank you,” she whispers again, and he feels her press a kiss to his throat.

He tightens his arms around her. “It was nothing,” he says.

“It’s everything,” she counters, and he feels her breath hitch against him.

He raises a hand to cup the back of her head while her fingers toy with the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“And that’s Ursa Major. The textbook says it’s supposed to be about a bear, but Lucifer says he meant to make it a horse,” he hears Beatrice inform her friends.

Chloe snorts into his neck, gripping him tighter and he chuckles, closing his eyes, content with the stars he has right here on earth.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chloe asks as they drive back toward her house.

He breathes slowly, doing the bloody exercises Linda taught him to control his rage. They work well enough, but it galls him to use them. Him, the Devil, controlling his breathing to work through his anger.

“I know it wasn’t an…easy couple of days. I can drop you at Lux before I go home?”

But it’s worth it, so he can actually speak with Chloe. “No, the urchin is expecting us for dinner, isn’t she?” he asks.

She glances at him, concern clear on her face. “She is, but she’ll understand. You were just drugged and patient-napped.”

“Nothing but a charming story now,” he says. It comes out more bitterly than he expects.

Just another reason not to stay once he figures out how to ignite the flaming sword. Just another reason to part ways from his family. Just another reason to remain here on earth in the life he’s building. Reaching back to before, looking for validation from his Dad won’t get him anywhere but angry.

Hurt, his brain whispers, but he banishes the thought.

“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind not telling Trix about this?” Chloe asks.

“Why not?” he wonders.

Chloe glances at him, giving him a look. “I’d rather my eight-year-old not associate Santa with a malevolent nurse bent on killing her favorite person.”

“I didn’t see Maze there,” he says, proud when she shakes her head with a little smile. “But fair enough. I do have some fantastic stories about St. Nicholas though.”

“Are any of them appropriate for a child?” He hesitates. “I think I’ll stay the authority on Christmas, if you don’t mind. I’ve heard your rant about Jesus.”

“My stepbrother was a nice carpenter with some good ideas. He certainly wouldn’t have approved of what the Catholic Church went on to do in his—”

“I’ve heard it,” she cuts in, a hand up to stop him, her lips pursed in that cute way she does when she gets frustrated.

“Fine, fine, ruin my fun,” he grumbles playfully, feeling himself relax there beside her.

“I wish I’d ruined your fun earlier,” she mutters.

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know that it was the best idea to leave you there. You seem…” She shrugs, glancing at him.

“I’m fine,” he says immediately.

“Yeah, you keep saying that,” she says.

“Do I lie, Detective?”

They pull up to her house and he blinks, surprised. That was fast. Was the facility this close the whole time? Was Beatrice this close to a piece of divinity for that long? If he found it, could others?

“I think you tell me you’re okay too frequently for someone with such a fucked-up family.” He looks over at her, shocked, and she just smiles softly at him. “Amenadiel was…well, Maze invited him over to help me—it was a bad plan all around, but he was really weird about God Johnson.”

“I imagine he was,” Lucifer says.

“And you were…I just want you to know you can talk to me, is all,” she says, reaching out to take his hand.

He stares down at their hands, his whole body gone slack at her touch. Chasing his Father’s approval, when Chloe is right here with him, seems such a silly way to have spent the last few days. He could have been here with her instead.

“I know,” he says, squeezing her hand. “Someday, I do want to tell you,” he admits.

Even though he’s terrified that she’ll up and run. That it will prove too much. That beyond his Devil Face, the reality of just how incredibly celestially fucked up his family is will drive her away. Who would want to walk into it?

He knows he’s been stalling, keeping them in a fuzzy in-between place, not quite just friends, not quite more. But here, like this, is such a lovely place to stall them.

“Come on. Anything you want for dinner, it’s on me,” she says.

“That’s hardly necessary,” he says, even as she pulls away and they get out of her car. “What if I want the thousand-dollar truffle pasta from Margie’s?”

“Then I’ll make you spaghetti with parmesan from the can,” she says, bumping his shoulder as they head up her front walk.

“Such a delicacy,” he says.

He allows her to go ahead of him, giving her the illusion that she still needs the key for her lock, and then crowds her into the front hall, smiling at her little giggle.

“No, you stow your weapon!”

“I made the first command.”

I bow to no command of yours!”

“What language is that?” Chloe asks, grabbing his wrist to pull him into the living room, where Beatrice and Maze are standing on either side of Chloe’s coffee table, yelling at each other in Lilim.

“You will do as I say, foe,” Maze insists, and then looks up, spotting both of them. “Chloe. Judas,” she says in English.

Lucifer blinks while Chloe gapes. “What are you speaking? Trixie, how do you know how to speak…”

“It’s Lilim,” Maze says, staring right at him, scowling.

What the…

“What’s Lilim?” Chloe asks, looking from Maze, to her grinning daughter, to Lucifer.

"I’m doing so well, aren’t I?” Beatrice asks, looking at him, a bright smile on her face, so proud of herself.

He swallows. Shit. “Yes, well done,” he says. Because what else is he supposed to say? No, quiet, child, don’t tell your mother I’m letting my head demon teach you the language of Hell?

“You traitor,” Maze hisses at him in Lilim.

Beatrice spins around, gaping at Maze. “Hey!” she exclaims.

And then his brain catches up. He strides across the room, grabs Maze’s elbow, and drags her to the backdoor. “Excuse us a moment, ladies,” he says.

Maze lets him, but not without raising her arm to sink her nails into his bicep. He grunts and yanks the door open, marching them into the backyard.

“Mazikeen, what are you doing?” he growls in Lilim, because if she wants to speak in her mother tongue, far be it for him to insist otherwise. It’s easier this way, really, after eons speaking nothing but.

“What am I doing? I’m not the one working with the enemy.” She twists his arm to free hers and he grunts and lets go.

“What are you talking about?” he demands.

He’s immediately on alert, watching as she circles him, waiting. She’s got that look in her eye like she does before she pounces. He just wishes he understood what he did wrong while locked up in a mental institution for three days. How he could have gone afoul of her without even being here.

“You and Amenadiel and Mommy Dearest, planning rebellions and reunions. Were you going to tell me?”

That’s what this is about? “Mazikeen,” he protests.

And then she lands the first blow, a ringing slap to the side of his head that has him staggering sideways. Shit, Chloe’s in the house, mere feet away. He’s at a distinct disadvantage here. Maze glances at the house and he realizes that’s why she’s still here. Why she didn’t just storm out. She can hurt him far more than normal.

“Or were you just going to disappear, leave me here to rot and watch over your Queen and Princess like a good little soldier?”

He tries to block her next blow, but in dodging one punch ends up with a knee to the solar plexus. The air rushes out of his lungs and he doubles over. The piece in his pocket feels like hot lead.

“Are you really leaving them behind? Leaving me behind?”

Through squinted eyes he sees her glance toward the door, where Chloe and Beatrice are peeking out, watching them with wide eyes.

“Stop it, Mazikeen,” he demands.

It just gets him kicked in the face. He goes sprawling and then she’s on top of him, a fist raised. “You promised me!” she screams.

“Maze!” Chloe yells.

Her moment of distraction gives him just enough time to grab her hands, holding fast as she tries to pull away. He digs in so she can’t flip them and glares up at her.  

“I have not and will not break my promise. Stand down, Mazikeen.”

“You’re building the sword,” she argues, yanking at his hands, but not trying to headbutt him into oblivion, so he’ll take it.

“To send THEM back. I don’t plan to stay. I’ll deliver them to dear old Dad and then hightail it back here.”

“What?” Maze snarls, breathless.

“I told you. We’re here until they’re gone,” he says, glancing toward Chloe and Beatrice.

She follows his gaze. Chloe’s watching them with a mix of concern and fury. Beatrice is staring at them, half gleeful, half confused, clearly trying to follow what’s going on.

“I promise,” he says firmly.

“You promise,” Maze says, looking back at him.

“Yes. My word is my bond.”

She stares at him for a long moment and then nods once, standing up. She extends a hand and he takes it warily. She pulls him up and they stand there facing each, breathing hard.

“You could have just asked, you know, instead of beating me to a bloody pulp.”

“I hit you twice, you absolute baby. How weak are the humans making you?”

“Are you done?” Chloe calls, exasperated.

“Just one,” Lucifer says.

Maze looks between them. “Wuss.”

He snorts. “Shut up, Maze.”

“That was English, so I assume you’re done,” Chloe says.

They both jump as she and Beatrice appear beside them. Beatrice is looking between them, her head cocked.

“How much of that did she understand?” Lucifer asks, withholding a laugh as Chloe throws up her hands and marches back into the house.

“Not enough to be concerned,” Maze says easily.

“You really got him,” Beatrice says, grinning up at her.

Maze sticks out her hand for a high five, which Beatrice eagerly gives.

“No concern for me, then, urchin?” He asks, rubbing at his jaw.

“Nope,” Beatrice says, smiling up at him. “You’re the Devil. You heal fast.”

“Oh my God,” they hear from the living room.

Maze shakes her head and reaches out to pat his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Dr. Martin would say you should use your words, next time,” he replies.

Maze snorts. “Everything go well with your…undercover operation?” she asks, like they haven’t just been rolling around on Chloe’s lawn.

“Well enough. Actually,” he says, glancing at Beatrice. He doesn’t need anything else attracting attention to this house. “Could you make a deposit to the safe in the penthouse for me while you’re on your way to whatever debauchery awaits your evening? If I can trust you as a co-conspirator in my plans?”

“Hand it over,” she says.

“Maze?”

“My word is my bond, same as yours,” she says firmly.

“All right.” He pulls the piece from his pocket and wraps it in his handkerchief, tying it carefully. “I wouldn’t touch it. Not sure exactly what divinity would feel like to you, but I would wager it’s unpleasant.”

“Noted,” she says, pulling what looks like a ski mask from her pocket (a feat of physics in itself with her skin-tight leather pants). She wraps it a second time and then shoves it back into pocket. “Princess,” she says, holding out her fist.

Beatrice bumps it with her own and then wraps her arms around his waist in belated greeting. Maze smiles down at her and then meets his eyes. She nods once and heads back into the house. They can hear Chloe asking her something, but he tunes it out in lieu of looking down at Beatrice.

“All right, urchin?”

“Maze was really mad at you,” she says.

“She was,” he agrees.

“Are you leaving?” she asks quietly.

He shakes his head and gently pries her arms from around his middle so he can squat down and meet her eye to eye. She looks back at him, biting at her lip, unsure and unsettled.

“No. I am not leaving,” he says firmly. “In fact, I am working very hard to make sure I never have to.”

“You promise?”

There’s so much pain and uncertainty waiting for this child in the world his Father built. This, at least, he can give her. “I promise.”

“And your word is your bond,” she says in halting Lilim.

He and Maze need to discuss what “not enough to be concerned” actually means. “Yes,” he says back.

She smiles and steps forward. He wraps his arms around her on instinct and she clutches at his suit jacket. “You were gone for days,” she mumbles into his shoulder.

“I was, but you could feel that I was still here, couldn’t you?” he asks.

She nods against him. “But it’s not the same.”

“No,” he agrees. Chloe appears in the doorway to the yard, watching them with a soft smile. “No, it’s not.”

He stands, hoisting the girl into his arms and heads back toward the house, smiling as Beatrice yawns.

“I take it Lilim lessons weren’t the only kind Maze put you through,” he says.

“We did self-defense, and Lilim, and math, and knives,” she says, just in time for him to step into the doorway, Chloe only a few feet inside.

“Knives,” she repeats.

“Fake ones,” Beatrice says, raising her head to smile innocently at her mother.

“Uh huh, sure,” Chloe says, running a hand through her hair, now down about her shoulders. “Go finish the rest of your homework, Monkey, and I’ll order dinner.”

“You’re staying,” Beatrice tells him, leaning back to give him a stern look.

“Yes, child. Now, do as your mother says.” He places her on the ground, and she stares up at him for a moment longer before heading into her room.

He watches her go, realizing that for the first time in three days, the light in his chest is quiet. He worried her.

“Do I want to know what any of that was?” Chloe asks.

He looks over and finds her watching him with her arms crossed. “Probably not,” he says honestly.

“Okay,” she says, shaking her head. “Dinner? You still want that thousand-dollar pasta?”

He laughs and follows her over to the kitchen to peruse her stack of take-out menus. “Has the urchin wanted anything in particular?” he asks, Beatrice’s worried light weighing on him more than he expected.

It wasn’t that he didn’t notice, he just…gave his not-Father precedence.

But his Father won’t ever be here. Beatrice is. Chloe is. And she’s staring at him, her mouth parted, eyes crinkling.

“What?”

“She asked for Arturo’s, the first night you were in inpatient, but it was late, and then she was with Dan.”

“Well, that’s easily remedied,” he says, pulling out his phone and flicking to his favorites. He holds the phone up to his ear as he waits for the front house to pick up. “Vodka pasta for the spawn with extra garlic bread and the mozzarella sticks. Want your usual?” he asks.

Chloe just nods, leaning against the counter to watch him,

“Yes, this is Lucifer Morning—”

“Mr. Morningstar! Yes, what can we get for you, sir? Still at the apartment on Strongs Drive?”

“I am. Good evening, Jasmine.”

“Good evening, sir! The usual? Or are you and the ladies trying something else tonight?” she asks.

He never thought having a standing order at a restaurant half the city from his penthouse would make him feel so peaceful. “Yes, thank you. And could we add two slices of the chocolate cake, one cheesecake, and the roast chicken salad?”

“Of course. Chef Raymond also recommends the berry cobbler, if you’re not too full up on desserts.”

“Oh, why not?” he says, smiling as Chloe shakes her head at him. “You have my card, yes?”

“We do, sir,” she says.

“Excellent. And a forty percent tip for you, Jasmine. Don’t forget, or I’ll have to come down myself.”

“Is that a promise?” she asks.

He chuckles. “Not of that kind, no.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t ever presume, sir. We know you’re very taken. But Chef Raymond wouldn’t mind a visit.”

“Ah,” he says, ridiculously pleased somehow. “Well, perhaps in the next few weeks I can convince the ladies to accompany me for an in-person meal. Tonight, however, we’d appreciate your speediest delivery.”

“Ernie will be there within the half hour, Mr. Morningstar. You have a good night.”

“You as well,” he says and hangs up. “Thirty minutes or so,” he tells Chloe. “Could I get you a glass of wine, Detective?”

She nods, watching him as he walks into the kitchen and reaches into her cabinet for the good bottle of Cabernet he brought over the previous week. He pours them two glasses and turns to find her still there against the counter, smiling at him like he’s done something important.

He hands her a glass, confused. From her perspective it must have been a rather chaotic return to the house. She takes the glass and places it on the counter before walking forward. He backs up, surprised, until his back hits the refrigerator. She plucks his glass from his hand and leans around him to put it back on the counter, pressing herself up against him.

“Detective?” he asks.

She smiles and leans back into him while his breath stutters in his chest. She raises a hand to cup his cheek and then lifts onto her toes to press her mouth to his, her other hand coming to anchor on his waist. He fumbles for a moment and then manages to settle his hands, letting one skate back to cradle the base of her skull, his other spreading across her ribcage.

He thinks his brain might have short circuited. Because there’s no way she’s kissing him in her kitchen right now. No way her soft mouth is moving so languidly over his. No way her breathy little moan is making him clutch at her. No way her tongue is slicking across his bottom lip. No way she’s this magnificent, and in his arms, and all over his senses and—

“Oh!”

Chloe pulls back but doesn’t leave his arms, both of them wincing.

“Sorry!” Beatrice squeaks.

Chloe lets her head drop, her forehead pressing into his chin as he watches the urchin scurry back into her bedroom.

“Whoops,” Chloe whispers, her hand stroking at his cheek as she pulls back to look up at him.

“What was that for?” he asks, his curiosity getting the best of him.

She smiles and arches onto her toes to press a fast kiss against his lips. “Because you know our order by heart, and you’re worried about Trixie, and even though you and Maze are teaching her some language I’m pretty sure is biblical, she’s never been happier, and I’ve—” She breaks off, biting her oh-so-kissable lip.

“I’ve never been happier either,” he says. It’s the truth and it comes so easily, so naturally, so surely.

Her eyes light up and she lists back into him, letting him grip at her and slant his mouth over hers again. Her other hand rises, gripping into his lapel, pulling him as close as she can get him like this. He thinks his heart might beat right out of his chest. He’s had thousands of kisses across the eons, but nothing like this. He loses himself for a long time, content in the pleasure of the moment, searching for nothing more. What more could he want?

A giggle splits the silence and they pause against each other. Chloe pulls back just by a breath and laughs. “I’ll just,” she says softly.

“The child can entertain herself,” he says gruffly, hanging on even as she leans back to meet his eyes.

“Food will be here soon. And we,” she says, her fingers falling to brush against his pulse. He shivers and her eyes spark. “Can continue this later.”

“Promise?”

She grins up at him. “Promise.”

And then she’s gone, scampering toward Beatrice’s little face, leaning around the doorway. Beatrice squeals and goes running back into her bedroom. Chloe chases after and he stands there, what he’s sure is a ridiculous smile spreading across his cheeks.

Of course, Amenadiel calls him an hour later to demand he return to Lux to discuss the sword, just when they’re settling in to eat their dessert on the couch, Beatrice and Chloe tucked on either side of him.

“Brother, we can discuss this tomorrow,” he insists while Chloe nods emphatically at him.

“If you don’t come back, Luci, Mother is going to come there.”

Lucifer stills and Beatrice looks up at him, her brow furrowed. He leans forward awkwardly to place his cake on the coffee table before wrapping his arm around the little girl.

“She cannot come here,” he says firmly.

Chloe presses herself against his side beneath his arm. He has to hold his phone at an absurd angle to make room for her, but he’s certainly not going to move her.

“Then you have to come back,” Amenadiel says.

“It’s—I just spent three days—I implore you, ask her to wait until the morning. I can give her as much of the day as she needs,” he says, scrunching his eyes closed. That will mean he can’t be at the precinct with Chloe, but better that than his mother showing up at her house.

“Luci, she’s going to tear your apartment apart, and then go there and tear Chloe’s apartment apart until she can see what you found.”

“Why does she even know about it?” he asks.

“She saw it when you were trying to parent trap her.”

He leans his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “Right. Shit.” Beatrice gasps playfully and Chloe pokes him in the stomach. “Yes, yes, I owe the child a dollar,” he grumbles.

“Luci,” Amenadiel admonishes.

“Brother, you are interrupting my evening, not the other way around.”

“You need to come back, now,” he says.

He blows out a slow breath. “All right. But you stay there, and keep her there, at least until I return.”

His brother can’t control their mother, but at least since Beatrice’s birthday party he’s had the grace to help shield Chloe and Beatrice from her…with prompting.

“Amenadiel?”

“Yes, Luci.”

The call clicks off and he remains glaring up at the ceiling for a moment before raising his head to find two disappointed pairs of eyes looking up at him.

“My sincerest apologies, ladies, but it appears if I don’t return to the penthouse, we’ll be receiving an…irate visit from my mother, and none of us wants that, believe me.”

“But,” Beatrice starts.

“Trixie, baby, if Lucifer needs to go home, we need to let him,” Chloe says. “If he could stay, I know he would.”

“Believe me,” he says, smiling down at Beatrice. “I would much rather be here.” He cuts his eyes to Chloe’s and she heaves a sigh, nodding at him. “I am sorry.”

“Not your fault,” she says. “We’ll save your cake.”

“Maybe,” Beatrice says grumpily.

He laughs and lets Chloe sit up. Beatrice doesn’t move and he jostles her a little. “We can have a raincheck tomorrow, urchin.”

“Nu-uh. It’s Daddy’s weekend,” Beatrice says, looking up at him. “Are you sure you have to go?”

He glances at Chloe and then looks back at Beatrice. “I have to keep you safe. But I’ll be just fine,” he says in Lilim.

Beatrice’s eyes widen and then she nods. She pushes her cake precariously onto the coffee table and wraps both arms around him. “You be safe too,” she says.

How has Maze taught her this much Lilim in a month?

“I will,” he says, running his hand over her head before gently pushing her back so he can stand up.

“Do I get to learn the secret bible language, or is this a blood pact thing?” Chloe asks as she takes his hand to lead him toward the door.

“Honestly not sure it’s something I can teach. You’d have to take it up with Maze,” he says.

“That makes no sense,” she says, frowning up at him. “Not that anything really does these days.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he agrees, unsure if he should lean down, unsure of where they stand.

He hopes she knows he wouldn’t leave unless he absolutely had to.

“No,” she agrees, before lifting onto her toes, one hand on his shoulder to steady her as she presses a chaste kiss to his mouth. “But that does,” she whispers as she pulls back.

He smiles and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes.”

“Go, before I decide to keep you here to yell at your mother.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says, laughing as she swats at him.

He ducks out the front door, making sure to hear it close and lock thoroughly behind him, before heading for the street, where he’ll have to catch an Uber back to his apartment. It should be a relief, to return to his own home, but somehow, it’s the last place he wants to be tonight, and not just because he has no desire to go four rounds about divine relics.

No, he wants to be back on Chloe’s couch, getting slowly covered in chocolate. Putting Beatrice to sleep. Kissing Chloe until the morning.

Maybe it’s time to stop stalling. He knows he wants to stay. Knows what matters most. Knows what and who he wants. And so, it seems, does Chloe.

Maybe it’s time to start moving forward.

(...)

“Of course, girls’ night is just what we need,” Chloe says through gritted teeth.

Ella bounces on her toes. “Excellent! We all drink free at Lux, right, Lucifer?”

“Of course,” he says, sounding as sour as Chloe feels.

“Fantastic. Texting Linda and Maze now,” Ella says, grinning at them before turning her attention to her phone.

“Right, well, see you tonight, then,” Chloe says, grabbing Lucifer’s cuff to drag him out of Ella’s lab.

They stand together on the other side of the door and she looks up to find him just as frustrated as she feels.

“Sorry,” she says, sheepish. She’d wanted—well, she’s not sure what her plan was, but it definitely wasn’t girls’ night. Something private, something just the two of them, something potentially much more…naked than what they’re about to get.

“Hardly your fault, Detective,” he says, offering a smile despite the resignation in his voice. “And I suppose getting to watch you and the ladies get absolutely smashed is some consolation.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. “I will not be getting smashed.”

“No? Pity. I planned to get you bottle service, but if it’s not of interest,” he says, turning as if to walk away from her.

She keeps hold of his cuff and rolls her eyes. “Bottle service would be great.”

“Would it?” he asks, stepping back toward her, far too close for workplace behavior. “Anything else I can do to make the evening more enjoyable?”

She lets her eyes fall to his lips, just for a moment, before meeting his eyes. He’s a little slack jawed. It gives her a thrill to think she can affect him just like that. “Save me a dance or two?”

“Your wish is my command.”

His voice cuts through her, warm and delicious and she fights against a shiver. “Everything go all right when you got home last night?”

“Everything was fine,” he says, all that intention shuttering away. “Ridiculous to force me back for a conversation that surely could have waited, but—” He breaks off to adjust his cufflinks. It’s one of his cuter nervous habits and it makes her smile. “I’ll make it up to the urchin.”

“I know you will,” Chloe says, delighting in the way his face softens.

“And make it up to you,” he adds after a moment. “If that’s still something you—”

“It is,” she says quickly.

“Good,” he says.

“Good,” she agrees. They stand there staring at each other for a moment until a soft giggle breaks their lightly giddy silence.

“She can’t be here, she’s in spawn detention,” Lucifer mutters.

Chloe laughs and glances back into the lab, where Ella is standing with her phone up, clearly taking a picture of them through the shades.

“Work?” Chloe suggests, sticking her tongue out at Ella before grabbing his elbow.

“Right,” he says.

She guides them back to her desk and they sit down together. She reaches for a folder, watching in amusement as he does the same, until he seems to come back to himself.

“Coffee?” he asks.

“Please.”

He nods and stands up, spinning around once before heading toward the breakroom. She presses her palm to her cheek and turns her face into it to hide her smile, lest anyone else get the bright idea to take pictures of them before there’s even anything to take pictures of.

Not that she didn’t lie awake last night staring at her phone until past 2am, wondering if she should just call him. But she didn’t want their first time to be over the phone. She’s not even sure they’ll sleep together just yet. He’s been remarkably slow for a man she kissed over a month, one poisoning, and multiple cases ago.

But still. Maybe tonight will be something, at least.

(...)

She spends the first hour of the night pretending not to look for Lucifer.

They’re ensconced in the big booth to the side of the dance floor, Ella, Maze, and Linda all two drinks in within the first half hour. Chloe thinks Johnny’s been assigned to wait exclusively on their table, because he appears seemingly every five minutes to top them up, bringing them napkins, and bar snacks, and water. No one else has touched the water, but she smiles at him in thanks, still nursing her first Cosmo.

“Have I said how good you look?” Ella asks for the third time.

Chloe can’t help but laugh. “You have.”

“Many times,” Maze adds on her other side.

“Well you do,” Ella insists.

Chloe smiles into her drink. It’s not her best little black skirt, but it’s one of them. And she knows the plunging red lace blouse does a lot for her. But Ella’s attention is not what she’s been looking to court, nor Maze’s. Though it is something for Maze to look impressed.

She’s in a skin-tight leather number with multiple cutouts and getting stares from most of the bar. Honestly, their whole table looks good. Ella’s in a gold dress she’s never seen before with her hair gathered over one shoulder, and Linda’s wearing a tight pink dress Chloe assumes she wore to the office, but it’s making the day-to-night transition very well.

Still, Chloe can’t help scanning the room. He’s almost a head taller than everyone, how hard can it be to find him in the crowd?

“Looking for someone?” Maze asks, smirking across Ella at her.

“No,” Chloe says quickly.

Her phone buzzes and she glances down to see a text from Lucifer: Did you know red is my favorite color?

She looks up, searching the dance floor again, the bar, and then the staircase and balcony, but she can’t see him. Which is really annoying. She’s a Detective; this should be easy.

“Who ya texting?” Ella asks.

“No one,” Chloe says quickly.

 Linda and Ella exchange a glance and then Maze is reaching across and snagging her phone. Chloe grabs for it, but Maze passes it to Linda, who grins down at the screen she hadn’t thought to lock.

“Oh, Decker, you are done for,” Maze says.

“What?” Chloe asks, going for nonchalant.

“I don’t see him,” Ella says, eyes scanning the club. She’s leaning across Maze, who’s barely blinking at the intrusion, and all three of them are grinning.      

“Give me back my phone,” she demands, holding out her hand.

“Oh, wow,” Linda says, scrolling. Scrolling.

“Linda!” Chloe protests.

“Woooow, Decker, you guys are sappy,” Maze says, reading over Linda’s shoulder.

“Aw,” Ella adds.

Chloe groans and buries her face in her hands. “Give it back,” she moans.

“Oh my God, you guys do good night texts!” Ella squeals.

“Linda, you’re his therapist, this must be a violation,” Chloe beseeches, looking through her fingers at her friends, who are just beaming playfully back at her.

“Not a therapist tonight. Not your therapist. Just a very interested friend. Oh, Go—man, is that an eggplant?”

Okay, this is getting to be too much. “It’s an actual eggplant. He went to the farmer’s market with Trixie and wanted to know if they looked ripe. Give it back!” she says, getting her feet under her in the booth so she can kneel and lean over the table.

“And the filthy message afterward?” Maze asks, taking the phone from Linda to hold it over her head while Ella playfully pushes Chloe back.

“Is because he’s him. Come on, guys, please give it!” she says, still reaching even though Ella’s holding her off with her foot. On her pretty blouse.

“I’ll take that, thank you.”

A hand reaches over the back of the booth and plucks the phone from Maze’s hands. Chloe looks up, sagging in relief to find Lucifer leaning over, a hand braced on the back of the booth, smirking at Maze and Linda’s glares. Chloe holds out her hand, but he doesn’t hand over her phone, choosing instead to sidle around to her side of the booth and scoot in next to her.

His body is warm, and large, and so wonderfully there that she barely notices him slipping her phone into his pocket. Almost.

“Lucifer,” she protests.

He leans his head down to speak huskily into her ear, “And where are you going to put it, exactly, in that delicious outfit, darling?”

She shivers, ignoring the way her friends are just openly gaping at them. “I have a purse,” she manages, her voice almost entirely steady.

“But you’re not going to wear that when you join me on the floor, are you?” he asks.

“No,” she replies, feeling her cheeks flush when his palm lands warm and heavy on her thigh where her skirt has ridden up.

“So, I’ll hang onto it, lest these vultures continue violating your pretty privacy.”

“They were, weren’t they?” she says, glaring across at her friends.

Linda and Ella have the grace to look embarrassed. Maze is just watching them with a surprisingly soft smile, which she drops the moment Chloe notices.

“Come dance?” Lucifer asks.

“Please,” Chloe says, mourning the loss of his hand on her thigh until he pulls her from the booth and that hand lands broad against the small of her back.

He brings her onto the dance floor, something pulsing and low thrumming through the club. It’s nothing like their other times dancing. His hands pull her close, his leg slides between hers, fitting them tightly together. She glides her hands up his chest to twine around his neck, staring up into his eyes as he rests his forehead on hers.

The look in his eyes has her breath shallow and heat spilling up her neck. She’s never touched so much of him all at once. It’s almost intoxicating. So much so that she doesn’t care that her friends are taking pictures of them, or that there are people staring at them all around the floor. She just breathes in the mix of his cologne, just focuses on the rise and fall of her chest pressed to his. His pulse jumps beneath her thumb when she glides a hand to splay against his throat.

“Have I said how ravishing you look this evening?” he asks, his voice low and soft somehow even though he’s half shouting.

“No,” she says, smiling as he narrows his eyes. In fairness, he hasn’t—not that she needs the words when he’s looking at her like that.

“Well, you are temptation incarnate. Beautiful beyond measure,” he says, his hand slipping down, coming to land low on her back.

The music changes over to something slow and smooth. He spins her, that hand resting low on her stomach as he curls around her. She wraps one arm around his forearm across her body, letting the other snake back to tangle in his hair. He ducks his head, lips skating up her throat and her knees nearly buckle.

“I’d drag you upstairs if it wouldn’t be rude to your friends,” he says, his lips against her ear.

She shivers, gripping at his hair. He groans and it’s like the sound shoots right down to her toes. “They’re your friends too,” she manages.

“Not tonight they’re not.”

She opens her eyes—when did she close them?—and sees said friends goggling at them. Maze still has her phone up, but Linda and Ella are just watching them, mouths gaping. It makes her laugh, which makes him laugh. And then his lips are at her throat again and she sighs, tipping her head to the side to give him more purchase.

People around them are still staring too. Women glaring at her, men glaring, gaping, watching. It shouldn’t give her a little thrill, but it does. Lucifer Morningstar is wrapped around her, clutching her like he’ll never let go. It does something to her. Her fingers tighten in his hair and he moans softly against her ear before raking his teeth over the lobe.

She really does lose her knees at that, but he holds her up, chuckling against her ear.

Either they need to stop, or she needs to drag him upstairs.

When the song ends and a faster, thumping orchestral song starts up, she turns in his arms to meet his eyes again. His pupils are blown wide, face hungry. She wants to take him upstairs right now, screw girls’ night. His hands are on her ass, gripping, like if he could, he’d lift her up, wrap her around him, and carry her there immediately. His hair is in disarray, his natural curls starting to peek through.

“I’ve ruined your hair,” she says.

He blinks, not really expecting it either, and then smiles at her, tenderness pushing through lust. She smiles back, reaching up to frame his face with her hands. He leans down, and then his lips are on hers, perfect and bright and not enough.

There’s a loud wolf whistle and she feels one of his hands leave her. She pulls back just enough to see he’s holding up his middle finger toward Maze. She laughs and buries her face in his chest, feeling the rumble of his laughter beneath her cheek. 

“Am I a good devil or a bad devil this evening, darling?” he asks.

Chloe leans back to meet his eyes, and then the thumping music passes and “I Got a Feeling,” pours out of the speakers. She hears a squeal and closes her eyes for a moment.

“Reluctantly, a good devil,” she says, opening her eyes to meet his rueful grin.

And then they’re beset by Ella and Linda, Maze following behind, all of them dancing madly. It’s not what the desire coiled tight in her belly wants, but the sight of her friends dancing still manages to pull a smile from her. And Lucifer stepping back to take her hands and twirl her out and back makes her laugh.

They pass Lucifer around giddily. He bops Linda around to “It’s Not Unusual.” He and Ella nearly clear the floor with “La Bamba.” She didn’t know Ella could do lifts like that, but she’s freaking majestic, and Lucifer makes for an excellent partner.

When he and Maze swing dance to “Highway,” which shouldn’t work, they’re almost magnetic.

“Damn, I guess that’s what eons working together can do,” Ella says as they stand watching.

Lucifer says something quietly and then shoots Maze between his legs. She pops up behind him and then literally leapfrogs the seven feet over his head.

Linda, Chloe, and Ella all stare, as does half the club.

“Holy crap, that’s cool,” Ella says.

“I didn’t know she could do that,” Linda adds.

But it doesn’t surprise Chloe. She doesn’t know exactly what their relationship really is. Ella’s got Lucifer’s story down to a T, but whatever they really were, however they really were, it’s clear they adore each other. Even if they do routinely beat each other up and yell in other languages. She can’t imagine two better people to have looking out for her daughter.

Or for her, she realizes, when Maze pushes Lucifer back into her arms with nothing more than a pat on his back. She grins at Chloe and hooks her arms around Linda and Ella’s shoulders to guide them back to their booth.

Lucifer’s breathing a bit heavily, but grins at her, sweeping her back into his arms to give her a more athletic turn around the floor, following up his dance with Maze with an energetic pass at “Sing Sing Sing.” She doesn’t know who’s running the DJ stand tonight, but they’re doing a fantastic job.

She grins into his shoulder as they dance, laughing in delight as he lifts her and spins her around. She’s not as graceful as Ella, nor as sure-footed as Maze, and she’s sure she doesn’t look quite as elegant as Linda, but he only smiles like this for her. He only laughs like this for her.

“Having fun?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, pressing a fast kiss to his cheek before he spins them around again. “You?”

“Very much,” he says, eyes dancing as the song winds to a close and “I Get a Kick Out of You” pours out of the speakers next. He pulls her close and rests his lips against her temple as they sway together. “You lot should come out more often.”

“I think so too,” she agrees, squeezing his hand. “Are you gonna play for us?”

Not that she wants to relinquish the feeling of his arms around her. But at the same time, it’s one of her favorite things, hearing him sing.

“If you want,” he says.

“Please,” she says. “After a few more dances?”

He bends down and feathers his lips over hers. “Of course, Detective.”

They dance for another hour, and then she sits beside him as he serenades the club, watching Linda fall asleep against Maze’s shoulder. Ella leans forward, utterly enchanted with Lucifer’s performance. Chloe rests her head on his shoulder, ignoring the way people are staring at them. She gets lost in his voice and the rise and fall of his chest.

When he finishes his final song, a soft, melodic version of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” that has the whole club smiling, he turns and looks at her while everyone claps.

“You look dead on your feet,” he says fondly.

 “Nu-uh,” she whispers, clutching at his arm.

He laughs and gently moves her, wrapping his arm around her and standing to guide her over to their booth, where Linda’s now passed out in Maze’s lap. Chloe leans heavily into his side, arms wrapped around his stomach.

“Slumber party?” Lucifer asks, looking between Linda and Ella, who’s staring up at him a bit dreamily.

Maze snorts. “You get them upstairs, I’ve got the doctor.”

It’s not the ride up to the penthouse she imagined when they started dancing. But somehow watching Lucifer tuck Ella onto the lounge, with Maze covering Linda on the opposite side of the couch is entirely lovely anyway. Chloe leans against the piano, trying valiantly to hold herself up. She didn’t even drink that much.

Lucifer tuts at her and comes over to steady her. Maze watches them from the sitting room.

“The guest room is yours, Mazikeen, unless you want to stay in your old apartment,” Lucifer says. Maze glances at Chloe. “I’ve got her,” he says softly.

Maze nods once and heads toward the hallway off the bedroom. “Great girls night, Decker.”

“Yeah,” Chloe agrees, leaning into Lucifer.

She clicks her way down the hall and then they’re alone in his sitting room with Linda and Ella snoring softly on the couch.

“Come to bed, darling?” he asks.

She nods and lets him guide her up and into his bedroom, collapsing on his incredibly soft mattress with a groan. He laughs and pulls off her shoes, nudging her toward the center of the bed.

She looks down at her shirt, frowning at the buttons. Her fingers feel clumsy, but she wants to be comfortable. It takes a minute, but with a triumphant “hah,” she tosses her shirt to the floor and then looks up to find him watching her with wide eyes.

“What?” she asks, unzipping her skirt to wriggle out of it.

“Chloe,” he chokes out.

She blinks back at him, confused.

Oh.

But this is so much less than she wanted last night, than she wanted this morning. Than she wants at every moment with him every day.

They can’t take that next step tonight, but she still wants to feel as much of him as possible. And she’s so tired of waiting. She wants him. She wants this—nights dancing with their friends, nights playing boardgames with her daughter, nights with the two of them just alone together. She wants all of it, all of him.

So she smirks and tosses her skirt at him and then burrows beneath his blankets. She nuzzles into his pillows. They smell like him. She’s going to sleep so hard snuggled into his bed with him wrapped around her.

But after a minute she doesn’t hear or feel anything, so she slits her eye open, peering up at him, where he’s just standing there, still in his vest and shirt, holding her skirt.

“Come to bed,” she whines, too tired to be surprised by Lucifer being shy about getting into bed with her.

He chuckles, eyes going soft. She smiles and lets her own fall shut. She listens to the rustle of clothing, and shivers when she finally feels the bed dip. She rolls in his direction and finds him a few inches away, in just his boxers, watching her like he doesn’t know if he should touch.

“Lucifer,” she whispers, using a heavy hand to trace her fingers along his cheek. “C’mere.”

And then he’s wrapped around her, a wall of heat and muscle, and she sighs in relief. Another night, another time, she can rip his silk boxers off. Another time he can kiss her breathless. Another time she can kiss every part of him until it’s light out.

He whispers something in the language he speaks with Maze and Trixie, his hand carding through her hair. Right here, with her cheek on his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around her, is perfect. She hopes it’s the first of many nights to come.

Chapter Text

He can’t leave Chloe alone with his mother.

“Lucifer, really, calm down,” Chloe says, catching his arm as he hurries out of the lab.

“I’ll debrief her,” Daniel says, skirting around them. “Ah, brief her. Get the—I’ll get what you need, Chlo, so you don’t need to—” and he disappears awkwardly around the corner.

Which leaves Lucifer and Chloe beside her desk. Lucifer feels anxiety clawing its way through his system. This went off the rails so spectacularly quickly. He didn’t want to involve Chloe in any of it, but they need the piece, because he needs to get his mother and his brother off earth as soon as humanly possible.

“I can handle Charlotte,” Chloe says, her hand squeezing his wrist.

He tries to take a deep breath and turns back to her. “Of course you can, Detective. I simply…don’t want you to have to. I know how much you dislike her.”

“Well, that’s sweet,” she says, smiling tightly up at him. “But really, I’ve got this.”

She tugs on his wrist and nudges him toward his chair. He sinks down onto it and watches as she plops into her own, waking her computer. Maybe he can persuade her to let him go to the party—or perhaps Daniel should be the one to go. He doesn’t want to think about what his mother might do with Daniel, but better him than—

But he can’t let Beatrice’s father end up in danger either, can he?

Nor does he really want to leave Daniel and his mother alone for any other…reasons.

He fights a shiver and Chloe glances over at him. “You okay?”

“Yes, just…thinking perhaps it would be best—”

“Lucifer, why does this bother you so much?” Chloe asks, reaching out to cover his hand on her desk. “It’s not a dangerous sting.”

“Trying to take down a big crime boss is suddenly not dangerous?” he asks. Because that’s also at the back of his head, though he trusts Chloe around criminals much more than he trusts his mother around anyone.

“Certainly not as dangerous as anything else we get up to.”

“Well, I don’t particularly enjoy seeing you in any kind of danger,” he says honestly.

Chloe’s smile turns soft and her hand squeezes his. “Yeah, well, that’s mutual. But this isn’t dangerous.”

“Right,” he says, shaking himself.

It’s not. She’ll be fine. They’ll be surrounded by tons of people, and Daniel will be outside to back them up. Chloe can more than handle herself.

She squeezes his hand and then pulls back, turning to her computer to prep. It doesn’t help. His chest is still tight, anxiety still tripping up his spine. He’s worked so hard to keep his mother away from Chloe, far from Beatrice, and now…

“Don’t you have an appointment with Linda?” Chloe asks.

Perhaps Dr. Martin will have the solution.

“Yes. I’ll—you’ll let me know how the operation goes?”

“Of course,” Chloe says. “I’ll text you when we’re done. And maybe if things go well, we’ll be done early tonight. Trixie’s at a sleepover, so I’m free.”

His chest clenches for an entirely different reason and he feels himself smile genuinely. And maybe leer, just a little. “Maybe I should stay, ensure your operation goes—”

“Get out of here,” Chloe says, laughing.

 He stands, mourning the loss of her hand on his, and rebuttons his jacket. “All right. I’ll give Linda your best, and please, do be—”

“I’ll be just fine,” Chloe assures him. “Now go.”

He goes, anticipation and dread at war in his stomach.       

(…)

“What happened to you?”

He turns to find Chloe walking out of his elevator and sighs, something releasing in his chest. Her text gave him some reassurance, but it’s an entirely different relief to see her hale and whole in person.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Just a little fisticuffs between friends.”

She approaches the piano, eyes wide. “You and Maze, again?”  

“Not even entirely sure what we were fighting about,” he admits, looking back at the keyboard to avoid her concern.

They’d gotten Linda in trouble, and, perhaps justifiably, Maze had hit him. Then they were beating each other to a pulp. He doesn’t remember deciding to do it, it just…happened. They just needed to hit something. Him, to work off the frustration and fear about Chloe being anywhere near his mother, Maze—well, he doesn’t really know what she has to be mad about, but there’s always something. They were the only indestructible things around to hit. Mostly, at least.

“I just had a very illuminating conversation with Charlotte Richards.”

He pulls his hands from the keys and tries to look up at her with something other than panic. “Oh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me she’s your Stepmother?” she asks, and there’s something in her voice—disappointment, or hurt. “I would have treated her differently. It explains so much about how you act with her. I wouldn’t have been so—” she trails off.

“What did she tell you, exactly?” he asks.

How much has his mother explained? She wouldn’t have…Oh, Dad, she might have. But Chloe looks far too calm to know everything.

And he doesn’t want his mother to have told her. Doesn’t want anyone to tell her but him.

“That she’s your father’s ex,” Chloe says simply.

Thank…someone.

“Oh, well, that’s true,” he says, watching the way she’s staring at him, almost through him.

“And what he put her through—”

“Yes, betrayal, torture, Hell, et cetera,” he says, his chest slowly unclenching.

“I can’t imagine raising kids with someone like that,” she says, eyes casting down to the piano.

“Wasn’t much of a joy to be raised by either of them,” he says honestly.

Her eyes snap to his, her face going soft. “It’s not that I’ve never believed you,” she says quickly.

He can’t help but smile a little at that. “I know, Detective. You’ve just got more of the picture now.”

And hopefully that’s all she has. With his mother interfering, sticking herself into his cases, poking around in his life, he can’t show Chloe, can’t tell Chloe everything. Not just yet.

He’s meant to keep her at a distance, to keep them in the murky, lovely, ridiculous place between friends and lovers. He’s failing, spectacularly. It’s utterly glorious torture.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was your stepmom?” she repeats, the hurt seeping back into her voice.

Because it would have been a lie. “It didn’t seem so simple, at the time,” he says. “And I thought perhaps I could keep you out of my family nonsense. I’m a handful enough on my own.”

He gets a short laugh for that. “I could have helped,” she says after a moment.

“I know,” he says, reaching out to cover her hand there on top of the piano. “I wanted to save you the trouble and the frustration.”

I wanted to keep you as far away from my mother as humanly possible, because you are human, and precious, and I—

She twines their fingers together. “So this is the low frustration version? Your mother attempting to steal evidence for Bianca Ruiz?”

“What?” he asks. His mother did what? “Why would she do that?”

“Apparently Bianca figured out that Charlotte and I were working together at the sting, and threatened your mother’s family. Threatened you and Amenadiel if Charlotte didn’t agree to help her.”

“That sounds plausible,” he mumbles, tension slipping back over his frame.

His mother is up to something and Chloe’s mixed into the center of it. Nothing good can come from this.

“I just don’t know if I can trust her. But I’m not sure if that’s my intuition or you…saying I can’t trust your mother for the past four months.” She slips around the piano to sit down next to him, bringing their hands up to kiss his still-bruised knuckles. “Now that I’ve spent some time with her, I understand why you’ve never wanted her to meet Trixie.”

“Yes,” he says gruffly. “I hope you agree we should make sure that never occurs.”

“I do,” she says quickly. “And I’m sorry, Lucifer.”

“For what?” he wonders, watching as she examines his hand.

“That you never had a parent who watched out for you. She didn’t say, but I get the feeling Charlotte knows she should have fought for you more, and she’s trying to make up for lost time now.”

“Yes, she’s certainly focused on us all becoming one big happy family again,” he agrees, hearing the bite in his voice.

Chloe shifts, releasing his hand to reach out and turn his cheek so he’ll look at her. Her fingers trace up to his forehead, inspecting his still-healing cuts. “Maze really did a number on you.”

“I got my fair share in.”

She tuts and lets her hand drop to rest against his neck. “If you’re—” She pauses and he waits, watching her gnaw on her lip. He longs to lean down and press his lips to hers, but doesn’t want to push. “You can talk to me,” she decides.

“I know,” he says, kneejerk.

She sighs and brushes her thumb along his jaw. “I know you know. But with things like this—complicated things, painful things.”

“I don’t want to pull you into my family disaster,” he says honestly, a bit desperately.

“You don’t have to pull me in, but you can talk to me,” she insists, something firm in her gaze. “That’s kind of the whole point of, you know,” she says, before leaning in to glance her lips off his. He chases her mouth as she pulls back and she laughs. “But not right now. We need to go set up a sting with Bianca Ruiz. You coming?”

“Of course,” he says. “But first…” He releases her hand to wrap his arm around her waist, tugging her close enough to bend his neck and draw her back into a languid kiss.

“Lucifer,” she says, laughing and pushing back from him. “Come on.”

“Our time could be much better spent here,” he argues, not letting her go.

He just wants to stay here with her, far away from his mother and all the trouble she entails. He wants to keep Chloe safe, and unencumbered, and with him. And other things. Things he’s been desperately trying not to think about at work.

“Come on. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can contemplate doing that,” she says, smirking up at him as his jaw drops.

He lets her tug him off the piano bench and back toward the elevator almost on instinct. “Detective,” he says, his brain a mess of thoughts and ideas and tantalizing promise.

It’s almost enough to distract him from the entire debacle with his mother.

“We can make out in the elevator, if that’ll get you moving,” she says.

She laughs as he crowds her inside, spinning her to press her up against the wall of the cab, plundering her mouth for the entire 45 seconds, and then some, that it takes to get down to the garage.

(…)

By some stroke of luck, it does actually look like they might be done early. Or at least, early-ish. Maybe he can spend the evening with Chloe after all. Crime boss taken down, key to the locker with the piece retrieved, no one smote or given untimely divine secrets, urchin away at a sleepover…the night is looking promising.

“Lucifer.”

Except for his mother.

He turns while Chloe continues on toward the array of surveillance vehicles and squad cars outside of Bianca Ruiz’s headquarters. His mother is right on his heels.

“You’re going now?” she asks. He hesitates, just for a moment, and her wide smile disappears. “Why not?”

“There’s quite a lot to tie up with the investigation into Mr. Ruiz,” he hedges, glancing toward Chloe.

“Your Detective can do that all on her own,” Mother says a bit tartly.

“Wouldn’t want to do anything suspicious, now would we?” he counters, but his mother doesn’t take the bait.

“I have tolerated your…distractions, but Lucifer, our return is in our grasp.”

“It can wait the night, Mother,” he says, but he doesn’t quite believe it himself. If there really is a piece of divinity waiting in that locker, he can hardly just leave it there. Look what happened to the last one. “Perhaps Amenadiel can meet me, and—”

“Give me a good reason you cannot leave, right now, and go get it,” Mother demands.

It takes everything he has not to look to Chloe again. “I—”

“Do I need to accompany you? Or should I discuss this with Chloe?”

“I’ll go,” he says immediately. Anything to keep his mother from Chloe, especially with that glint in her eye. And she damn well knows it, too.

“Good. I’ll meet you at Lux in two hours?”

He can’t help himself. He glances back at Chloe to find her leaning against her car, waiting for him. He wants nothing more than to tell his mother to go to…well.

He wants a quiet evening with Chloe, just the two of them. He wants to spend the night pressed against every inch of her. Wants to sit at her table and share some terrible take-out dinner. Wants to cuddle her on the couch, and tell her everything, and bury his face into her neck and—

“Lucifer,” Mother snaps.

“Yes,” he says, ripping his eyes away from Chloe. “I’ll be there. Now leave, and don’t make any pit stops to speak with anyone.”

“I could tell you the same,” she says, reaching out to squeeze his arm, just a bit too tightly. “Soon enough we’ll be back home, and you’ll forget all about these…distractions. Unless you’d like to reconsider taking that…darling child with—”

“I will find the piece and throw it to the bottom of the ocean if you so much as finish that sentence,” Lucifer bites back, grabbing his mother’s wrist to pry her hand from his arm.

She scowls at him and tugs her arm free. He wouldn’t hurt her, but his own arm aches rather fiercely. Her strength is only growing. He has to get her off of this plane as quickly as possible. Even if it does mean there won’t be any time with Chloe tonight.

“Two hours,” she says firmly.

“Two hours. Now go.”

He watches her walk away, ensuring she gets in her own car and pulls out of the lot before he turns toward his partner. He tries to take deep breaths as he walks through the strobing red and blue lights, the whole squad still working through the Ruiz takedown. He can hear officers greeting him, but doesn’t have the mental energy to do anything but hone in on Chloe.

He rolls his shoulder, shaking out the arm his mother grabbed, and finally makes it to Chloe’s side, trying to offer her a smile.

“What was that about?” she asks, glancing from his face to his arm and back.

“Just a family…discussion,” he says, ignoring the way it burrows in his gut to keep everything from her.

He’s terrified of what will happen when he tells her. But he knows once he’s gotten rid of his mother and neutralized Amenadiel, he’ll have to tell her. She needs to know. He needs to know that she’ll—

“Lucifer,” she says softly, her hand coming to rest where his mother’s was, stroking gently at his sleeve. “Are you okay?”

He hopes she’ll stay. He hopes she’ll accept him. Linda came around…eventually.

It might rip him to shreds for Chloe to look at him the way Linda did. But if she came back—if she accepted him afterward, he could survive it, couldn’t he? For the chance for a happy ending, of every kind, he could survive it.

“Hey,” Chloe says softly.

“Yes,” he says belatedly, blinking down at her. “Yes, I’m fine.” His arm does hurt beneath her hand, but it’s barely anything at all when she’s this close to him.

“Okay. You wanna come back to the precinct with me? I…think it’s going to be a later night than I hoped, but we could have a really sad dinner at my desk?”

He chuckles, relief and regret warring in his chest. “As delightful as that sounds, I was about to ruin our plans myself, so we’re equally matched. My mother has…demanded an audience with myself and Amenadiel and won’t take no for an answer.”

“Ah,” Chloe says, her hand gliding down his arm to slide into his own. It eases something in his chest. “Well, better it’s mutual, I guess?”

“Emphatically not,” he says, smiling as she laughs. “And let me order you dinner. I’d hate to think of you eating one of those horrific vending machine sandwiches alone at the office.”

“Dan promised we’d get Chipotle,” Chloe says, laughing as he huffs in disgust.

“Of course he did,” Lucifer mutters.

“It’ll be fine. Go deal with your family. If you wanna swing by after, you’re welcome,” she adds, squeezing his hand. “Text me, either way, when your mom leaves? You look really…on edge.”

An understatement of grandiose proportions. “Will do, Detective. And let me know when you’ve made it home safely if I can’t escape to join you?”

“I will,” she says. “You sure you’re okay?” she adds, eyes narrowing.

“I will be,” he says firmly.

He’s going to make sure they get to the next night the urchin is out of the house. That future’s out there. He’ll make sure they get it. He has to.

(...)

“You locked your mom in the basement?” Beatrice asks, eyebrows up. In her little doctor’s outfit she does a credible impression of a tiny Chloe.

Mazikeen snickers and Lucifer rolls his eyes. “It’s the safest place for her.”

“Did she hurt you?” Beatrice asks, dabbing at the cut at his hairline.

He winces, the scrape still decidedly tender. “No, she did,” he says, pointing at Maze.

Beatrice turns accusatory eyes on Maze, who snorts. “He gave me this,” she says, pointing to a cut above her eyebrow.

Beatrice wheels around to glare at him and he can’t help but chuckle. “We were merely…taking our frustration out on each other. It was mutual.”

“Ass,” Mazikeen mutters.

Beatrice continues glaring at him but holds her hand out backward. He watches in amusement as Mazikeen shifts to pull a dollar from her pants.

“You do clean up between the two of us, don’t you, urchin?” he asks.

Beatrice’s little frown clears and she grins sneakily. Maze slaps a dollar into her little palm and she squirrels it away into her pocket. She pulls her hand back out with a lollipop and hands it to Maze.

“Oh, love me a lolly,” he says.

“Sorry, wussies don’t get any,” Beatrice says, turning back to him, deadpan.

The sass. He’s almost proud. “I’m not sure I approve of this alliance,” he says, looking between them as she and Maze do another fist bump.

“We don’t require your approval,” Maze says haughtily.

Beatrice nods emphatically, but there’s a hint of unease there. He rolls his eyes as dramatically as he can.

“I’ll survive. If the urchin can do me a favor.”

Beatrice perks up. “What do I get?”

“If you are very good and put on an excellent pout, I will give you all the chocolate cake you desire,” he says, ignoring Maze’s eyeroll.

“I’m listening,” Beatrice says, an eyebrow arched. She’s getting very good at that expression. “But I want a whole day with you and Mommy with no work and no ‘secret missions,’ and all the cake.”

Oh, what torture. “You drive a hard bargain, but I acquiesce to your demands,” Lucifer says.

“Like you need the bribe,” Maze mutters.

He ignores her and leans forward to meet Beatrice’s eyes seriously. “I’m afraid I need to steal Mazikeen now.”

“This can wait until Decker’s off duty,” Maze says.

It really can’t. There’s no way to protect Beatrice and, Dad willing, Chloe as well, without the final piece. His mother is bleeding light. There isn’t time.

“It cannot,” he says firmly.

Beatrice and Maze exchange a look. “Lucifer,” Maze starts, hesitant.

“For the love of the humans you care about, it simply cannot,” he insists. Maze stares at him for a moment before nodding slowly. “Now, Beatrice,” he says, returning his gaze to the little urchin. “You and I are going to go across the way to your neighbor…Mcsnipesalot.”

“Mrs. Beachum,” Beatrice supplies while Maze snorts. “Do we have to? Her house smells like cats.”

“Unfortunately, we do. And then you are going to stay over there with her until your mother or I come to collect you, all right?”

“She can’t come here?” the girl asks, almost whining.

“Lucifer, it’s not like your mom is going to—” Maze starts.

He meets her eyes. “I am no longer sure what my mother will or won’t do, Mazikeen, and Beatrice’s safety is not a trifle.”

“No, it’s not,” she agrees stiffly.

"M’I in danger?” Beatrice asks, her playful challenge slipping away.

Lucifer sighs and cants forward so he can kneel on the ground, reaching out for the girl. She comes easily and he holds her by her little forearms, meeting her eyes seriously.

“I don’t think so, darling, but I don’t want to take any chances. So, you’ll stay with Mrs. Beachum until we say otherwise, all right?”

Beatrice nods slowly. “You’re gonna protect Mommy?”

“With my life,” he promises.

She shakes her head. “No. No, you can’t go.” She reaches forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and he closes his eyes, curling himself around her smaller frame, ignoring the way Mazikeen’s watching them, the way her spine is straightening, battle ready.

“We’ll both be back. You can feel the light, Beatrice,” he says.

He’s not worried for himself, flaming sword and all. He just needs to make sure Beatrice is safe, so he can make sure her mother comes home. He’ll do all he can to come home himself.

“You come back,” Beatrice insists.

He gently pulls back and takes her face in his hands. “With every power I have, child.”

“You promise?”

“I promise,” he says.

A brief wind whips up around them and Maze groans. “You really have to stop that,” she says.

But Beatrice smiles, and that’s enough for him. “I cannot help that the child is powerful.”

“Entirely your fault,” he hears Maze mutter, but she’s standing. “I’m going to gather my knives. Stay safe, Princess,” she adds in Lilim.

“You too,” Beatrice replies in Lilim. It sounds…patently ridiculous in her little voice, even as it sends foreboding skipping up his back, too reminiscent of gearing up for battle in Hell. Beatrice turns in his hold to look up at Maze. “Kick butt.”

“You kick cats,” Maze says with a toothy grin before striding down the hall to her room.

“You shouldn’t kick cats,” Beatrice says, confused.

Lucifer laughs and scoops her into his arms, standing up with her on his hip. “All right, urchin. Be pitiful, and sad, and there will be the world’s largest cake in your future.”

He heads for the door and looks at Beatrice. For a moment, she just stares back, eyes wide and worried, and then she takes a breath. The concern melts into faux tears, big blinks, a glorious pout, and a trembling chin.

“Excellent,” he says. “Brave girl.”

She doesn’t smile, just lays her head on his shoulder and grips at his neck.

(…)

His heart pounds erratically. His mother, bleeding light, has Chloe.

He almost dives into his Corvette, dialing Amenadiel as he stabs the key into the ignition. He listens to it ring, trying not to crush the steering wheel. He peels out of his spot and swings around the corner of the garage.

“Hey, you find Mom?” Amenadiel asks.

“She’s on Santa Monica Pier and she wants the piece,” Lucifer says, slamming on the break as a patron cuts him off. He makes note of the license plate. They’re never getting into Lux again. “We have to give it to her, Amenadiel, we’ve run out of options.”

“Luci—”

“Please,” he adds, hearing the desperation in his voice but far, far beyond caring now. “She has Chloe.”

“She won’t hurt her,” Amenadiel says.

Lucifer guns it, screeching through the parking lot and up toward the street. “Can you swear to it? Can you promise me?” Lucifer demands.

He bursts out of the garage and skids across Sunset Boulevard, narrowly avoiding three collisions. If he has to get out and push the car to Santa Monica Pier, he will.

“She wouldn’t—”

“Do you think there is anything she wouldn’t do to get revenge on our father? She has Chloe.”

He’s breaking every traffic law that exists, jumping curbs, running lights, driving into oncoming traffic. He has to make it. He has to get to the pier and stop his mother before—

Before he has to look Beatrice in the eye and tell her his mother killed hers, and he couldn’t stop her.

“Amenadiel, where is the piece?” Nothing. Silence. He slams his fist against the steering wheel and snarls. “For the love of—my Nephilim, my daughter, Amenadiel, doesn’t deserve to lose her mother because of our mistakes, because of our mother. Beatrice doesn’t deserve that, please—”

“Dan has it,” Amenadiel spits out.

Lucifer blinks. “What?”

“I gave it to Dan. He has it on him. Find Dan, and…do whatever you think is right. But we’re going to talk about Beatri—”

Lucifer hangs up, dropping the phone into his lap. He lowers the pedal to the floor. He can do this. He can save Chloe. Beatrice deserves her mother. He needs her mother. He’s not going to lose Chloe. He just can’t.

The rest of the drive, finding Daniel, is a blur. The carnival on the pier whirls around him as he runs, searching for his mother and Chloe, ignoring the concerned shouts of passersby. Yes, he has a knife. Yes, he’s bruised and bloodied. No, it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter—

He finally finds them along the railing next to the rollercoaster. His mother is clutching at her stomach, facing Chloe.

“Mum!” he shouts, coming up behind Chloe and holding up the blade. “I’ve got it. Here, I’ve got it, now let the Detective go.”

Chloe looks over at him, clocking the knife, the blood on his forehead. “Lucifer, what are you doing?

“Mum, please,” he entreats, shaking the sword and the piece.

“Okay, put the knife down,” Chloe says firmly. “I’ve got it under control. We have evidence that—”

“Chloe, I need you to step away,” he entreats, eyes never leaving his mother and her twitching hand. It can’t end like this.

“Lucifer, calm down,” Chloe says.

“Stop,” he insists, watching his mother inching closer to Chloe. “Chloe, get back from her.”

“Lucifer,” his mother says, voice like honey, hand reaching out toward Chloe.

“I’ve got the blade and the final piece, Mum, see? Just let the Detective go, and they are yours.”

“Let me go? I’m the one holding her,” Chloe says, confused.

“Mum, please,” Lucifer says, trying to get a read on the way his mother is staring at him.

Is she grateful? Is she angry? Is she about to destroy the woman he—

“No one’s going anywhere!”

Damn it all to Hell, honestly.

The bloody son stands there holding a gun on Chloe and his explosive mother, going on about how Charlotte Richards wronged his family. How she has to pay. How he has to protect his family. The parallels aren’t lost on him, but he doesn’t have time.

“Look, I understand you’re upset. But if you shoot her, many, many people will die,” Lucifer shouts at Hector.

Chloe glances at Lucifer, searching, but he doesn’t have time. If that young man shoots his mother, the whole pier will burn with her. If he shoots Chloe—

“Just put the gun down,” Chloe says.

He starts to lower the gun, and then the pier creaks behind Lucifer and he fires. Not toward his mother, but toward Chloe.

“No!” Lucifer screams, lurching forward to push her out of the way, but nothing happens.

The bullet barely moves, and he turns, searching up and down the pier. Everything is moving in extreme slow motion. Chloe, and Daniel (who set the young man off—they’ll be having words later), and all of the humans around them are barely moving, everything stalled in place.

There isn’t time to wonder—to call his brother and ask how it’s happened. He reaches Chloe and quickly, gently, picks her up and lays her down on her side, well out of the path of the bullet.

“What are you—” his mother starts.

He stands and grabs her arm, rushing them to the railing and throwing them both over the side without hesitation. They plummet thirty feet to land on the hard sand below the pier. If Amenadiel’s powers should fail, at least she’s no longer next to Chloe—no longer endangering the entire pier. She might take out the stilts holding it up though. He’s not sure he’ll be able to get back to Chloe in time if she does.

He scrabbles up and jams Amenadiel’s necklace into Azrael’s blade. It instantly elongates, catching fire, growing into the flaming sword he remembers. But it instills no awe, no power, no triumph. Because he has to turn it on his mother, still there on the ground, staring up at him with wonder.

“You did it,” she breaths, face splitting in a grin.

“This has to end, Mum.”

His mother’s eyes widen and she scoots back. He advances, all of the anger, all of the pain, all of the rage of the last few months licking up his chest.

“You know everything I did, I did for us,” she says.

“You used me, you used Chloe,” he says, the hurt bleeding out in his voice.

“Me? What about your Father? He created Chloe just to manipulate you. To make you want to stay here—to tether you to her and your little abomination.” She rises slowly, hands up. “To trick you into thinking this is somewhere you belong.”

“She’s not an abomination!” he shouts.

“Fine, your…Nephilim,” his mother says, and even in the face of the sword, it comes out sardonic. “None of it matters now. We can go back, Lucifer. We can get revenge. We can destroy him. We can take our home back!”

He shakes his head. How many ways, how many times can he explain? “No. Beatrice, Chloe—they are—this is my home. I won’t leave them, mum.”

“All right,” his mother says, stepping backward. “All right. Then just give me the sword. I can do it myself, for both of us. I just want a chance to start over,” she says.

“That’s not starting over, Mum,” Lucifer says, shaking his head. “Starting over is moving forward—choosing to let go of the past for something better.”

He looks down at the sword in his hand. He can’t send his mother to the Silver City. He can’t let her stay here on earth, where she could hurt so many people. Where his—where Beatrice and Chloe are.

There’s only one way for her to truly start over.

“It’s time for you to move forward, Mum, to something better. Even if it means I’ll never see you again.”

He raises the sword, ignoring the way his mother looks at him, like she thinks—like she truly believes he would kill her—and slices the sword through the air, puncturing the world. It cuts a clean, smooth, open rift right through the fabric of space and time.

“Bloody Hell, it worked,” he exclaims. Surrounded by a rip of golden light, he looks into a void, into nothingness.

“What is that?” his mother asks, staring, almost transfixed, into the black emptiness.

“It’s your way to move forward. A whole new universe to create, on your own, without Father.”

His mother blinks and turns back to him. “But what about you, Amenadiel, my children?”

He wishes he knew if she meant it. He wishes he knew that it was only their loss, only the thought of leaving them, that makes her eyes so wide, so full. “You know if we go back there will be a war. And in war there are always casualties,” he says, searching her gaze.

She takes a stuttering breath. “The last thing I want is to hurt my children,” she whispers.

“I know,” he says. He does. He’s just not sure—he’ll never be sure—that she wants to keep her children safe more than she wants to destroy his Father.

Not long ago, he wouldn’t have been able to make the choice himself. Not long ago, destroying his Father would have been his only concern, the most important thing in the universe, in any universe. But it’s not anymore.

“Please,” he says, gripping at the sword, holding onto the world he’s worked so hard to build, the life, the family. “Let there be light.”

She gasps and stares at him. She steps forward and he trembles, watching more than feeling as she cups his cheeks.

“My angel, my lightbringer. I will miss you, so much,” she says.

Even with all that she’s done, even with all the hurt and pain and manipulation she’s used to try and convince him, he’ll miss her. He has always missed her. But it’s a constant he knows, and it’s a price he has to pay.

She turns and looks to the void. He stands and watches her, relief and agony and grief swirling in his chest. She reaches out, and quickly, her light extends, flowing in a great golden arc from her body and into the void until all at once, it’s gone, and she slumps down to the beach.

He stumbles but keeps himself together enough to remove Amenadiel’s necklace from the sword and toss the blade into the closing void. It winks out existence and he stands there, hearing the world start back up around them.

Charlotte Richards lies there in a heap, his mother gone and sealed off from the world. His world.

He turns and sees Chloe staggering up from the ground, looking around while Daniel tackles the young man with the gun. There’s screaming coming from the pier, but it doesn’t register. He’s too focused on Chloe as she turns and looks down, spotting him and Charlotte.

She looks from him, to Charlotte, to the young man and back. She holds up a hand and  he nods, watching her disappear from view. He looks back down at Charlotte’s body, an emptiness flooding his chest.

He’ll never see his mother again.

And then there’s a flutter above his heart. Beatrice’s light pulses there, calm and steady. He’ll never see his mother, but Beatrice’s mum is alive. Hers is coming. Hers is still here. They’re both still here.

With a sigh, he lets himself stagger over to Charlotte’s body. He collapses to his knees and reaches out with a trembling hand. She has a pulse. She’s still alive. Not his mother, but alive. He sits back, waiting for Chloe, waiting for Charlotte to wake, and rubs at his chest. He’s almost able to feel Beatrice’s pulse with his fingers through his jacket.

“Lucifer,” Chloe calls.

He turns his head and watches as she and Daniel run over to them. Daniel drops to his knees on Charlotte’s other side.

“She’s alive,” Lucifer says, his voice a croak.

“What the hell happened?” Daniel demands.

“Lucifer,” Chloe says, her hand falling to his shoulder.

“I knocked the Detective out of the way, but I guess I had more momentum than expected, and continued into Miss Richards, and we…fell,” he says.

It’s a clumsy excuse, but Daniel doesn’t seem to care, drawing Charlotte’s head into his lap. He stares at her face for one moment longer. She isn’t his mother, not anymore, but she was.

His mother is gone.

“Lucifer,” Chloe repeats.

He nods and stumbles up to his feet, turning to face her. She’s all right. She’s all right. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, reaching out to run a hand down his arm, her eyes scanning his face, his body.

He’s all right.

“I’m fine,” he says, swallowing hard.

She narrows her eyes but seems to take him at his word, squeezing his arm. “You had a sword,” she says, glancing around.

“It’s gone,” he says.

“You dropped it?”

“I tend to flail when falling.” The words cut up his throat, memories of a different fall momentarily overtaking him. He’ll never see either of his parents ever again.

He never wanted to. But now—

“It flew out into the water?” Daniel asks. “Why did you have a sword?”

“Ask Amenadiel,” Lucifer says gruffly.

Chloe sucks on her cheek. “What happened?”

It rushes at him heavily. The threat—his mother is gone. Beatrice is safe now. He could tell her. But can he face losing his mother and his Nephilim and his…Chloe, all in one day?

“What’s going on? Why am I at the beach?”

He looks down and sees Charlotte scrabbing away from Daniel. Chloe squeezes his arm and then kneels down to help her, leaving him standing, useless and exhausted. He tries to focus, tries to figure out how to explain this, if he wants to explain this, how much he can lose, and then his phone rings.

It’s Maze.

“Mazikeen,” he says, his voice scratchy.

“Linda’s in the ER. Your mother tortured her.”

He goes still, horror coursing through him. “What?”

“You better have stopped her.”

“Is she all right?” he asks, blinking hard to keep himself steady.

“She’s in surgery.”

“Where?” he manages to ask.

“Cedars Sinai. You better get your ass here, and you better say that you killed her.”

“Lucifer?” Chloe asks.

She’s standing again, her hand on his elbow, right beside him. He could so easily collapse against her. Could sob into her neck until tomorrow and it wouldn’t be enough for the pain ripping through him.

He swallows against the sudden rock in his throat. “I banished her to a parallel universe. She’s gone. I’ll be there in thirty minutes. Where’s Amenadiel?” he asks in Lilim.

“I left him at Linda’s office. He stopped time enough to get her here. A parallel universe isn’t good enough,” Maze snarls.

“I know,” he agrees, ignoring Chloe’s frustrated huff. It isn’t punishment enough for what his mother did, but nor is it too much. It’s nothing. He gave her nothing. Punishment, benediction, purgatory.

“I’ll be right there,” he tells Maze. He ends the call and tries to take a deep breath. It doesn’t work.

“Where are you going?” Chloe asks.

He looks down to meet her eyes. She’s confused and frustrated with him, he can see it all over her face. It takes everything he has not to pull her into his arms. His mother hurt so many people. Chloe could so easily have been one of them. Linda.

“Linda’s in the hospital. I—I need to go make sure she’s all right,” he gets out.

“What happened?” Chloe asks.

He glances down at Charlotte Richards. He wants to tell Chloe. Wants to scream out toward the ocean. Wants to rail against his mother. But that—Charlotte—isn’t his mother. She doesn’t deserve the punishment, his own or the law’s.

“I’m not sure. But she’s badly hurt. I need to go. I’ll—I’ll call you later,” he says, turning back to meet his eyes.

“Will you?” she asks.

He nods, steeling himself for it. She deserves an explanation. He just…doesn’t have one he can give her here. Certainly not with the EMTs arriving at the edge of the beach and the uniforms swarming the pier.

“Beatrice is with Mrs. Beachum.”

Chloe blinks. “What? Oh—because Maze is with Linda. Good. Keep me updated, please? Tell her we’re thinking about her?”

Well, there’s a lie he won’t have to circumnavigate. “I will. Hug the urchin, would you, and, ah, let me know when she’s safely back home?” he adds, raising a hand to his chest, where her little fluttering light has gotten a bit agitated.

Can she feel his distress? That would be…distressing.

“Of course,” Chloe says, glancing down at Daniel and Charlotte, who are still on the ground. Chloe steps closer and reaches up to cup his jaw. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He meets her eyes, allowing himself just one moment to touch her waist, to take her comfort. Because he is selfish, and needy, and hurting.

This hurts so much more than he thought it would.

“I will be,” he says, trying to speak it into reality.

“You keep saying that,” she says, her thumb stroking his cheek.

“I believe I do mean it this time,” he says, leaning his cheek into her hand. “I’ll explain, Chloe, I promise. But I need—”

She nods, her other hand briefly coming to rest on his chest, just above his heart. Beatrice’s little light calms further.

“Okay. Okay, go. Let me know when she’s out of surgery.”

“Yes, Detective,” he says, taking solace in her wan smile before pulling himself away from her.

Once Linda’s all right. Once he sees Beatrice. Once he’s sure that everyone he fought to protect is actually safe. Then he’ll be all right again.

Chapter Text

“Detective, it’s me. Linda’s all right, sleeping peacefully now. If it’s not too late, I’ll come by. I—I want to tell you everything, to explain. Once I do, I think much of the last two years will make more sense, and you’ll understand why all these strange things seem to happen around me. And I hope—well, however you react is your right. I just ask that you hear me out and remember…remember how much I care for you and Beatrice. I want to move forward, with you, Chloe. But we can’t, not really, until I tell you. So, I’ll be there soon, and hopefully we’ll move forward, together.”

The message cuts off and Chloe sits there on the couch, staring down at her phone, butterflies in her stomach. She missed him by about thirty minutes. He’ll be here any moment. She feels so much for him, wants so much with him. And now he’s ready to give it to her, it seems. And he’ll tell her everything. What does that mean?

All the wild theories she’s ever had about Lucifer swirl through her head, turning her giddy anticipation into anxiety.

She blows out a slow breath. He’ll get here, they’ll talk, and whatever he says will…be whatever he says. And then she’ll know everything.

It’ll probably weird, and lightly unhinged. But what will it change? She knows him. She trusts him. And—

“Mommy?”

She turns, surprised to find Trixie out of bed. She was oddly subdued coming back from Mrs. Beachum’s apartment and it took ages to get her down for bed. She kept asking for cake and Lucifer, neither of which Chloe was able to readily provide. Telling her he would be there tomorrow did little to buck her baby up.

“What’s up, Monkey?” she asks, beckoning her daughter around the couch. Trixie comes, rubbing at her chest. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, clambering up onto the couch to burrow into her. “I think. I had a weird dream.”

“What happened?” Chloe asks, stroking her fingers through her daughter’s hair.

She’d prefer Trixie be asleep by the time Lucifer gets here. Though, if she isn’t, he might be able to help. He’s gotten surprisingly good at getting Trixie to bed, which is…strange and kind of wonderful, and maybe, whatever he has to tell her, it won’t be bad. Maybe it’ll be…strange and wonderful and beautiful, just like he is.

“There was a big light, and a big black hole, and a flaming sword,” Trixie mumbles into her side.

A flaming sword?

Chloe looks down at her daughter, who’s still rubbing at her chest, right over her heart. “Are you feeling okay?” she asks, a flash of concern igniting in her own chest.

“Yeah,” Trixie says, looking up at her, surprised.

“Why are you rubbing your chest? Does it hurt? Are you getting a cold?”

Trixie shakes her head, turning to look back at the fireplace. “The light feels funny.”

The— “What light, Monkey?”

“My light,” Trixie says, like she should just know what that means. “It was really strong today. Like something was wrong, and something was right. It’s confusing.”

Confusing is the right word, for sure. “What does the light feel like?” Chloe asks.

It sounds like something Lucifer would say. Something celestial and weird. It sounds like something she’s heard before, but she can’t remember when.

“It’s warm, like a hug,” Trixie says softly.

Warm like a hug. Okay, maybe that’s just…her way of talking about feelings. They do spend a lot of time with Lucifer, who doesn’t ever seem to know how to talk about his emotions. Maybe Trixie’s picked up his habit of talking around feelings.

At least she’s had a bit of practice with Lucifer’s metaphors. She can fall back on that, right? “Does the hug feel different tonight?”

Trixie nods slowly. “It was really big today, but now it’s getting smaller and kinda…shaky.”

A shaky hug. What the hell does that mean? “Are you nervous about something, sweetie?” she hedges.

“Nu-uh,” Trixie says, her hand stilling over her heart. “But I think the light is.”

The light is shaky. What does that mean?

She picks up her phone on instinct. Maybe Lucifer will know. Oh, but he’s coming over. Maybe that’s it, then. Maybe he can help.

“Lucifer’s going to be here soon—not with cake,” she adds quickly. Trixie doesn’t even acknowledge it, and she frowns. “Maybe he can help you figure out what’s different about the…light,” she says, going for soothing. Because her daughter looks entirely too thoughtful and intense for ten at night.

Trixie looks up at her, confused. “But he’s far away.”

Chloe stares at her daughter. “What do you mean?”

Trixie closes her eyes, breathing slowly, almost like she’s meditating. When did she learn that? It certainly wasn’t from Maze or Lucifer, or her, for that matter. Maybe Dan’s gotten into it?

“He’s getting further away, not closer,” Trixie says.

"Honey, why do you—how do you know that?” Chloe asks.

It’s been forty minutes since he called, and if he was getting in the car, he should be almost here by now.

“He’s getting really far away, Mommy,” Trixie says, her voice taking on an edge. “And there’s…there’s something big happening.”

Her voice is distant, eyes unfocused, and Chloe feels something clench hard in gut. “Baby, how do you know that?”

“Because his light is getting small now,” Trixie says.

She’s already dialing. She doesn’t know why, not really. It’s impossible. But Trixie looks so scared.

“Decker!” Ella greets, cheerful as ever. “It’s late, everything okay?”

Chloe swallows. This is ridiculous. She shouldn’t—but one look at her daughter’s increasingly terrified eyes seals it for her.

“This might sound crazy, but can you trace Lucifer’s phone for me, really quick? I’m probably being silly, but he said he’d be here a little while ago, and I’m just…I’ve got a bad feeling,” she says, trying to sound casual about “her” premonition.

But Trixie’s nodding into her side, her hand gripping into her sweatshirt.

“Sure, Chlo, gimme a sec.”

“Thank you, Ella,” she says. Helpful, ever game Ella. She needs to get her a bottle of something good. On second thought, Lucifer usually stocks Ella’s favorite at Lux. She’ll swipe one the next time she’s there.

“Of course!” Ella says. “Okay, pulling it up and…huh.”

“Huh?” Chloe repeats.

“It says he’s been at the hospital for a…while now.”

Chloe nods slowly. “He said he was visiting Linda, but he called me on his way out, or at least I thought he was on his way out,” she adds, unsure now.

Maybe he went back in to visit Linda again. Maybe she called him. Maybe a hundred normal things happened that are delaying him from getting to her.

Or maybe he changed his mind about telling her…whatever it was he wanted to tell her.

But he said he wanted to move forward. All of the promise of their few kisses and touches finally being real—she doesn’t think he’d change his mind about that. She really doesn’t.

She glances down at Trixie and finds her staring back, eyes wide in fear now. “Mommy, he’s really really far away,” she whispers.

“Ella, can you tell how long he’s been stationary?”

“Over an hour,” Ella says immediately. “And really stationary. His phone is outside in the loading dock for the ER.”

That doesn’t make any sense.

“Mommy, we have to go check,” Trixie says urgently.

Chloe balks. She can’t—she can’t really be thinking about dragging her daughter across town right now—

“I’m like ten blocks away, Chloe, I’ll go check,” she hears Ella say.

“Ella, no, I can’t—”

“Gimme ten minutes, I’ll call you.”

And then she clicks off. Chloe sits there, heart hammering. Something’s wrong. And not just because Trixie feels a…light that tells her how far away Lucifer is. Something’s wrong. He wouldn’t leave his cell phone in a driveway. He wouldn’t call and say he was coming over and then just…not.

When he says he’ll be here, he’s here. When he tells Trixie he’ll do something, he does it. When he tells her he’ll do something, he does it.

“Mommy,” Trixie says, her voice thready.

“Yeah, baby, I’m worried too,” she admits, unsurprised when Trixie climbs into her lap. “But he’ll be okay. He always is.”

Trixing nods uncertainly against her chest, one hand fisting into her sweatshirt, the other still rubbing over her heart.

“Can you tell me more about the light?” Chloe asks, deciding to solve the mystery in front of her to tamp down on her rising anxiety.

“It’s right here,” Trixie says, patting just above her heart. “That way I know that Lucifer’s okay and protecting us.”

“Okay,” Chloe says, lost for something else. What does that mean? What kind of metaphor is that? “Did Lucifer tell you that?”

“Nu-uh. I told him. He didn’t know,” Trixie says simply.

“Okay,” Chloe repeats. “And does Lucifer have a…light too?”

“Yeah. So he can always find me if he needs to.”

That doesn’t make any sense at all, even as a metaphor. How could Lucifer promise a light could help him find Trixie if he needed to? Especially if it’s Trixie’s metaphor to begin with? But then, if it’s Trixie’s metaphor…

“Monkey, if Lucifer can find you, can you find him?” she asks. It’s an absurd question, because of course she can’t. Of course she can’t find him with a light she feels in her chest.

Trixie shakes her head. “He’s not awake.”

Well that’s cryptic.

Her cell phone rings before she can come up with another cogent question. What do you even ask after that? How would Trixie know?

She swipes her phone open on Ella’s name. “Ella?”

“Okay, this is really weird, Chloe.”

That doesn't bode well at all. “What is it?” she asks, holding Trixie tighter.

“I found his phone and…all of his clothes in a bush next to the hospital.”

Chloe blinks. “What?”

“Down to his socks and honestly really nice boxer briefs. Silk.”

“Ella,” Chloe prompts.

“Right. I’m gonna run them back to the lab, see if maybe I can get prints. I can’t imagine Lucifer took off all his clothes and went streaking. At least not without his phone.”

Chloe nods slowly. Has he in the past? She’s sure he has. But not tonight, not like this, and certainly not without his phone. “Okay. Um, was there a sign of a struggle?” she asks, glancing at Trixie, who’s watching her with wide eyes.

She can’t panic in front of her daughter. But Lucifer’s gone, and naked, and…

“Not that I can see. There’s no blood, at least. No tire treads or anything, but they must have put him in a car. Dragging him butt naked would have attracted too much attention. I’ve already called the hospital to send over the security footage. You wanna meet me at the lab?”

Chloe opens her mouth to say no, but Trixie’s nodding frantically. “Baby, we can’t just go to the—”

“Please, Mommy, I wanna find him.”

Chloe sighs. “Okay, yeah, Ella, Trixie and I will come meet you. Thank you for this, I mean it.”

“Anything for you and Lucifer and Trixie,” Ella says.

Two bottles of her favorite rose, and maybe she’ll get Lucifer to buy her a car too.

“Thank you,” she repeats, before Ella ends the call. “Okay, Monkey, are you sure? I can call Maze and see if she can come back and sit with you.” She’s not sure where Maze ended up after being at the hospital with Linda, but she’s sure, for Trixie, she’d come back.

“I wanna go with you, Mommy,” Trixie says firmly. “That way when we find him, I can see him.”

If they find him.

No, when. When they find him. Because Lucifer’s always all right, isn’t he?

Except for the times he gets beaten up, or gets shot, or gets bloodied, he’s always fine. And those times usually seem to only happen with her. And she’s not with him. So he’ll be fine, right? Like he was when he walked through poison air. He’ll be just fine.

“All right, let’s get dressed then. And we’re bringing a blanket for you. You can curl up in my chair while Ella and I look for Lucifer.”

“I can help,” Trixie insists, hopping off the couch. “When he wakes up, I can try and figure out where he is.”

Right, with her lojack light. “Okay, Monkey,” Chloe says, rather than arguing.

She heads upstairs to change as well, wanting to look at least a little presentable. The new Lieutenant’s not supposed to start until next week, but if by chance he’s there late on a Tuesday night, she needs to make a good impression. Especially since she’s bringing her daughter into the precinct.

It’s a terrible idea, but when she sees Trixie standing by the door, already in her coat, her backpack over her shoulder with her favorite blanket spilling out the back, she can’t refuse. It’s the blanket Lucifer gave both of them. The one he wraps Trixie in when she falls back to sleep curled up with them on the couch after nightmares. Of course that’s what she wants.

“Let’s go,” Chloe says, taking her hand and leading her out of the house.

The precinct is as empty and cold as the roads. Trixie stays close, pressed against her hip once they’re in Ella’s lab. Ella’s already there, Lucifer’s suit laid out across the table. He’s going to kill them for getting powder all over it.

“Anything?” Chloe asks.

Ella looks up, surprised to see them. She’s wearing a pair of gingham sweatpants and a tank top under a hoodie, her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head, big black glasses on her nose. She must have been about to go to sleep when Chloe interrupted her evening.

“Someone definitely took them off him, but no prints yet. A little powder residue was already on them though, so they might have worn gloves.”

Chloe swallows hard. If someone stripped him while wearing gloves, it was definitely premeditated. Though how could stripping him not be?

“Do you think they were from the hospital?” she wonders. There’d be no shortage of gloves available.

“The security desk didn’t see anyone but him leave around the time you said he called, but that doesn’t mean no one did,” Ella says just as a ping echoes from her computer. She turns and squints at it. “Footage is in.”

“Send it to me?” Chloe suggests. “Trix and I can go through it while you keep looking for evidence.”

“Oh, hey, urchin!” Ella says, seemingly just noticing Trixie. “You here to help find Lucifer?”

“Yeah,” Trixie says, smiling at her, whether because Ella’s the friendliest person ever, or because she called her by Lucifer’s…charming nickname.

Though it does sound charming when he says it. And when Ella does too.

“Right on. With you on the case, I’m sure we’ll find him in no time,” Ells says brightly.

Trixie nods and Chloe gives Ella the best smile she can muster, before guiding her daughter out of the lab. She sets them up at her computer, Trixie on her lap and wrapped in her blanket.

“Try and sleep, sweetie. I’m gonna watch a very boring tape.”

But Trixie doesn’t close her eyes, focused instead on the footage Chloe pulls up from Ella’s email. It’s time stamped from an hour before Lucifer’s call and she settles in to watch, rubbing at Trixie’s chest. Trixie sighs and cuddles closer. It isn’t until they’re 30 minutes into the footage at 2x speed that she realizes she’s been rubbing where Trixie says the light is.

“Lucifer’s light is less scared when you’re here,” Trixie whispers.

Chloe pauses the footage and looks down at her daughter. “Is it?”

“Uh-huh. He’s still sleeping but I think he’s less scared.”

“That’s good,” Chloe whispers, kissing her forehead.

She hopes that means Trixie’s less scared.

The precinct is dim and basically empty, with most of the lights turned off. No one’s noticed them so far. Usually this is when she’d leave after a long night. Or when she and Lucifer would get another cup of coffee, if they were here pouring over evidence. 

It makes her miss him, almost like an ache. Which is ridiculous. It’s been all of five hours since she’s seen him.

And two since he apparently went missing without his clothes.

She starts the footage again and finally spots him.

“There’s Lucifer,” Trixie says, perking up on her lap.

He’s walking toward the camera, talking on his cellphone. He must be leaving her his message. His face is mostly in shadow, but when he reaches a few feet from the camera he stops, staring out into the night, his face determined and a little scared.

What was he going to tell her? Was it about today? Or was it about…more?

He finishes the call, pockets his phone, and a figure in a ski mask sneaks up behind him and whacks him with a crowbar. He falls out of frame and both Chloe and Trixie yelp.

“Mommy, somebody hurt him!” Trixie whispers in horror.

Yeah, they really did.

Chloe switches the feeds, trying for another angle, and finds one on the opposite end of the Hospital awning. It’s far away, but they can clearly watch the bulky masked figure…stripping Lucifer and tossing him into a black and white truck.

She pauses and zooms in on the license plate. It’s only a partial, but it’s something.

“Okay, baby, we’ve got a lead,” she tells Trixie, who’s starting to cry. “We’ve got a lead, we’ll find him. It’s okay. He probably…”

But he was unconscious and naked and in the back of a truck. She’s seen him walk out of fire without more than a tiny burn. If he got knocked out…

“He’ll be okay,” she says, feeling the lie cutting up her throat. Lucifer never lies, not even to make Trixie feel better.

But what else can she say?

“Who’s that man?” Trixie asks, peering at the screen where the stocky masked assailant is closing up the truck.

Chloe hits play while scribbling down the partial plate. The masked assailant doesn’t get in the truck. Instead, it pulls away and the assailant tosses Lucifer’s clothes and phone behind the bushes before striding away. But he keeps the mask on, so they can see nothing but his figure.

“Muscled guy in all black” won’t help them much, but she’ll add it to the APB, see if anything pops.

She shuffles Trixie on her lap so she can fill out the form. Trixie wraps her arms around Chloe’s neck and presses her face into her shoulder, still sniffling, and Chloe hums.

“We’re gonna find him, Monkey,” she says. “We’re gonna find him.”

(…)

It’s not until he’s in the cruiser next to Officer McGinty that he’s able to feel it. The burns on his torso are healing, the knot on the back of his head made of more pressure than pain. And while no winning conversationalist, at least McGinty saw fit to give him a water bottle.

He still feels like death warmed over—not that dissimilar to how he felt just a few months ago when he was electrocuted back to life—but he’s calm enough now for the little flutter to permeate his senses.

He raises a still lightly scorched hand to rub against his chest beneath Mr. Said Out Bitch’s coveralls. The little light that sits next to his heart is pulsing frantically. Beatrice.

It hadn’t occurred to him just yet that she might be aware of what’s happened. But clearly she is, or something else has happened to her while he’s been gone. The clutch of fear in his gut has him reaching toward the console. Officer McGinty shoots him a look.

He sighs and puts both hands up. “Could you pass me your cell phone?” he asks with a sigh, discomfited by the quick fluttering of the light.

McGinty eyes him suspiciously but passes it over. It’s not even locked, which, really, McGinty?

He opens the phone app. He never needs to type in Chloe’s number, nor the house phone to reach Beatrice, and curses himself for not knowing them by heart. But he knows the precinct number.

It rings for what seems like ages before someone finally picks up. “Yes, could I speak please to Detective Decker. It’s Lucifer Morningstar.”

“Lucifer!” the receptionist Denise exclaims. “Oh, thank God, man, we’ve been worried sick about you.”

He bites back his current rage against his Father at the relief in her voice. “Oh?”

“Decker’s been going crazy. I’ll put you through, hang tight.”

She clicks him on hold before he can ask, and he sits stiffly, staring out at the expanse of nothingness down the road. They’re still at least an hour out and his back is already cramping. He can feel each bump in the road jostle his wings. He used to be able to ignore them when they were tucked away in their pocket dimension, but today they’re brand new and sensitive. And he may or may not have sun and celestial burns all around the joints.

Or maybe the scars from cutting them off fused strangely with this…new pair.

He just has to make it back to Lux. Then he can get Maze to cut them off again, so he doesn’t have to feel them. Doesn’t have to have every minute movement prove a mockery. Doesn’t need to think about his Father with every breath he takes.

“Lucifer?”

His wings rustle soundlessly, his shoulders relax, his chest loosening. “Hello, Detective.”

“I’ve got him!” he hears her shout. “Where are you? What happened?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he says. The fluttering next to his heart is reaching a fever pitch and he rubs harder, trying to calm it down. “I was…on my way to you, and then I was in the desert.” With a great big pair of Dad-damned wings strapped to my back and half my skin falling off.

“You were taken,” Chloe says softly. “Two days ago.”

So that accounts for the dehydration, and the panicked fluttering in his chest. “Is Beatrice with you?”

“Dan’s bringing her in no—”

There’s a screeched, “LUCIFER” that blasts through the phone and he winces. Even McGinty winces.

He hears a scuffling sound, the phone banging into something. “No, Monkey, Mommy has to ask Lucifer some—but he’s just—Trixie!”

And then there’s a loud snuffling sound. “Lucifer?” Beatrice whispers.

“Hello, child,” he says, ignoring the way McGinty looks sharply over at him.

“Where are you?” The fluttering in his chest is no less rapid, but he can feel it starting to calm down.

“Somewhere in the desert outside of Lancaster, apparently,” he says. “I did not realize I was gone for so long. Were you frightened?”

“You were really far away and really hurt,” Beatrice says. She’s crying.

“I’m fine now. Well, I’m getting there,” he adds at McGinty’s scoff. “An officer from the Lancaster PD is driving me back. I’ll be there in a little over an hour.”

“Are you sure?” Beatrice asks with a hiccough.

“I’m sure. Do I ever lie, darling?”

“No,” Beatrice says, her voice cracking. “But something big happened. And we couldn’t find you.”

“Well, I’ve been found now. And—Beatrice, how do you know that?” he asks, his brain catching up.

“Your light got bigger. And then it got really far away. But it’s bigger, like there’s more of it.”

Can Nephilim sense wings?

He really wishes there was someone other than Amenadiel to ask. How much more celestial nonsense will the child have to endure?

“I did not mean to frighten you,” he says.

“Are you coming right here?”

He closes his eyes. He wants to go straight to Lux. Wants to lop off his wings before he sees Beatrice or Chloe. Wants to erode the last three days from his memory all together. But as he sits with his eyes closed, a picture of Beatrice comes to him unbidden.

The little girl is curled up on her mother’s lap, the desk phone pressed to her ear, comically large. There are heavy bags beneath both of their eyes, and Beatrice is still openly weeping. Chloe’s trying to soothe her, but it’s not doing much.

“I’ll come to the precinct if you want,” he hears himself say.

“You come right here,” she insists.

“Trixie, let me talk to Lucifer before you make him come here,” he hears Chloe say.

“But he said he would,” Beatrice argues, and he hears a scuffle over the phone.

“We will need a statement, but you can go back to Lux first if you want,” Chloe’s voice appears in his ear. “Just bag whatever you’re wearing for Vice.”

“No, he has to come here!” Beatrice exclaims.

“Trixie, baby, please. He’s okay.”

“I’ll come there, Detective,” Lucifer finds himself saying, patently able to feel Beatrice’s distress. “Unless you both want to meet me at Lux.”

The moment he says the words he knows he’s lost. If they meet him at Lux, it’s unlikely they’ll leave for hours, and he’ll be stuck with his wings. But neither can he deny Beatrice what she needs, not when he can feel how upset she is with every pound of his own heartbeat.

“Okay. We’ll meet you at Lux,” Chloe says. “Trix, baby, go use the restroom and we’ll go to Lucifer’s now.” He hears the urchin say something inaudible and then it’s just the sound of Chloe breathing across the line. “Are you—are you really okay?” she whispers.

“Yes,” he says. It’s not a lie. Though it’s not the whole truth either.

He’s baffled. He’s battered. He’s burnt. He’s full of wrath and fire and pain. But the sound of her breathing, the feeling of Beatrice’s calming heartbeat—he’s becoming better by the moment.

“Do you remember anything?”

He shakes his head, watching the endless empty desert fly by, trying to picture any of the last three days in his mind. “I left you a voicemail, someone hit me on the head, and I woke up about three hours ago.”

“They said you were picked up an hour ago,” she says.

“I walked for a while.”

“Are you sure it was only two hours?”

He’s not, not at all. But what does it matter, really?

He shifts again, trying to get comfortable, and hisses as something pulls at his wing joint. Perhaps he should have tried flying home. He knows why he didn’t—a stubborn, white-hot rage. But maybe if he had, he’d be there already. Maybe Beatrice wouldn’t have been so upset.

“Lucifer?”

Maybe Chloe wouldn’t have been so upset.

“I think so,” he says, reaching down to take the last remaining sip of his water.

“Okay. Trixie’s coming back. We’ll meet you at the penthouse. Do you need anything?”

Just you two.

“No, Detective. I’ll be there soon. Do try and keep the urchin from jumping all over everything.”

She snorts. “Yeah, right, tough guy. Trixie said the last time she was there you built her a blanket fort. You don’t fool me.”

“Traitor,” he grumbles.

“Lucifer says you’re a traitor.”

“Detective!” he exclaims in time to Beatrice’s indignant squawk.

Chloe laughs and he melts back against the seat. He’s so thoroughly done for.

“We’ll see you soon, Lucifer.”

He hums and the call cuts out before he can hear Beatrice’s retort.

Officer McGinty holds out his hand and Lucifer huffs, passing him the phone. He closes his eyes and tips his head back against the headrest. His neck is still too raw to sink fully into it. But he’ll be home with the Detective and the urchin soon enough. And then the thrumming worry above his heart will cease.

And maybe so will his own.

(...)

He knows what to expect when the elevator doors open. Beatrice’s shout of “Lucifer!” is already a foregone conclusion. What he’s not expecting after Beatrice rams into his torso is for Chloe to follow right on her heels, wrapping her arms around his shoulders with Beatrice trapped between them.

“You’re okay,” she whispers, tucking her face into his neck.

Once the shock wears off, he finds the wherewithal to grip her back with one arm while the other falls to rest his hand on Beatrice’s head.

“As I promised,” he mumbles.

The fluttering of the light above his heart quiets and his own pulse seems to calm as well. Everything about him relaxes, and a wash of peace and rightness floods through him.

Of course, nothing lasts forever, and all too soon Chloe pulls back to meet his eyes. He smiles reflexively. It tugs at his still-cracked lips and she steps back to hold him by the elbows, peering at him, cataloguing every burn and spot that hasn’t yet healed. It’s too much scrutiny so he looks down at Beatrice, still wrapped around his abdomen.

“All right, urchin?”

But Beatrice is just staring up at him, her eyes darting right and left. “They’re back?” she asks.

“What’s back?” he replies.

“Your wings,” she says, eyes wide.

He dislodges Chloe to reach back, twisting his neck, but his wings are safely tucked away, out of sight, out of all but his mind. And Beatrice’s, apparently.

“They’re so pretty.”

He looks back at the child, confused. “How can you see them?”

“What are you talking about?” Chloe puts in.

Right. Chloe. Detective. Miracle. Human.

“Trixie, does this have something to do with your light?”

He sees Beatrice wince and feels her pull back, stepping away, still staring up at him. “I had a bad dream when you got kidnapped,” she says, looking wary. “And I wanted Mommy to find you, so I told her about my light.”

Her eyes are wide and shining already and he stares back, so very confused. He may still be rather dehydrated.

“I’m sorry,” Beatrice whispers. “I was so worried.”

“Trixie, baby, you don’t need to apologize. You were just having big feelings,” Chloe says, looking between them, her brow furrowed.

“But I shouldn’t have—it’s—” Beatrice starts, her little lip beginning to wobble.

There really will be no peace today, it seems. But he can hardly let this continue.

“Beatrice,” he says firmly, lowering himself to his knees so he can meet her eyes. He ignores Chloe’s concerned murmur. “You never have to lie, child. Nor is it your job to protect me, all right?”

“But,” she glances up at Chloe and then at him. “But Mommy doesn’t believe you.”

“Believe him about what?” Chloe asks.

“That’s all right, urchin. You believe me, that’s enough. And if you tell her enough, maybe someday she’ll believe you.”

“Believe what?” Chloe insists.

Beatrice considers him for a moment and then looks up at her mother. “That Lucifer got his wings back.”

Chloe throws up her hands and turns away, muttering to herself, which makes him chuckle. Of course, then Beatrice looks back at him, her eyes wide again.

“They’re so pretty, Lucifer,” she says.

“Yes, all right, child,” he mutters. He didn’t know she’d be able to see them tucked away. Didn’t think anyone had to know they were back until he could dispatch them. 

“Can I touch them?”

Chloe makes a sound a few feet away, something between a snort and a groan.

“Perhaps later,” he says, but she’s already padding back up to him, her little hand outstretched to the spot above his shoulder where the arch of his wing rises up.

Her touch is soft and reverent, but Chloe’s watching them both like they’ve entirely lost the plot, so there’s no time to hover in the moment with Beatrice. No time to think about how long it’s been since anyone has touched his wings—since his little sisters used to groom them for him. No time to weep openly at Beatrice’s delighted giggle, nor tell her how much it means to him. No time to deal with how strange it is that he can feel her touching his wings when they’re not actually out.

“Beatrice,” he says softly.

She pulls her hand back quickly, meeting his eyes, lip between her teeth. “Sorry,” she whispers.

“No need to apologize,” he says softly. “But perhaps we should let your mum ask all her questions before she gives herself a stroke.”

“No, no, do go on with the wing stuff,” Chloe says, exasperated. “It’s better than hearing about how you chopped them off and burned them.”

He rolls his eyes, but Beatrice goes stock still in front of him. “You’re not gonna do that again, are you?” she whispers.

He meets her eyes, surprised, and finds himself with nothing to say. Because the moment they leave, he absolutely will be calling Maze.

“No you can’t,” Beatrice cries, ramming into him, her arms binding around his neck. “You can’t cut them off. No. No. Mommy tell him he can’t,” she wails into his throat.

Lucifer and Chloe stare at each other, shocked.

“Trixie, babe, whatever—they’re not real,” Chloe says gently.

Which only makes the girl cry more. “Yes they are. And he’s gonna cut them off and hurt himself and you have to tell him not to.”

Lucifer sighs and stands up, hauling Beatrice up and into his arms. He can feel her fingers digging into the joints of his wings and he hisses, but she doesn’t let go. Maybe he won’t have to cut them off after all. Maybe the little urchin can just pluck them.

“Trixie, honey, come on, Lucifer’s hurt, we need to—”

“Tell him he can’t cut them off,” Beatrice all but yells.

Chloe looks to Beatrice, then to either side of him, squinting, as if she’s really trying to—but of course she can’t see them.

“Tell her you won’t,” Chloe says softly.

“Detective.”

“Mommy, you have to make him,” Beatrice insists, turning her head to look at Chloe. “You have to make him promise.”

“Beatrice,” he starts.

“Mommy, make him!”

“Lucifer, just say you won’t cut them off,” Chloe says, exhaustion leaching into her voice.

“Detective, I can’t—”

“Stop with the metaphors! Can’t you see what all of this is doing to her? They’re not real, just tell her you won’t cut them off.”

“They’re not metaphors, they’re real,” Beatrice screams.

“No, Trixie, they’re not. Lucifer, just tell her you won’t cut them off.”

“I can’t do that, Detective,” he replies, hearing the desperation in his own voice.

“Why not?” Chloe exclaims while Beatrice sobs. “I know you care about her, just tell her what she needs to hear.”

“I can’t lie to her,” Lucifer implores.

“It won’t be a lie, because they’re not real,” Chloe yells back.

“Yes they are!” Beatrice shouts again, her fingers digging into the joints of his wings.

He buckles in pain. They are. They are very, very real, and with all the shouting, and the exhaustion, and the angry thrumming of Beatrice’s heartbeat in his chest combined with her crying, he’s starting to—starting to—

“Lucifer, for the love of God—”          

He collapses suddenly, landing hard on his knees, a rough jolt of pain radiating up his spine.

“Lucifer!”

And then his wings pop out.

Chapter Text

“Bollocks,” he says, still gripping tightly to Beatrice, barely keeping himself upright.

His wings are half crumpled against the floor and twitching. He didn’t think they’d hurt this much, out. But every movement sends stabbing tendrils of pain through his joints. He’d do something about it, but Chloe’s just staring at him.

Standing there, eyes wide, jaw dropped, arms lax at her sides, gaping. And…swaying.

“Detective, breathe,” he says urgently. He can’t get up to get to her if she passes out. Her astonished eyes find his, something like panic shining out at him. “Chloe, breathe.”

He sees her chest rise and fall with effort and lets out a breath of his own, relaxing his hold on Beatrice.

“Did I break Mommy?”

It’s said so softly, so sadly, so heartbreakingly cutely that he can’t help but sob out a laugh. He pulls his eyes from his astonished partner to look down at little Beatrice, who unwinds her legs from his waist and stands gripping at his neck.

“We may have broken her together,” he tells her, going for humor, but her eyes just well up again.

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Beatrice says plaintively, before spinning in his hold to stare up at Chloe. “See, Mommy, he just can’t cut them off!”

Lucifer groans. “Beatrice, let’s let your mother—”

“No, he can’t,” Chloe says.

This is going poorly for him.

“Detective, please, go sit down. I’ll get you a drink, and we can—”

“Promise my daughter right now that you won’t cut off your wings,” she says, her voice rough, eyes still over-wide. Her hands are twitching.

“Chloe,” he hears himself say.

“Right now, Lucifer. You promise her. You promise me,” she says and he watches, astonished, as a tear drips down her cheek.

“I—” he starts, looking from Chloe to Beatrice and back. “I don’t want them.”

“I don’t care,” Chloe says, stepping forward. Her leg nearly buckles, but she keeps moving, walking the six feet to them before lowering herself down to kneel in front of him.

She reaches out and wraps an arm around her daughter, and he feels himself break. She’s going to take Beatrice. He revealed himself, and now she’s reaching for her daughter to protect her. To take her way from the monster, deliver her from evil.

He closes his eyes, his arms still wrapped around the little girl, but ready. Ready for Chloe to pull her away. But then her other hand brushes at the arch of his wing, where Beatrice’s fingers were just minutes earlier.

He gasps. So does she.

“I don’t care if you have to see Linda every day for three years, Lucifer, you don’t cut these off. I won’t let you.” Her voice is hoarse but achingly firm.

Her fingers stroke at his wing for a moment before gliding up to cup his cheek. He opens his eyes, his whole body thrumming, poised, terrified.

“Promise me,” Chloe demands, her eyes wet with tears.

Both of them wrapped around Beatrice, her fingers soft and gentle on his face—it cracks something down deep to his soul, if he has one. “If you don’t take her away,” falls from his lips.

“Lucifer,” she whispers.

“I won’t cut them off if you—if you—” he can’t finish the thought, not again.

Beatrice’s little nails are cutting into his forearms. She can’t take her away. She just can’t. And if this is the price—his wings for his, for their—for Beatrice—he’ll pay it.

“You won’t promise me for anything else?” she asks, her voice thick.

“I don’t want anything else.”

Chloe’s eyes flutter shut and he steels himself for her rejection. She’ll take Beatrice any moment now, gather her up and run into the elevator. Which…shit, he’s trapped them, his wings covering their only means of escape.

He has to let her make the choice. He can’t keep them captive here. He doesn’t want them with him if it’s like that.

But one jerk of his right wing and he cries out, releasing Beatrice to buckle forward around her, a hand to the ground.

“Lucifer!” Beatrice exclaims, turning to reach for him.

Chloe grabs her and holds her back. He makes a sound somewhere between a keen and a sob. He closes his eyes, unable to face it.

“I can’t pull them in, Detective. You’ll have to—have to go around the bar,” he manages to grunt out.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t retract them. They’re too tender. I know I’m blocking your way out. I won’t fight you, just…just please,” he rasps, the pain almost overwhelming, swirling across his back, flaring out against his shoulders, gripping at his chest. “Just let me say goodbye.”

There’s a pause and he tries to breathe through the pain, through the gripping grief.

No one told him, he never asked, what happens if an angel loses their Nephilim? How do they go on?

What happens if he loses them both?

“Nobody’s saying goodbye, Lucifer.”

He blinks his eyes open and finds Chloe and Beatrice still there in front of him, Chloe holding Beatrice back while she strains toward him.

“Promise me you won’t cut them off, and then we’re going to help you to bed.”

She can’t be—she must be—

“Promise me,” she insists, the look of determination she usually wears when interrogating suspects falling over her face, sharp and intent.

“Please,” Beatrice whispers.

And he’s helpless. “I promise.”

A sudden white-hot pain flares against his back, at the base of his wing joints, and he groans. But it passes just as quickly, and when it fades, he can breathe again. The ripping, splitting pain is gone, replaced by a dull ache that allows him to straighten up.

Almost like it was a…test.

But then Beatrice breaks free from Chloe’s grasp to wrap her arms around his neck again and he closes his eyes, holding her close. How could it be a test with the urchin at its center? How could anyone, least of all his Father, have predicted there would be a child who would fight so hard for him?

“Okay, come on, let’s get you up,” Chloe says.

He opens his eyes and finds her standing above them now, a hand outstretched. Reaching out for the Devil. But then, what choice does she have, with her daughter in his arms?

Still, he can’t make himself take her help. He staggers up on his own power, Beatrice clinging to him with all her might.

“Poppet, let your mother take you,” he says softly, trying to pry her from his chest while he sways, unused to the weight of his wings all over again.

“No,” Beatrice huffs into his neck.

“Beatrice,” he implores.

“It’s okay,” Chloe says, her hand landing on his shoulder blade.

He jerks and she hums, Beatrice’s arms winding tighter around his neck.

“Come on,” Chloe prompts, pushing gently at his shoulder to get him to walk further into the penthouse. “You need to change, and I—Oh, Lucifer, your neck. Trixie, ease up, he’s got a sunburn.”

He can’t even feel it, but he feels Beatrice lean back, her hands coming to rest on his collarbones. “It doesn’t hurt,” he mutters.

“Still,” Chloe says, pushing him up and into his bedroom. “Trixie, come here, honey. Let’s let Lucifer change, and maybe shower.”

Chloe’s hands come around the child’s torso and Beatrice squirms. “No, he’ll leave!”

Chloe sighs and he meets Beatrice’s wide eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, urchin. But I would like to have the sand off of me. And off of you,” he adds, looking down at her black tee shirt and jeans, which are coated in dust and sand.

“I’ve got her, don’t worry about it,” Chloe says as Beatrice warily releases him and lets her mother lower her to the floor.

They stand for a moment just looking at each other. Chloe has her hands on Beatrice’s shoulders, fingers curling into the urchin’s tee shirt. Her eyes are still too wide, her face still too slack. It makes his insides twist, because she looks like she’s going to run.

He doesn’t understand why she hasn’t already.

“Where do you keep your aloe?” Chloe asks.

He blinks. “What?”

“And Vaseline and maybe Neosporin. Some of the burns look pretty bad,” she says, her voice soft.

“I’m fine,” he says, knee-jerk. But she’s still staring at him. “Really. If I can just—” He twitches his back and finds that the pain’s receded enough for him to tuck his wings away. Chloe gasps audibly as they disappear. “Well I can’t very well fit them into the shower with me,” he says, watching the way she seems to be searching the air for them.

“In the second bathroom you could,” Beatrice pipes up. “But can’t they get clean anyway? I can still see them.”

Right. That’s odd. Not that all of this—everything about this day hasn’t been odd already. But Beatrice, as usual, is a cut above the rest of it. “What do they look like, like this?”

“Can’t you see them too?” the little girl asks, confused.

“If I want to, I can,” he says. “But I usually don’t. Get in the way of most of my peripheral vision, don’t they?”

“Why can Trixie see them and I can’t?” Chloe asks.

He’s no more prepared to answer that than he is to answer any of the questions someone else might ask. Someone without her priorities, her analytical mind, her kindness. As first celestial questions go, it’s pointed and practical, just like she is.

Oh, he loves her.

This is very much not the time.

He loves her.

“Is it because of the…light?” Chloe continues.

“Yeah,” Beatrice says before he can formulate an answer. “His tucked-away wings look like light.”

“Really?” he asks, breaking Chloe’s searching gaze to look at the little girl.

“Yeah! They’re like big golden wings. They’re really pretty. Not as pretty as the white ones. Or, well,” she pauses, biting at her lips, thinking. “They’re different pretty.”

He can’t help but laugh a little. “Thank you, urchin.”

“Why don’t I get to see the golden version?” Chloe asks. “They sound cool,” she adds, almost to herself.

“They’re really cool, Mommy!” Beatrice says, leaning her head back to look up at Chloe. “Not as cool as his Fairy Dad Monster face, though.”

He stiffens, dread coursing through his veins again.

“His…what?” Chloe asks, looking down at Beatrice before swinging her gaze back to him.

He stands there, helpless and baffled as to how to respond. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking. Doesn’t know where to start. He’s embroiled her daughter in a celestial knot he’s not even sure he fully understands.

She should probably kill him.

“Lucifer protects us like a fairy godmother, but he doesn’t like to say God, and he said he’s a monster—but I think he’s wrong,” Beatrice says, glancing at him with a wide smile. “So I told him he could be my Fairy Dad Monster instead.”

His eyes feel suspiciously moist. He’s just so tired, he can’t quite handle Beatrice’s quiet adoration, not right now, not with Chloe still staring at him like that.

If she’s going to leave, he needs her to do it. And he can’t watch, he just can’t.

“I’ll just go shower,” he says.

He turns and heads out of the bedroom, aiming for the guest bathroom, because Beatrice is right, he probably can at least rinse his wings down in there. He’ll have to get onto the balcony afterward to dry them, dragging water all the way through the penthouse. But he can feel the sand granules at the base of his secondaries, gritty and itching.

His whole body is itchy, which doesn’t help the painful squirming in his chest—anxiety and fear and a desperate yearning brewing beneath his ribs. Both sensations worsen the further he gets from Chloe and Beatrice. By the time he’s closed himself into the guest bathroom, he’s close to hyperventilating and ready to claw off his skin.

He turns the mirror and watches his own eyes go wide. His face is pink, his lips pale and cracked, his hair a curly, sandy mess. The burns on his throat look more like rough scabs than they did hours ago, but they haven’t fully disappeared. No wonder he feels so exhausted. They must have been third degree when he woke up.

He’s not sure how he got burned to begin with, given Chloe was safely in LA the whole time. He doesn’t know how any of this happened.

With a sigh, he peels Mr. Said Out Bitch’s coveralls off, turning away from the mirror. He doesn’t need to see the scabbing on his torso, doesn’t want to. But then he turns back, searching the mirror for a glimpse of the golden wings Beatrice says she can see.

If he focuses, if he squints, he can sort of see his wings, resting behind him, rising and falling with each harried breath. They’re golden, almost skeletal, the feathers barely flickering out at him, like a sketch.

He’s never really thought about them still being there once he’s tucked them away. They don’t interact with the world like this. They’re on another plane of existence, as far as he’s concerned.

So why can Beatrice see them so clearly, when it takes him such focus?

The scabs are healing as he stands there. It itches fiercely, but there’s relief coming for him. He has to power through. Who knows how long Chloe will stick around, if she hasn’t already absconded with the urchin.

Well, it wouldn’t be absconding, would it?

Beatrice is her daughter. Not his. Never his. No matter what the…celestial powers have declared otherwise.

What he declared otherwise.

He didn’t mean to make Beatrice into a Nephilim. It wasn’t conscious. But he—he chose her, he claimed her, somewhere along the way. He loves her.

And apparently, that’s enough to thoroughly fuck up her life, and her mother’s.

With a sigh, he turns on the shower, stepping gratefully into its pounding pressure. It burns against his skin, but it’s a welcome sensation. He could stay beneath the punishing spray for days, eyes closed, trying to forget. Forget the way Chloe looked at him, shocked and…

And what?

He didn’t see fear, didn’t smell it.

He didn’t see disgust. He didn’t see horror.

Awe, confusion, resolve—she barely reacted at all, really.

Then again, all she’s seen is the divinity. He still hasn’t shown her—

He growls and reaches for the shampoo, opening his eyes to stare at the green tile of the overly large shower stall. He washes his hair, and then his body, and then stands for a moment, breathing hard.

He pops out his wings and turns without really preparing himself. The water on his wings makes him shout. It’s too much sensation. Shooting, stabbing, tingly pain courses through him, equal only to the blissful pleasure as the hot water saturates his wings.

He doesn’t realize he’s groaning until a knock sounds on the door.

“Lucifer?”

He shudders.

“Are you okay?”

He has to brace himself against the wall. She’s still here.

“I’m,” he tries, his voice hoarse, throat like wilting sandpaper.

“Can I come in?”

He stands breathing in the steam, trying to parse the question. Why would she want to—

But the door opens before he can decide and he blinks through the foggy glass door at her. She’s still there in her jeans and button-down blouse with the stars on it. He likes that one. Her blazer must be elsewhere.

“You’ve been in here a while,” she says, closing the door behind her. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right, and didn’t need help.”

Why would she help him?

“I’m,” he tries again, and it comes out strangled.

“Okay,” she says, her voice soft, eyes filling again.

What did he say? What did he do?

He jerks back as she opens the stall door. But she just turns off the water. Without the spray, water begins to drip through his wings, slow and startling. He shakes himself, only realizing a moment later that he’s fully naked. He usually wouldn’t mind, but this, with his sopping wings, his still-burned chest—this isn’t what he wanted her to see.

She hands him a towel only a moment later, eyes never leaving his face. He fumbles to wrap it around his waist, knocking into his wings more than he’d like. She steps back so he can move out of the stall. His wings bump the sliding glass door and he stumbles.

Her hands shoot out, catching his forearms. “Steady,” she whispers, eyes widening. “Lucifer, how hot was the shower?

He blinks at her, everything fuzzy. Must be the steam.

“Shower?” he repeats. His mouth is suddenly so dry.

“Okay, can you…do the wing retraction thing? You need to sit down.”

He stares at her, confused. Why does he need to—and then the world tilts.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, thinking hard. It takes longer than it should to pull his wings back in, but he manages with only a tight ache. They’re healing, that’s something, even if he can feel the water still dripping between his feathers on that other plane.

“Sit.”

She pushes him backward and he moves, feet clumsy, until his shins hit the toilet and he plops down. Her hands glide up to cup his shoulders. He blinks at her as she leans over him to open the window, his hands coming up to curl over her hips on instinct.

She leans back and looks down at him. “Let go.”

He does, jerking his hands back. He didn’t mean to. It was instinct, he didn’t mean—

“I need to get you water,” she explains.

“Water?”

He’s just showered, he doesn’t need—and she’s moving away from him. He wants her close. Oh, his brain isn’t firing on all cylinders here. 

She comes back only moments later, pressing a glass of water into his hand and all but helping him bring it to his mouth. Her touch is gentle, absurdly calming, and it’s confusing the fuck out of him.

He drinks, his heart rate slowing down. He was really about to faint from heat and dehydration. Him. The Devil.

He lowers the glass, his hand shaking and closes his eyes, just for a moment, until it feels like the room is no longer spinning. She takes the glass from him without asking, and then her fingers are there in his sopping hair, dragging against his scalp the way she sometimes does on her couch, when his head is lolling, Beatrice tucked into his side.

She can’t be touching him like that, not now, not after everything…

“Trixie’s passed out in your bed.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice rough. “I didn’t mean to frighten her.”

“You didn’t,” she says, her other hand coming to rest against his cheek,

He opens his eyes to look up at her. “I think I did.”

She rocks her head from side to side. “Okay, you really did, but you didn’t get kidnapped on purpose, or…” She glances to either side, where his wings would be. “Well, actually, did you get them back on purpose?”

“No,” he says, fast and a bit guttural. “A…sign from dear old Dad. I guess.”

“Right. Because your dad is God,” she says softly, eyes going a little blank before she shakes her head. “It’s going to take me a little while to adjust.”

But her fingers are still stroking rhythmically through his hair and her palm is still at his cheek, and she’s still pressed close enough to smell her coconut conditioner.

“You’re awfully calm about this,” he says.

She snorts. “Someone needs to be.”

His hands rise of their own accord, falling to rest again on her hips. “It nearly broke Linda when I showed her my face. Please, don’t…repress, I believe is the word.”

Her laughter soothes something deep in his heart. “I’m plenty freaked out, I promise, not repressing that.”

“Always knew you were a brilliant actress,” he says, letting his hands slip off her waist immediately.

She sighs at him, removing her hand from his face to grab his arm and retrieve his hand. She presses it firmly back to her side. “I’ll be less freaked out if you’d stop trying to collapse on me, okay?”

She thinks he’s letting go of her for his health?

“I’m perfectly fine,” he says.

The look she gives him is so normal, so very average to their day to day that he can’t help but laugh a little, which earns him a soft smile. She should be screaming and running away.

“Stop looking at me like I’m about to break into pieces,” she says.

“You stop,” he counters.

“You just spent three days in the desert and look like someone sucked half the water out of your body. I just found out that my partner sometimes looks like a very pretty peacock. It’s not the same.”

“I beg your pardon?” he exclaims. But he’s unable to keep up his indignance in the face of her giggles. They’re a little hysterical, but she’s still smiling, still touching him, still laughing. “The Devil is not a pretty peacock.”

“Just a very pretty man with very pretty wings?”

He opens his mouth, but finds no retort forthcoming. He is pretty. And his wings…his wings are very pretty, he knows. Dazzling.

In fact— “My pretty wings have driven people to insanity, Detective. Hardly a trifle.”

“Well, I’m not insane, and clearly neither is Trixie.”

“No, she’s not,” he agrees. “I—I hope it didn’t worry you.”

“That my eight-year-old said that a light in her chest told her you were far away and that something had happened to you, and then she refused to sleep, had nightmares in a language I still don’t know, and threw a tantrum before going to school? Worried doesn’t really cover it,” she says.

“I didn’t mean to frighten her,” he insists.

She sighs at him again, like he’s being obtuse. “I know you didn’t.”

“I didn’t know she’d be able to tell if something happened to me,” he adds, because it feels important that she knows he would never have let something like this happen if he’d known. He doesn’t know what he could have done about it, really, but he would have figured something out.

“What is the light, Lucifer?” she asks, her hand stilling in his hair. “Why can she see your…shadow wings? Why did my daughter know you were—why did you show Trixie before you showed me?”

He searches her face, feeling inadequate and ill-equipped. Guilt burrows at his chest. He’s wanted to tell her dozens of times across the last few months, but he was too much a coward. He was too afraid she’d take Beatrice and run, and he wouldn’t be able to protect them.

Afraid they’d leave him and he wouldn’t be able to live with it.

And maybe, if all he’d had was his Devil Face, maybe she would have run. Maybe she still will.

The thought sinks in his gut and he blows out a slow breath. He no longer has the luxury of putting his fear before her needs. Not with her eyes welling like that. Not when it seems he’s hurt her.

“I didn’t mean to show Beatrice. She saw my eyes in the hanger,” he says.

“And she just…believed you?”

He shrugs. “I think she believed me the moment I told her I was the Devil. No one ever really does, but your daughter did.”

“She wasn’t scared,” Chloe confirms, not a question.

“Even when I showed her my whole face, she just asked if it…hurt,” he says, his voice catching, remembering her little hand against his cheek, asking if he needed a plaster.

She peers at him, searching his face. “Will you show me?”

His breath hitches. “You don’t want to see it.”

“I do,” she replies, her other hand rising from his shoulder to cup his jaw.

“Chloe, it’s not like the wings,” he all but begs, visions of her ripping herself from his arms, running out of the penthouse, dragging Beatrice behind her filling his mind.

“I know it’s not,” she says firmly. “I’ve seen it before.”

“No you haven’t,” he replies immediately. “You—”

“The night I shot you. I saw something in the reflection behind Lindsay. I kept telling myself I imagined it, because when I shot you, you bled. But I didn’t imagine it, did I?”

He clutches at her, quite out of his control, both hands anchored on her hips, holding her to him.

“Please, Lucifer,” she says.

He feels a tear slip down his cheek. She wipes it away with her thumb, waiting, her face open and lovely. He closes his eyes, wanting to remember her that way, wanting to hold onto this moment before he rips it away from himself.

He takes a deep breath, summons his face, and waits, terror coursing through his veins.

“Lucifer,” she says a moment later, almost irritated.

But he stays still. If she’s still touching him, if she’s still here, maybe—

“I know you’re scared, but I need to see it.”

His eyes fly open. “What?”

“I know you’re scared I’ll…run, I guess. But I just need to see it, and then you don’t have to show me again.”

“I did,” he says, confused.

“No, you didn’t,” she says firmly.

“What?” He releases her hip to reach up and touch his own face. It’s still the same, still his human face. “What?” he repeats, gently pushing on Chloe to get her to step back.

He misses the feeling of her hands on his face, in his hair, but he’s too confused to stay still. He gropes his way along the counter until he can see his face in the mirror. Pale, cracked, wet, but not red.

He tries to flash his eyes, nothing happens. He blows out a slow breath, centering himself, and tries to summon his face. Nothing.

It’s…gone.

“Lucifer?” Chloe appears next to him, staring at him in the mirror, head cocked. “What’s going on?”

“It’s gone,” he whispers, the words coming out cracked and frantic. “It’s gone. I can’t—it’s gone.”

“What is?” she asks, laying her hand on his bicep.

He twitches beneath her. He no longer has his Devil Face. What the fuck?

“Lucifer, you’re scaring me,” she whispers.

“Now I’m scaring you?” he replies, meeting her eyes in the mirror. “Not the wings, not being the Actual Devil?”

She nods slowly. “Talk to me. What’s happening?”

“My face is gone, Detective, that’s what’s happening,” he replies, too clipped and sharp.

But it’s gone, and he has his wings again. Someone took it and gave him his wings back and he doesn’t understand. What’s happening?

“Your Devil Face is gone, and your wings are back?” she summarizes.

“Yes,” he hisses.

“Okay,” she says, her hand squeezing his bicep.

Oh, he is heaving in air, like he’s about to shatter the mirror, isn’t he? “I can’t show you, can’t prove to you how monstrous—how much you’re going to want to run away—without that face. I don’t understand,” he croaks.

“I’m not running away. And I already saw it, I told you,” she says, stepping closer. “But you’re going to collapse if you don’t calm down.”

“You can’t know that,” he says, meeting her eyes in the mirror again.

“Trixie didn’t run, so I can,” she says simply. “And as for believing you, you have great big white wings. I believe you, okay? If that’s—if that’s what this is about, I believe you, and I’m here, and you need to calm down.”

He stares at her, paralyzed by fear and confusion and a white-hot anger. His Father took his face and restored his wings, no warning, no explanation. His whole life—

“Breathe, Lucifer,” she yells.

He startles and sucks in a breath. Her face cracks and she laughs shakily.

“What?” he grunts.

“I really thought I’d have rights to the hysterical breakdown tonight.” She smiles at him, tentative, but there.

“Yes, you really should,” he agrees, trying to pull himself together. “You really should,” he repeats, turning away from the mirror to face her. “You’re extraordinary, Detective.”

She considers him for a moment before moving forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. He stills and then grips her back on instinct. Her body is warm beneath his hands, her breath so real and wonderful against his throat.

“I think you need to sleep.”

“Why?” he mumbles into the top of her head.

“Because if either of us is more than ordinary, it’s the Devil.”

He huffs into her hair and she laughs against his throat. For just a moment, right here, he thinks things really might be okay.

Chapter Text

Her daughter curled up in Lucifer’s bed would have seemed so strange a year ago. But now, she looks like she belongs there. There are touches of Trixie all over his apartment, Chloe’s learning. Drawings he must think no one will notice pinned up in the strangest places, blankets and pillows on his soft leather couch, a stack of board games in the corner of the living room she’s positive wasn’t there a year ago. The picture she sent him of her and Trixie wrapped in his blankets stares back at her from his bedside table. He had it framed.

It’s touching, and lovely, and it’s almost enough to distract her, because it’s so painfully obvious how much Lucifer loves Trixie, and how hard Trixie loves him back. But it still catches in her chest—her…partner is the Devil, great angel wings and stolen Devil Face and all. And that means all the weird, wild things he and Trixie have chatted about over movies and dinners and on drives to school were real.

And no one bothered to fucking tell her.

He’s waiting for her to crack up. For the sight of the big, fluffy white wings he’s currently shaking off on the balcony to drive her to divinity-based insanity. He keeps looking at her like she’s fragile and about to break, when he’s the one who looks half desiccated and terrified.

And yes, she can feel an existential crisis rising in the background, because it’s not just that her partner is actually the Devil. That part—he’s been saying it for two solid years. It’s not that she’s not surprised, but some part of her believed him.

It’s the rest of it. God, and Heaven, and Hell. Celestial Goddesses and Angel Brothers, and mythological daggers. And light.

She should be horrified, terrified, awe-struck. But all she really feels is angry.

“Bloody inconvenient,” she hears.

She turns and watches Lucifer walk back into the sitting area, wearing red silk pajama bottoms, his wings trailing behind him, feathers sticking out every which way. Her fingers itch to arrange them, to sink into the beautiful, gossamer white feathers and stay there until she’s calm again. But she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

Not yet, anyway.

“Is the spawn still sleeping?” he asks, eyebrow raised as he looks at her.

In fairness, she’s just standing on the other side of the coffee table, staring at him. Spawn, urchin, child. Are they adorable nicknames, or is it because there are no baby angels? He said that once, didn’t he, that he sprang forth fully formed, no angelic childhood to speak of? Is that why he was so awkward with Trixie at the start? He hadn’t ever really spoken with a child?

“Detective?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” It comes out more plaintive than angry and she curls her fists. Because maybe more than being angry, she’s hurt that he didn’t trust her. And jealous—what an ugly feeling—that he trusted her daughter, but not her.

“Detective,” he repeats, softer.

“Did you think I couldn’t handle it? That I’d go insane? That I would—did you not trust me?” she asks, horrified to feel her eyes welling up.

No, she’s mad. She’s angry. She’s—

“Chloe,” he breathes out, lurching toward her.

She steps back. He can’t do that. He can’t touch her. He can’t bring those beautiful wings all close to her and make her forget how very angry she is at him. How much he’s hurt her by keeping this from her.

He stops moving instantly, his face falling. It’s almost like a flinch. Like he thinks—

He thinks she’s scared of him. The thought clenches hard in her stomach. In the bathroom, with Trixie before, he thought she was going to run. That she’d be so terrified of him she’d take Trixie and bolt. That she’d leave him. That they would leave him.

She’s angry that she feels her anger failing. He still should have told her. He still should have trusted her. He still should have given her the choice to have an opinion about her daughter being exposed to—

There’s a cry from the bedroom. She blinks, and suddenly Lucifer’s not there anymore.

She gasps and then jumps at the soft, “it’s all right, urchin, shhh, you’re at Lux with me and mum,” that filters out from the bedroom.

How—

She walks across the room on shaking legs, stumbling up the stairs to stare at the picture they make. Trixie’s arms are wrapped around Lucifer’s neck, her small body curled into his chest, his wings wrapped around both of them. Her daughter is crying softly and Lucifer is rocking them side-to-side. His eyes are closed and as she stands there, she thinks maybe both of them are glowing. It would be so easy to think it’s just a trick of the light.

But she doesn’t think it is. It’s Lucifer, the fallen angel, holding her daughter and promising her that she’s safe. That he’s there, and she’s there, and her daughter has nothing to fear. That nothing’s going to take either of them away.

She can’t promise Trixie that. But maybe he actually can.

She didn’t give permission for an angel to love her daughter. For the Devil to love her daughter. But she did give Lucifer permission.

She let him take care of Trixie. She encouraged it. He loves her daughter. Her daughter loves him. And—

He told her. He told her almost every day. She just chose not to believe him. Chose not to see. Willfully told herself she hadn’t seen, when she had. Chose not to push, not to prod.

He told her over and over and over and she told him she didn’t believe him.

She wants to be so angry. She wants to be so so hurt.

But as he lifts his eyes to meet hers, his gaze bright with unshed tears, she wonders if it’s actually her who hurt him over and over. Him who should be angry with her.

She’s been trying to show him that he’s worthy of her, of them. But she clearly hasn’t, or he would have trusted her with this.

“Mum’s right here,” he says.

The rest of her rage evaporates when Trixie’s little hand extends out of the pile of feathers, reaching for her. She’s helpless to refuse, padding over to the bed. Lucifer raises one of his wings, making space for her there on the edge of his mattress.

Climb beneath the Devil’s wing and comfort her child, and her partner, or hold onto her anger, her hurt, her betrayal?

The choice is barely there at all, and all at once she’s seated on the edge of Lucifer’s bed, Trixie’s hand curling into her shirt, with soft down settling all around her.

She gasps quietly as the feathers touch her skin. She felt a jolt of it when she touched his wings earlier, but it was nothing compared to this. To the peace, and warmth, and heartbreaking love that washes over her.

“Aren’t they pretty, Mommy?” Trixie whispers.

She swallows around a lump in her throat. How could he think she would ever have run from him, when this is how he feels?

“Very pretty, sweetheart,” she whispers, her words rough.

“Apologies, Detective. I—she wanted—I know they can be overwhelming,” Lucifer says.

“What?” she mumbles, turning her head to meet his worried gaze.

“I don’t want to sway your decision. It isn’t fair. But Beatrice asked.”

She shakes her head, trying to clear it. It’s just that every brush of the feathers makes her feel it more. And though he’s just showered and didn’t take any time to do his normal routine, everything smells like his woodsy cologne, and cigarettes, and whiskey. It’s like he’s holding just her, her face pressed against his throat. It’s like she can feel his fingers in her hair, his lips against the crown of her head, even though both of his arms are wrapped around Trixie.

It’s like he’s kissing her, like he’s holding her face in his palms, holding her hand while she’s in her hospital bed, smiling at her in the way that crinkles his eyes.

“Beatrice, can I put away my wings? It isn’t fair to your mum.”

“Why not?” Trixie asks.

Chloe tries to breathe through it, to accept the sensation so she can make her brain work.

“My wings were a…gift from my Father. Their divinity can overwhelm humans. It isn’t fair to try and convince her this way, to let my Father’s power sway her decision.”

His voice is gentle and achingly sad. Chloe tries, she does, to open her mouth again. To explain.

“It’s not your daddy that she’s feeling, Lucifer,” Trixie says, confused.

“It is, darling. And that’s all right—that’s what the wings do, but I don’t want your mum’s decisions, her feelings, to be divinely altered.”

“But,” Trixie says, louder now.

“Beatrice, please. I’ll let you see them again soon, but I need to—”

“No.” Chloe manages to rip the word up her throat.

“Detective.”

“No,” she repeats, the heartbreak in his voice finally enough to clear the fog from her head. “No, Lucifer, she’s right.”

“You’re not thinking straight,” he says, so sure of himself. But it’s far from his usual cockiness. There’s an aching sadness to his words that twists at her heart.

“It’s not your Dad,” Chloe insists, leaning back against his wing, hoping the pressure will prevent him from retracting them.

“The divinity—”

“It’s not divinity,” Chloe says quickly.

“Yeah,” Trixie agrees.

“It can feel like…many things,” he says on a sigh. “But it’s all my Father, and I would rather—”

“It’s you,” Chloe breathes out, meeting his eyes, trying to push it out to him, trying to make him see. “It’s not your Dad. That’s not what I feel. It’s you.”

He just blinks at her, his head cocked. He really does look like an exquisite peacock, actually. But that’s not what she needs to say right now.

“Chloe,” he chides. Silly silly human, what could she know?

But she knows more than he does. He’s had his wings for about as long as she’s known about them this time. She knows more than he thinks. She feels more than he thinks.

She loves him.

And now she knows he loves her back.

“Lucifer,” she says firmly, finding it in herself to move her arm, to glide her hand over his lower back so she can grip at his hip, pulling them flush together. Her other hand comes to rest on his bicep where he’s got Trixie in his lap. “Your wings feel like every kind thing you’ve ever done. It’s like I can feel your laughter, and your smile, and the way you look at me.”

He stares at her in utter confusion, his wings rustling around them, like a nervous little tick. It’s achingly sweet and she leans down to press her forehead into his shoulder, because otherwise she might start crying.

“It’s a lot, but it’s not your Dad. It’s you. It’s like being wrapped up in you.”

“Your wings are like the light, Lucifer,” Trixie says. “Just on the outside.”

“That’s right,” Chloe agrees. “It’s like being wrapped in a light made of Lucifer.”

Trixie giggles. “We can call it Luci Light!”

And that, it seems, is enough to break the Devil out of his stupor. “We certainly cannot,” he says gruffly.

Chloe raises her head and meets his eyes, letting him search hers for the truth. He looks lost, and scared, and so shatteringly hopeful.

“Whatever we call it, your wings are just you. That’s all. And you’re—” She pauses, searching for the right word. For a word that can explain the immense, heartbreaking, wonderful, glorious feeling that is being enveloped in them.

“Ours,” Trixie supplies.

She can feel Lucifer’s intake of breath, watches the way his eyes widen, glisten. Sees him clutch at her daughter and feels how, out of arms to hold her with, his wings clutch at her too.

“Yeah,” Chloe agrees, gripping him back, the rightness of it settling bright in her chest. “Ours.”

“Chloe,” he whispers, tears trailing down his cheeks.

She reaches up to wipe one away with her thumb. “There’s no decision, Lucifer. You’re stuck with us.” His eyelids flutter and she sees his throat bob as he swallows hard. “You’re our…what was it, Monkey?”

“Fairy Dad Monster,” Trixie says. “But maybe you should call him something else.”

It takes a beat, but they tear their eyes away from each other to look down at Trixie, who’s smiling up at them, that sly look that usually means trouble with Maze spreading across her face.

“Like what?” Chloe asks.

“If the word Fairypartmonster is about to come out of your mouth, gremlin, I will throw you up among the stars,” Lucifer says, his voice hoarse, but lighter than it’s been all night.

Trixie giggles. “No, that’s silly. Wait, could you?” she asks, eyes going impossibly wide. “Can you fly me to the stars? Can we go to Mars?”

Lucifer hesitates and Trixie squeals, hands slapping at his shoulders. “You CAN? Can we go right now? Can we go to Jupiter? Can we see a black hole? Why didn’t you say you could fly me to space?”

Lucifer swings his gaze to Chloe, looking completely lost. She can’t help it; he’s just too cute. She bursts out laughing, which makes his eyebrows go up, but the panic stays in place. Trixie’s still babbling, her questions reaching squeaky new heights and absurdities, and Lucifer’s just gaping at Chloe in desperation. She collapses into his shoulder, giggling.

“Detective, I cannot take the child into outer space,” he whispers. Trixie’s still going. Chloe laughs harder. “Detective.”

“Trix, baby,” Chloe tries, her voice more wheeze than anything.

“But Mommy we could go to Pluto and have a picnic!” Trixie enthuses.

“Lucifer just got his wings back,” Chloe tries to placate, because he’s still looking at her with horror. “And it’s gonna take him some time to get you a space suit.”

“He can get me a space suit?” Trixie shrieks.

They both jerk and Lucifer’s desperation turns accusatory. “Why would you even—” he starts, and then Trixie’s out of his arms, running around his bedroom, shout after shout of space-related expedition tumbling from her lips.

It leaves them sitting on his bed, her pressed into his side, his wing around her, her hand still anchored around his back on his waist.

“Could you?” she wonders, letting her free hand fall to settle on his thigh to push herself back up so she can see his face.

“Get her a space suit?” he asks, dazed.

“Fly her to space,” Chloe corrects.

He looks up toward the ceiling. “I’m not sure. There would be issues of air pressure, and propulsion. With the stars in place, the gravity is different than when I first lit them. I’d hate to get up there and not be able to fly us back.”

“That would be bad,” Chloe agrees, blinking. He lit the stars. She meant it as a tease, but— “I’m never going to be able to get her a Christmas present again.”

“What?” Lucifer asks, his voice cracking.

“Her Fairy Dad Monster can take her to space? What am I supposed to get her, a soccer ball?”

“I am not flying the spawn to space,” he says firmly.

“But you could fly her somewhere,” Chloe says, that creeping, massive, intrusive overwhelm pushing back into her head. “You can fly. Wait you—why didn’t you just fly back from Lancaster?”

Lucifer sighs, glancing at Trixie, who clearly needs no input as she continues to shout things she can now do with her own personal winged companion. “I’ll admit, it didn’t occur to me for a while, and then it was pain mixed with…” he trails off, shrugging.

“With what?” she presses.

“You’ve already made it clear I’m not to dispose of them,” he says, his voice only a touch mutinous.

“You promised,” she says quickly.

He sighs and looks down at her hand on his thigh before covering it with his own. “I did.”

“Are you still in pain?” she asks around a dozen other questions.

“Very little,” he says.

“Good. You look less scorched.”

His skin is mostly back to its usual perfection, marred only by the freckles she delights in getting to see whenever he unbuttons his collar when cooking in her kitchen or playing games with his shirtsleeves rolled up. The Devil cooks her daughter dinner, and plays board games, and builds blanket forts. The Devil spends his days solving crimes with her, when he could be doing just about anything else. The Devil’s watching her daughter run around like a crazed monkey, screaming about space with nothing but a small smile on his face.

“Are you all right, really?” he asks.

She looks down at their hands, how perfectly his knuckles slot between hers. “I have so many questions, but yeah,” she decides, raising her head to meet his eyes. “You should drink more,” she adds, eyes flitting over his still cracked lips, the over-definition in his cheeks.

“Have you or the hollering banshee eaten?” he asks.

Chloe snorts. He’s not wrong. Trixie’s still shouting suggestions. “Not recently.”

“I’ll order something and then whatever questions you have, I’ll do my damnedest to answer.”

She bites her lip at his cheeky smile. “You’re going to be insufferable now, aren’t you?”

“Rather,” he says, that smile growing before he shifts, wrapping both arms around her. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispers.

She grips back, gasping at the wave of affection that courses off his wings. She wishes she had something to give back just as easily. She settles on kissing his throat, which makes all of him shiver.

She can make the Devil do that. What a heady thought.

“Me too.”

Chapter Text

He didn’t think she’d make a list.

While he and the urchin sit on the floor in front of the coffee table finishing off their chicken fingers, Chloe’s curled up in an armchair with one of his notebooks, scribbling furiously. It’s been almost an hour.

“What about the rainforest?”

He looks down at Beatrice, who’s leaning into his side and yawning. “What about it?”

“Could you fly me there?”

Chloe may not be ready to interrogate him, but that hasn’t stopped her daughter. “Yes,” he says, feeling exhaustion dragging at him as well.

He’s too cozy, curled up on the floor in his favorite pair of red silk pajamas, seated on one of the cushions Beatrice dragged out from the den. They’re wrapped up in her favorite blanket and he could go to sleep just like this. Just lay his head and shoulders back on the couch and dissolve into dreams.

His wings shift against his back in their pocket dimension, and he blinks his eyes open. He doubts his dreams will be peaceful. Maybe he doesn’t want to sleep after all.           

“What about Morocco?” Beatrice asks.

“Anywhere you wanted, urchin,” he says, reaching back to the couch to grab one of the throw pillows. He places it in his lap and guides Beatrice to lay down before she passes out slumped against his side.

“Wanna go everywhere,” she mumbles.

“We’ll have to ask mum,” he says.

She uses the last of her energy to glare up at him before promptly passing out there in his lap. He shakes his head but settles the blanket over her all the same. He’s not a celestial Uber, but he has a feeling he’s about to become one.

Provided Chloe approves. She’s still writing.

“You don’t have to ask them all tonight,” he says.

Her head jerks up and she blinks across at him. “What?”

“We likely haven’t even time,” he says, gesturing toward her notepad.

“Oh,” she says, eyes widening as she takes in their tableau. “She’s asleep already?”

“It’s past nine,” he says.

“What?” She reaches out and grabs her phone. “Really?”

“I hope you’ve been writing by order of priority.”

She blows out a breath and flips back to the first of…far too many pages. But he said he’d answer her questions. He intends to honor his word, if he doesn’t pass out before he can finish them all. She gnaws at her lip for a moment before looking down at him.

He offers her a smile, hoping to put her at ease. She nods and slides off the chair to sit down directly across from him, just the coffee table and her sleeping daughter between them.

“Charlotte Richards,” she says.

“Really?” he wonders.

“You said any questions I have,” she says a bit defensively.

He holds up his hands. “I did, yes. All right. Charlotte Richards, the woman, is not my mother. But her body was inhabited by my mother, the Divine Goddess, for about four months, after Charlotte was killed.”

“Killed?” Chloe repeats.

“The case with Charlotte’s senior partner. She was killed alongside him, but my mother happened to escape from Hell and possess her body at just the right moment. Now that my mother is gone, Charlotte gets a second lease on life.”

Chloe stares at him, lips parted, eyes wide. “What does gone mean?”

His breath hitches, but he pushes through it. Thoughts about his mother—anger and grief about his mother—can wait until Linda’s ready to be in session again. A selfish part of him rather hopes she takes a lengthy convalescence.

“I opened a pocket universe with the flaming sword, her light streamed into it, and Charlotte’s body and consciousness were left behind. I threw Azrael’s blade in after her and the rift sealed up.”

“And Azrael’s blade is?”

“Right, the blade that made all of those people stab each other in sequence in that Yoga Cult. Makes any human that comes into contact with it fly into a murderous rage. Rather a good thing it’s no longer in our universe, really,” he says.

Beatrice shifts, her little lips smacking, and he rubs a hand over her back. He frankly hasn’t had time to be grateful the blade is gone until now. It can’t hurt Beatrice, or Chloe, or anyone else he cares about. He doesn’t need to think about it, or ensure its protection, ever again.

It’s a massive relief. Then he looks across the table to find Chloe just staring back at him, her eyes over-wide, chest rising and falling too rapidly.

“Chloe,” he says softly. “It’s safe now.”

“Trixie says there’s a light in her chest. It told her you were far away, and I guess that your wings were back, and that you were scared. Is that—is that like the light that was in Charlotte? Is Trixie possessed?”

“No,” he says quickly, swallowing against a sudden lump in his throat.

He thought—well he’s not sure why, but he thought they’d ease into this. That she’d have questions about Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil. Not…these questions, not yet.

“You promise?” Chloe asks, her voice rough.

“I promise. Beatrice is not possessed, and the light she feels is not…it’s not…it’s—” He falters, trying to summon the perfect words. He hasn’t had them for himself, hasn’t had them for Beatrice, or for Maze. But he needs them for Chloe. “Beatrice’s light is me.”

“You,” Chloe says slowly.

“It—it’s like a beacon. She can feel if I’m close, and if I’m on this plane of existence.”

“Warm like a hug,” Chloe mutters.

“I’m sorry?”

She shakes her head and looks down at her daughter. “When you went missing, she said you were far away. The light told her. I asked what it felt like. She said it was warm like a hug. Which I guess makes sense. It makes her feel safe, as long as you’re not kidnapped.”

She’s not screaming, which seems like a good sign.

“Do you also have a…light?” she asks, dragging her eyes from Beatrice to meet his.

“Yes. It’s like a little flutter, here,” he says, raising a hand to place it against the spot just above his heart. “If she’s upset, or in need, I can tell.”

Chloe nods very slowly, biting at her lip. “When she has nightmares, she says sometimes that you were ‘gone gone,’ when I was poisoned. She could tell—you said you died,” she says, the words tumbling out on a hushed breath. “Did you die?”

“Only briefly,” he says quickly.

“Why?” Her eyes are wide and wet and horrified.

“The only person with the antidote was in Hell. So, I popped down, confronted him, got…a wee bit caught in a Hell loop, and then came straight back,” he rushes out. “I was fine. Beatrice was scared. I didn’t know about the light, then. If I had, I would have prepared her a bit more.”

“You died and went to Hell?”

“It was that or your life.” People keep making a big deal about it, but there wasn’t a choice.

“Lucifer,” she gasps out. “What if—but you—”

“I’m just fine, darling,” he says, reaching out his free hand, palm up. “It was ages ago now.”

Her hand grabs his, squeezing so hard it actually hurts. “You died.”

“And then I got better,” he says.

She blinks and he winces. He shouldn’t have—

“You died with Malcom,” she says softly.

“And then I got better,” he repeats, rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand. “It won’t happen again.”

“Because there’s no chance you could get shot in the line of duty?” she asks, her voice tight.

“Because you’ve insisted I keep my wings,” he corrects. She cocks her head. “Should I need to visit Hell to protect you, or anyone else, I can simply fly down and back, no death required.”

“And you were going to cut them off?” she exclaims.

He pauses, just for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to him. And doesn’t that rankle? “I don’t intend to make a habit of it,” he says, ignoring her narrowing eyes. “Really, it’s no longer important.”

“We’re going to have a long conversation about need-to-know information after this,” she says firmly.

“If we get through your whole notebook, I think you’ll have all the need-to-know information you could ever want,” he says.

“I highly doubt that somehow.” Her eyes flit to Beatrice again. “The language Maze is teaching her…”

“Lilim,” he supplies.

“Wait,” she says, raising her free hand a bit. “Maze. She’s really a demon?”

“Yes.”

She sits for a moment, breathing shallowly, and then shakes her head. “You said—when we met, you said she was your lieutenant, your second.”

“I would trust her with my life. I would trust her with Beatrice’s life,” he adds, feeling the rise and fall of Beatrice’s breath against his palm. “And she would lay hers down in an instant, were it needed.”

Chloe nods slowly, eyes shifting rapidly. “Why does Maze think she needs to lay her life down for my eight-year-old?” she asks, watching Beatrice sleep. “Why is she teaching her…I assume it’s a Hell language?”

“The language of the demons, Lilith’s children,” he says.

“Why does Trixie need to learn a demon language?”

He hesitates for a moment, soaking in the quiet of the three of them here together, calm and peaceful. He’s fallen before, hit the earth and kept going into fire and brimstone. He didn’t know how far he would fall then. He thought at the time nothing could frighten him more than that first moment of flightless descent.

But he was wrong.

This, here, staring at Chloe with the truth teetering between them, is the most terrified he’s ever been.

“Lucifer,” she prompts softly.

“Maze believes that when Beatrice—that many, many years from now, when Beatrice passes, she will be able to travel between Heaven and Hell,” he says, the words spilling hot and horrible from his lips. He doesn’t want to think about that distant future.

Chloe’s eyes go impossibly wide, and he waits, pushing through his fear to try and honor the fact that Heaven and Hell being concrete realities might be overwhelming.

“She doesn’t think Trixie will go to Heaven?” she whispers.

“No, no,” he says quickly, reaching out with his other hand to cradle hers between both of his. “She will. She will be there with you, and your father and mother, don’t you worry.”

She takes a stuttering breath, eyes searching his before flitting back to Beatrice there in his lap. “Why would she need to go to Hell, then?”

“To visit me and Maze,” he says. Her hand grips at his. “Maze is hoping she’ll be able to travel between the realms, and if she does, she thinks Beatrice should be able to speak to the demons. Command—” he pauses for a moment, gathering courage.

“Command the demons? Why—but you—you can’t go to Heaven?”

He blinks. At every turn, she surprises him. “I was very emphatically banished,” he says, the words coming more easily than they ever have. “I admit, thinking Beatrice could visit is comforting. But I would never encourage it,” he says honestly.

Chloe stares down at their hands for a moment before meeting her eyes. Hers are shining with unshed tears and he strokes her palm, trying to give comfort and unsure of where he’s misstepped thus far. 

“It isn’t somewhere I would want her to be. But if she should want to visit, I—well, I doubt I’d be strong enough to deny her.”

“I can’t visit?” she asks, her voice cracking.

His chest clenches, an aching sadness coursing through him. He’s not ready to think about that. “I don’t know,” he says honestly, his voice tight. “Perhaps Amenadiel could bring you, or if Beatrice has wings in Heaven—it’s never been done. Souls aren’t supposed to descend.”

“Wings,” she whispers. “Amenadiel—why would Trixie have wings? She doesn’t, right? She doesn’t have shadow wings, like you?”

“No,” he says immediately, watching the quickening of her breath, feeling her hand go stiff in his. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Why will she have wings in Heaven?”

“I don’t know that she will. It’s just a possibility.”

“Why?” Chloe insists, looking panicked and confused and on the edge of hysteria for the first time tonight. “What’s wrong—what’s happened—I don’t understand.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he says quickly, shifting forward. Beatrice twitches, jostled by the movement. If Chloe—if this goes poorly, he doesn’t want Beatrice here for it. “Let me put her in bed, and then I’ll explain everything, I promise.”

Chloe nods very slowly and he gently pries his hands from hers. He carefully scoots out from beneath Beatrice’s head and stands up. He stoops and gathers the child into his arms, carrying her quickly and smoothly into his bedroom to tuck her into bed.

Her eyes crack open as he’s pulling the comforter up to her chin. “Lucifer?” she asks.

“Go back to sleep,” he says softly, squatting down to meet her eyes. “I’m going to talk to your mum on the balcony. Everything’s fine.”

“I know.” One little hand reaches out to pat his cheek. “You’re back,” she whispers in Lilim.

“Yes, child,” he agrees, running a hand over her head before tucking her hand beneath her chin. “Sleep now.”

She nods and lets her eyes fall shut, drifting almost immediately back to sleep. He stays there for a moment watching her, trying to calm his own racing heartbeat. If Chloe takes her—if this proves too much—if she runs, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

But he cannot hide away with her daughter all night. She deserves her answers, catastrophic as they may be. And he deserves to pay the consequences.

He stands on surprisingly aching legs and turns to find her waiting in the doorway to the bedroom, watching him. He offers her a stiff smile and holds out his hand. She looks no less concerned, but she takes it.

He clutches at her hand and leads her through the room and out onto the balcony. It’s chill, but not unpleasant, and he finds the brisk wind invigorating. He guides her around to the front of the balcony and then lets go of her hand, turning to face the proverbial music. If only it didn’t feel like a funeral march.

“Why does Maze think Trixie will be able to fly between Heaven and Hell? Why can she see your wings? Why does she have a Luci Light? Why does Maze call her Princess now?” The last one comes out a bit strangled.

He steels himself and wonders if this will hurt more or less than being shot. “First, I would protect Beatrice with my life,” he says, waiting for her confused nod before taking a deep breath. “And you know that despite my best efforts, I love the little urchin more than—more than almost anything,” he says, the words halting.

“I know,” Chloe says softly. “That’s not—I’m not worried about—I’ve known that since before you did.”

 He huffs a choked laugh and nods, raising a hand to rub the back of his sweating neck. His wings rustle in the other plane and he sighs. “It appears that in the act of loving your daughter, I accidentally celestially…adopted her,” he spits out.

She goes perfectly still. “What?”

And it all tumbles out in a rush. “Amenadiel and my mother believe that in coming to care for Beatrice, I accidentally turned her into a Nephilim, imbuing her with…well, we really don’t know what kind of powers. She can see my wings, she can feel my presence—I refuse to call it a Luci Light—and she can on occasion call forth a celestial wind when she’s mad. I don’t know whether she’ll have wings in Heaven, or whether she will inherit my kingdom if I should ever pass on, or what celestial powers she might have upon her death. It wasn’t my intention to make her my celestial child, but it appears I have very little say in the matter.”

He stands there breathing heavily, waiting, tense and terrified. Chloe’s just staring at him, blinking slowly enough he’s starting to get worried she’s about to collapse. Her mouth opens, then snaps shut, then opens, then closes. He feels himself shifting on his feet, his hands curling into his robe to keep from reaching out to her.

“I—” she starts, and then shakes her head. “You—” She runs her hand agitatedly through her hair.

He opens his mouth and she holds up a hand. He clamps his lips shut, watching her eyes flit this way and that. She’s not running, but that doesn’t mean she won’t. He has no idea what’s about to happen, and while usually that excites him with the Detective, at this moment, he’d give anything for a bit of divine understanding, foreshadowing, something.

He’s never loved anyone like he loves Beatrice, like he loves Chloe. Losing them would break him. Shatter him.

“This is really the kind of thing you talk to your partner about,” she says roughly a minute later. He swallows around the lump in his throat. “In the future, if anything happens, you have to tell me.”

“Of course,” he replies, shock coursing through his system. In the future—does that mean they still have a—

“Are there…Nephilim lessons we have to get her? Is there a Percy Jackson style school we should put her in?”

“What?” he exclaims.

“Well I don’t know! I’m trying to—my boyfriend, who’s the Devil, just told me my kid is a demi-angel! I don’t have any frame of reference.”

He’s short circuiting. Boyfriend, Nephilim school, future future future.

“Lucifer!”

“No,” he says, shaking himself and stepping forward, hands outstretched. “There is no school for Nephilim. Beatrice is the first in…a very very long time. If she someday wants to write that book, though, I think she could see great success.”

Chloe looks up at him, scowling, but he has hope—brilliant, distracting hope—surging up his throat.

“Maze has the languages and self-defense covered, and everything else she gets from you, and…Daniel. And I will always be able to protect her,” he adds, touching the place above his heart where Beatrice’s heartbeat flickers faintly. “She will always be safe.”

“And the inheriting of the kingdom of Hell?” she asks.

“That’s entirely Maze’s supposition, and I would never suggest or expect her to,” he says immediately. “There’s—I wish I had more concrete information for you, but the only person who could have given it to me is in a parallel universe.”

“What?”

“My mother,” he explains, snagging one of her hands before she can worry her cuticles to pieces. “She and Amenadiel were adamant that Beatrice be sent to the Silver City. I refused, emphatically,” he says when Chloe sucks in a breath. “If I thought Mother a safer ally, I would have asked her more, but I didn’t ever want her attention on Beatrice.”

He feels a pang in his chest. In another life, maybe she would have helped. Maybe his mother could have learned to love Beatrice. Could have been the kind of celestial grandparent—but it’s not worth grieving what would never have been.

“And Amenadiel?” Chloe asks.

“Knows I will fight him to the death if he so much as breathes wrong in her direction,” he says, his heart rate climbing at the very thought.

“Okay,” she says, nodding, then shaking her head, then nodding again. “Okay. I’m…I think I’m kind of freaking out now,” she admits, gripping at his hand.

“It’s a lot—too much, to take in,” he agrees, hesitating before tugging her forward and into his chest.

He’s worried for a moment that she’ll pull away, but like everything else this evening, she surprises him by winding her arms around his neck, tight and trembling. He wraps his arms around her and cradles the back of her head with his hand, closing his eyes and letting her calm him as much as he hopes his embrace proves calming to her.

“I’m pretty mad,” she whispers into his neck.

“Entirely fair,” he says quickly.

“I’m calling you Step Satan from now on.”

He laughs, surprised and delighted and so absurdly grateful for the woman in his arms. “No.”

“Yes. You celestially adopted my kid without telling me. I get to call you her Step Satan, and say it’s a Luci Light, and just about anything else I want for forever,” she says.

He tries to frown, tries to argue, tries to grumble, but all he can hear is forever ringing in his ears.

“No more celestial secrets, okay? Anything big happens—any revelations, you tell me.” He stiffens, quite out of his control, and she pulls back to look up at him. “...what?”

He gapes, exhaustion and reluctance dragging at him as he looks down into her perfect, miraculous eyes. “There’s…if you really want to rip the bandage off in one go, there is one more relatively massive celestial revelation to go.”

“Am I going to like this one?”

“Probably not, no,” he says honestly.

She scrunches her eyes closed and then opens them, her hands slipping to rest on either side of his throat, her thumb against his pulse. “Okay, tell me.”

“Are you—”

“Lucifer.”

He sighs and links his fingers together at the small of her back. If she pulls away, he’ll let her, but for the moment, he’s hanging onto the fact that she’s still touching him like a lifeline.

“Thirty-five years ago, my Father sent Amenadiel down to earth to bless a couple who were having trouble conceiving. Amenadiel did it, the couple had a child, and he never thought about it again. Until earlier this year, when he realized that Penelope Decker was in fact your mother.”

Chloe blinks up at him, her mouth falling open. “What…what does that mean? He’s not—Amenadiel’s not my dad, is he?”

“No!” he exclaims, half horror, half absurd amusement. “Dad, no. He simply blessed your parents, overriding their biology.”

“Okay,” she says, blowing out a breath. “So…what, he gave my parents celestial fertility, and I was born and then…what?”

“And then 33 years later, you met me,” he says with a small shrug. “My mother and Amenadiel seem to think that blessing was my Father’s way of…putting you in my path. That you are a miracle built solely for me. But,” he says when she opens her mouth. “An infinite number of decisions, your parents’ and your own, happened between that blessing and Delilah’s murder.”

She nods very slowly, her hands gripping at his neck. He has to hope that’s a good sign.

“Mother wanted me to think that how I feel about you was manufactured, all just part of my Father’s master plan, but I can’t believe that. I don’t want to, and Father gave humans Free Will. So, I choose to believe that how I feel about you, how I feel about Beatrice, is real. That there was one intervention 35 years ago, but since, it is all the choices we have made that led us here.”

She doesn’t move, her fingers still against his neck, her eyes tracing over his face. Her quiet countenance rips the words from his throat. “But you have a choice too. Free Will is your domain, really. And I—I have taken too many choices from you to sway yours, so whatever you want, Chloe, I will do.”

She parts her lips and he tries desperately not to focus on the way she wets them with her tongue as she takes a deep breath. Tries desperately to believe this isn’t the last moment he’ll touch her, hold her, see her.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say any of that, I think,” she says.

His heart might beat clean out of his chest. “Pardon?”

“Being in love with you is complicated enough without wondering whether your Dad intended for it to happen.”

Now he’s the one not breathing.

“I’m gonna stick with I’m mad that you celestially adopted Trixie without talking to me about it—or meaning to—I’m exhausted, and I love you so fucking much for loving my kid hard enough to change the fabric of the universe.”

“Chloe,” he rasps.

“Nope, I have rights to being overwhelmed,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “If you’re working up to ‘you can’t love the Devil’ I really don’t have the bandwidth. You adopted my kid, Step Satan, we’re in this for the long haul.”

He doesn’t have words. Instead, he leans down and seals his mouth to hers, trying to pour the cacophony of light and wonder and gratitude clamoring in his head into her. Her hands grip at his neck and she makes a soft sound against him, her body pressing tight to his.

He showed her who he really is. He explained all the ways his family, his history, his actions have wrenched her life apart. He was hurting and vulnerable and weak and she…

Loves him. Loves him. Loves him.

He breaks from her mouth to lave kisses along her jaw, heaving in air. Her hands twine around his neck and she moans softly.

His wings pop out at the sound. They stumble together and he clutches at her, both of them giggling and trying to find their footing.

“Sorry, darling,” he whispers, pulling back to see her face, so prettily flushed. “A little out of practice, but by no means a harbinger of anything else.”

She giggles harder, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. The drag of her fingers across his scalp makes his wings shudder. With anyone else, he’d be embarrassed, but he’ll gladly be wrecked by Chloe Decker for the rest of her forever.

“You’re so beautiful,” she whispers, her other hand sliding across his shoulder to slip back and trail her fingers through his feathers.

He trembles, letting his head go heavy against the palm she presses to his cheek.

She smiles softly at him. “They’re a wreck,” she says, adjusting a few of the askew feathers she can reach. “Can I…is it bad to say preen?”

He shudders harder, mind boggling. He’s starting to go boneless at just the thought. “Please,” he says, his voice breaking.

She smiles, eyes bright, and herds him back inside. She sits him down on the coffee table so she can perch on the couch behind him. His wings rustle in anticipation and he pulls his legs up to sit cross legged, his hands twitching in his lap.

Her fingers skate up his back between his shoulder blades and wings, scratching gently, waiting for his jerky nod before she begins slowly, methodically, adjusting each and every feather from the base to the tip of his right wing. It’s utter bliss, a kind of warm, swirling pleasure he hasn’t felt in…eons and eons. He never let Maze touch them in Hell, would twist and contort himself if they needed preening. And here on earth…

He thinks he might be crying.

“Will Trixie be able to do your mojo thing?”

He takes a deep breath, reaching up to swipe at his cheeks. “I don’t think so.” His voice is gravelly and thick with pleasure and emotion.

She hums behind him. “I want to say I’m glad, but I wouldn’t hate her being able to divine intentions when she gets older.”

“With you for a mum, she’ll be shrewd enough without celestial intervention,” he says.

“I don’t think I’m winning any points missing all of this.” One of her hands strokes at the base of his wing, fingers brushing between feathers and skin.

“Hardly a knock against you,” he says. It feels like he has to drag the words through water out of his head. He’s so comfortable and overcome. “No one expects the celestial inquisition.”

She snorts and begins the process on his left wing. He twitches, groaning, and he hears her laugh softly. “Do I get to learn the secret demon language now?”

“You’ll have to take it up with Maze,” he says lazily.

“Oh, shit.” He hears her shift and then her feet padding away from him.

He makes a desperate sound and she turns from the bar where she’s grabbing her phone from her bag. He watches through slitted eyes as she comes back toward him, her phone at her ear. She steps in front of him, using her free hand to run her fingers through his hair before trailing down to wipe at his still-wet cheek.

She smiles softly at him. “Yeah, Maze, I’m sorry, I—”

The elevator dings and they both swing their gaze to the side of the sitting room. Thankfully it’s only Maze, glaring at both of them like they’ve done her a huge injustice. She barely blinks at his wings, stalking across the room. Chloe reaches out and places a hand on his wing joint. He curls the wing around her reflexively.

“Be a scarier angel boyfriend, please,” she mutters.

He blinks up at her, and then at Maze, who comes to a heaving stop by the armchair, glaring at them.

“Ellen said you left hours ago,” she snarls.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Chloe says quickly. He just wants to nuzzle his face into her chest and go to sleep. “I got…distracted,” she admits, glancing at him.

“I’ve been hunting him down and he’s been here all afternoon?” Maze confirms.

“Yeah,” Chloe says with a wince. “I’m sorry.”

“Lookin’ for me?” he asks Maze, feeling a little drunk with the way Chloe feels against his wing.

Maze’s eyebrows go up. “What happened to him?”

“Kidnapped, dumped in the desert, wings restored, big emotional conversation, possible lingering dehydration,” Chloe says rather calmly, all things considered.

Maze considers them for a moment. He’d pull himself upright, make himself more formal, more solid, but Chloe’s hand is still in his feathers, and it’s all he can do not to start crying again.

“You being here probably doesn’t actually help, you know,” Maze says, looking back at Chloe.

“What, why?” Chloe asks.

He groans.

“You got through being the actual Devil and didn’t get to the vulnerability thing?” Maze wonders, surprised.

“...I make you vulnerable,” Chloe whispers to herself before turning accusatory eyes on him. “Lucifer, why on earth would you let us come here if it meant you’d be half burnt up for longer?”

“Wanted to see you,” he says, the honesty easy as breathing. “And I’m healed now. Not delirious, or dehydrated.”

“You’re taking this pretty well,” Maze says to Chloe.

Chloe opens her mouth, and he tears his eyes away from her to look at Maze. “I don’t have my Devil Face.”

“What?”

He sobers just a little at the horror on her face. “I don’t know, Mazikeen. If you have any theories, I’ll hear them.”

He doesn’t have it in him to be upset, not right now, not with Chloe there with him. But tomorrow, or sometime soon, he knows the confusion and terror will come back to him. Just not now, not with her fingers petting his primaries like that, all warm and tingly and achingly lovely.

“I’ll…do some digging,” Maze says with a solemn nod. “Though, relatively decent timing,” she adds, gesturing toward Chloe.

“I’m still stuck on you healing more slowly with me here,” Chloe says impatiently, her hand rising to cup his jaw. “And I don’t care about your Devil Face. It didn’t scare my seven-year-old.”

“How is the Princess?” Maze asks.

Chloe makes a soft sound and he glances up to find her blowing out a slow breath. “It’s because you’re the King of Hell,” she says, almost to herself.

“Yep, which makes you—” Maze starts.

“Mazikeen,” he says warningly.

Chloe looks between them and slowly shakes her head, but thankfully doesn’t press it.

Maze holds up her hands. “How’s Trix?”

“Asleep. And much less disruptive than you,” he says.

“Didn’t come here to help, just to find you.”

“Well, bounty found and returned to its rightful owner,” he says, his wing tightening around Chloe, who snorts. “So, you can be on your way.”

“You sound drunk, why do you sound drunk? Did you let him demolish a shelf for courage or something?” Maze asks Chloe.

“A…no, I didn’t,” Chloe says, looking between them again.

“She’s touching my wings,” he says, fluttering the one still wrapped around Chloe. “Feels good.”

There’s a palpable silence and he blinks his eyes open again, looking between the two women. Maze looks faintly disgusted. Chloe’s…staring at him in fascination.

“I really didn’t think this day could get weirder,” she says, letting her hand fall from his cheek to stroke along his wing joint again.

He can’t help the shiver that courses through him. He gets a pressed lipped smile in return and grins a bit dopily up at her.

“All right, don’t…do that with me here,” Maze says gruffly. “Glad you’re not dismembered somewhere.”

“I’ll pay you your standard fee for looking for me when I can find a backup card. They didn’t find my effects out there, that I know of.”

“Oh, we have them at the station. I don’t know why I didn’t grab them,” Chloe says, frowning.

“I’ll take something out of the safe,” Maze says with a wave of her hand.

“Quiet, Beatrice is sleeping in there,” he says.

Maze nods and then walks over to the bedroom and disappears up the stairs.

“Does Maze break into your safe regularly?” Chloe asks after a moment, turning back to him. She blinks a few times and then nudges his wing to continue her task.

This time he gets to watch, which is infinitely more interesting. Her brow is furrowed adorably as she goes about straightening out his primaries, her fingers nimble and so so warm.

“S’easier than remembering what I owe her for things. You forget, she was my roommate before she was yours.”

“Right,” Chloe says, glancing at him. “So you’re to blame for her bad habits.”

“Or she’s to blame for mine,” he counters.

“Don’t know what those are yet,” Chloe says.

“Wait, I don’t have any,” he asserts, too slowly.

She snorts and trails away from him to finish straightening his wing. He aches to pull her back, but neither does he ever want her to stop touching his wings. He barely hears the shutter click, but does note Maze moving in his periphery.

“Good night, Mazikeen,” he says.

“Good night, my lord and lady,” she says in Lilim. He grunts and she laughs.

“I want to learn,” Chloe says quickly, moving back to stand in front of him, apparently finished with her task.

He wants to beg her to keep going.

“We’ll see,” Maze says after a moment.

“You don’t want me to learn?” Chloe wonders, and even he can hear the faint hurt there.

“I’m not sure you’ll be able to. He might be able to teach you Enochian though,” Maze says.

“Enochian?” she asks.

“Language of the Angels. I can’t speak that one. Trix should learn that too.”

“Maze,” he protests.

“She should. They both should. Never know which siblings might show up.”

“We’ll be fine,” he says, trying to sound commanding. It’s undone by the exhaustion in his voice.

“Fine, fine, I don’t take your orders, you don’t take mine. But we’ll talk about this for the Princess.” And then she’s stepping into the elevator and disappearing from sight.

They stare at the closed doors for a moment, the apartment still and quiet around them, broken only by the soft sound of Beatrice breathing in his bedroom.

“I’m gonna come back to the whole ‘your siblings might stop by and bother me and Trixie,’ thing, because I’m way too tired to deal with that right now,” Chloe says.

He reaches out to tug her back to him without thought, pressing his forehead into her chest with her standing between his legs. She sighs and rakes her fingers through his hair again.

“Maze is being…over cautious,” he mumbles.

“Is she?” Chloe asks a little tartly.

He looks up at her and shrugs. His wings move more than he remembered. It makes Chloe laugh, which is something. “She may not be, but certainly tonight, you are both safe and protected here.”

“By our Fairy Dad Monster, who’s falling asleep in my boobs?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says firmly, just before a yawn splits his face.

“Okay, you need to sleep and I’d like to shut my brain down for a while,” she says, leaning back like she might step away from him.

He holds on, ignoring her huff, and lets his hands press against her back while he tips his head, chin resting on her chest. “No matter what, Chloe, I will protect both of you with all that I have.”

Her face softens and her hands come to cup his cheeks. “I’ve known that for a long time,” she says, thumbs stroking below his eyes. “And I love you for that.”

“I love you for everything,” he replies, the words falling easily from his lips.

He feels her intake of breath and lets himself smile up at her. There’s no panic, no worry, no fear. He just…loves her, with all that he has. It feels marvelous.

She bends at the waist and presses her lips to his for a moment before tugging herself gently out of his hold. She steps back and extends her hand out to him, palm up.

“Come to bed, Step Satan.”

Chapter Text

Chloe wakes to an empty bed.

She blinks around at Lucifer’s bedroom, snuggled deep in his satin sheets, his fantastic pillow so soft beneath her cheek. It’s tempting to just fall back to sleep, surrounded as she is by his smell and the golden light that filters through his massive, curtained windows. Trixie’s safe, because Lucifer’s here, and she’ll likely be distracted for a while by whatever mischief they’re getting up to.

Chloe lets her eyes slip shut for a moment, and then it all comes rushing back.

Trixie’s not just safe with Lucifer. She’s his celestial adopted daughter. And Lucifer—Lucifer is Actually. Satan. And has been, this whole time. With big fluffy wings, and a stolen Devil Face. And she’s a Miracle.

She might also be Queen of Hell? They never actually discussed it.

Suddenly she’s not so tired. It’s very loud in her head. Because Heaven and Hell are real, and Lucifer loves her, and Trixie is a Nephilim, whatever that means, and she—

She doesn’t care.

Well, of course she cares—it’s all entirely insane and wild and fantastical—but she doesn’t care. She wanted Lucifer Friday before he came home (from being kidnapped) and she wants him now. He’s hers. He’s theirs. Fairy Dad Monster, Devil, and all.

She doesn’t want to lie alone in his bed. She wants to be with her two favorite people. At some point, she’s going to need to lock herself in a padded room for a few hours and scream. But that’s not today. Not yet.

So, she climbs out of bed and pads over to the bathroom. It’s a massive, beautiful space, all in sandy tile with a whirlpool tub, rain shower, and enormous vanity. The countertop is practically coated in haircare products. Lucifer likely spends twice, if not three times as long as she does getting ready every morning. She doesn’t even know what half of these are for.

A closer look has her standing up straight, blushing at her reflection. Some of them are…not hair care products. Not at all. She didn’t know lube came in that many flavors and viscosities. Dear…Satan.    

She’s going to sleep with the Devil.

Her stomach growls and Chloe laughs at herself, flushed and bright eyed in the mirror. She’s going to sleep with the Devil, but not today, because her daughter’s in his apartment, probably conning him into ridiculously decadent pancakes.

She uses some of Lucifer’s dry shampoo and combs her hair. She brushes her teeth with his toothbrush, which is both gross and kind of wonderfully intimate.

It’s not until she’s walking back through the bedroom that she realizes he absolutely must have spare toothbrushes, given how many overnight guests he usually has.

It should bring her up short. She’s going to sleep with the Devil, and he’s slept with…at least a third of Los Angeles, possibly twice. But as she pads down the hall and into the kitchen, she finds, like his celestial existence, it just doesn’t matter right now.

Because Satan is staring at her as she hovers in the doorway to the kitchen. She’s wearing a pair of his boxers and one of his button downs, and he’s slack-jawed, burning the bacon.

Who cares who he’s slept with when he looks at her like that?

“Lucifer!” Trixie exclaims from her perch on the counter far from the burners.

He blinks, then slowly looks back at the bacon. “Shit,” he grumbles, flipping the burner and popping the pan to the back of his enormous stovetop, where the smoke gets deftly sucked up by the fan.

“Hi Mommy!”

“Morning, Monkey,” Chloe says, walking up to greet her daughter with a kiss to the forehead.

Trixie’s wearing her jeans from yesterday beneath one of Lucifer’s plain white tee shirts, her feet dwarfed in a pair of his socks. And her hair has been pulled back in a perfect French braid. Lucifer can braid hair?

“Morning, Detective.”

Chloe turns to look up at Lucifer, still in his pajamas, his hair delightfully curly without product. His stubble looks a little longer, scruffy. It’s doing things to her.

“Morning, Satan,” she says, proud her voice doesn’t sound as breathless as she feels.

His face splits in a grin, and there’s something in his eyes, a little bit of that awed wonder from last night. It makes her heart clench and her stomach flutter. He’s so happy to see her, so grateful she’s there.

“Sleep well?” he asks.

“I did,” she says, rolling her neck. She really did. “How long have the two of you been up?”

“An hour and a half, spawn?”

“Two,” Trixie says brightly. “We baked a cake!”

“Already?” Chloe wonders, glancing around the enormous kitchen.

The floor is a gorgeous green tile, the walls a deep Tuscan yellow, with warm wood cabinets above the wrap-around green and white marble counter tops. There’s a circular green table in the corner with a few chairs. Sitting proudly on top of it are four tins of chocolate cake.

“I did promise the urchin as much cake as she desired,” Lucifer says, his fingers wrapping into the bottom of her button down.

“Did you? For what?” she wonders, letting her gaze come back to meet his.

She could seriously drown in his eyes.

“For convincing Mrs. Beachum to take care of me so he could go send his mommy into a parallel universe,” Trixie says.

Chloe has to work hard not to jump. It’s not that she forgot she was there, but damn, the way Lucifer’s looking at her…

Wait.

“We had a lot of time to talk this morning,” Lucifer says softly.

Chloe nods slowly, letting her hand wind into his robe to anchor herself. She should probably have a talk with—actually, no. Trixie’s probably not confused. Once glance proves she’s barely phased by this at all.

“You made a good deal, huh?” she asks, her voice only a little bit tight.

“Uh huh,” Trixie says, smiling wide, her eyes twinkling. “You’re part of it too.”

“I am?”

“Lucifer promised me a whole day where you don’t have to work, and he doesn’t have any celestial nonsense, and we do whatever I want.”

“That last one is revisionist history, you little sneak,” Lucifer says. “And the celestial nonsense will be at an all-time low now, thankfully.”

“Are you collecting on your reward today?” Chloe asks Trixie, not even bothering to acknowledge Lucifer’s remonstration; Trixie’s clearly going to get whatever she wants out of both of them. How could she refuse her daughter a deal that cute?

As for celestial nonsense, her shoulders feel lighter for Lucifer’s assurance. Though, he did just get knocked out and dragged into the desert. There’s clearly still some celestial intrigue afoot. Potentially life-threatening intrigue, at that.

“Nope,” Trixie says. “I wanna go flying and Lucifer says he can’t yet.”

Chloe turns to look up at her Devil boyfriend, who nods rather casually. “At least not with passengers.”

“Still tender?” she asks, raising her hand to rub between his shoulder blades. He twitches and then melts into her side.

“A tad,” he admits.

“We’re gonna go out over the ocean, and then up into the mountains, and he can fly us up onto the Hollywood sign, Mommy,” Trixie says, bouncing a little on the counter.

“Got a whole itinerary planned out, huh?” Chloe asks, looking between Trixie’s excitement and Lucifer’s tentative smile.

“Yep,” Trixie says.

“And you okayed this?” she asks, looking up at Lucifer.

“I did stipulate you also had to agree,” he says, narrowing his eyes at Trixie.

“Please, Mommy?” Trixie says, batting her eyelashes, lip pushed out.

There’s a tiny part of her that wants to comment on the danger of the heights, of being seen, of exposure. But the rest of her—the part desperately in love with the Devil and besotted by her daughter’s excitement—knows she’s going to say yes. Because of course she wants to go flying.

“If Lucifer’s comfortable, then sure, baby. That sounds…insane and amazing,” she says, smiling at her daughter.

“Comfort? The two of you weigh nothing at all. We’ll just need to figure out the logistics. Can’t very well have the urchin on my back and fly properly,” Lucifer says, his hand gliding along to curl over her hip.

“Oh! I know!” Trixie says, before practically vaulting off the counter.

They both jerk toward her, but she lands on quick feet and runs out of the kitchen immediately. Chloe watches her go and then turns to look up at Lucifer again, noting his fond smile. It makes her heart melt all over again.

“You can say no,” she says softly.

He blinks and looks down at her in confusion, his other hand coming to bracket her other hip, tugging her almost absently into his chest.

“I know she’s excited, but if you’re not comfortable with any of this…” she says, raising her hands to rest against his chest.

He shakes his head. “I don’t mind. It’s actually—” he breaks off with a little chuckle, that fond smile blooming across his cheeks. “The spawn being so excited makes keeping them slightly more bearable.”

She doesn’t really know what to do with that. Everything about his wings is still overwhelming, let alone the fact that he’d planned to cut them off, like getting a haircut. She thinks of the scars on his back, how ragged they were, how painful they must have been to heal, and shudders.

“Are you all right?” he asks softly.

She blinks, shaking her head and then nodding, his frustrated huff bringing her back to the moment. “I’m fine. I just—are you all right?”

He stares at her like she’s grown a second head. “What?”

“You were hurt, and your wings, and I—I know having us here—”

He’s kissing her before she can stumble into her actual point, his hands clutching at her hips, mouth a bit desperate against hers. She clings to his robe, a little weak in the knees when his hands glide down to settle on her ass, pulling her upward into him.

“I found—ick!”

They break apart, laughing, and turn to find Trixie standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Her nose is wrinkled adorably and she’s holding what looks like rock climbing harnesses.

“Do I want to know why you have those?” Chloe asks, breathless.

“Maze got into climbing briefly a few years ago, dragged me out into the mountains. She’s a terrible belay, but this is an excellent idea, urchin,” he says, releasing Chloe to saunter across the room like he didn’t just kiss her senseless.

He takes the harnesses from Trixie and looks them over while she grins up at him, all embarrassment forgotten. Chloe’s left clutching at the counter, her mind dazzled, lungs struggling. And all he did was kiss her.

If that’s what this is going to be like, how is she ever going to get anything done?

“Hmm, perhaps we ought to order skydiving harnesses instead, so you can have your arms free, otherwise mum will have to hold onto you, and I’ll have to hold onto her,” he says.

“I guess,” Trixie agrees. “How long will it take to get them?”

“As long as it takes,” Chloe says, her mind clearing. “We don’t go flying until it’s safe, Monkey, even if that means—”

“Perhaps a week,” Lucifer says, phone already in hand, his eyes glued to the screen. “Which isn’t such a long time, is it?”

Trixie sighs dramatically and stomps her way over to Chloe, who really does try not to laugh. Trixie’s scowl proves her unsuccessful. 

“We should be grateful Lucifer will take us flying, even if it takes a little while. It’s very nice of him to share his wings with us,” Chloe says, going for stern, but smiling a bit too much to manage. There’s a sentence she never expected to say.

“I guess,” Trixie repeats with a sigh.

Lucifer snorts, tapping a few times on his cell phone before sauntering back to them. “Novelty’s worn off my wings, already? How fickle children are.”

“Nu-uh,” Trixie says, looking up at him. “You’re the one who starts hobbies and never finishes them.”

“Like what?” he asks, gently hip-checking Chloe away from the stove.

She watches him dump the burnt bacon and start a new pan. The oven’s on. She wonders what else he’s already made, other than cake. Though, honestly, cake for breakfast sounds kind of wonderful.

“Like the paper mache solar system, and the mask making, and I saw knitting needles, and you never knit,” Trixie says, hands on her little hips. “That makes you the fickle one.”

Lucifer turns his head to hide his laughter and Chloe bites at her lips, amused in far too many ways.

“I sat with the mask thing on my face for two hours and we never even finished them,” Trixie adds.

Chloe loses it and laughs. “Did Lucifer take a mold too?”

“He said he’d go next. But then—hey! You just wanted me quiet for two hours, didn’t you?” Trixie exclaims, moving around Chloe to poke Lucifer’s side.

He turns back to them, bacon sizzling away, and gently pushes Trixie back with his leg. “Away from the hot oil, spawn. And you would not stop talking about Taylor Swift.”

“So you covered her face in plaster?” Chloe asks, a little scandalized and a little impressed at once.

Let’s play the quiet game was her go to, and Trixie figured her out when she was three.

“She wanted a life-like rendering for some prank against Mazikeen. I was simply helping,” he says, grinning at her and then looking back at Trixie, who has her arms crossed over her chest, frowning up at him.

“What were you going to do to Maze?” Chloe asks her daughter.

“I was gonna to put my severed head in her closet,” Trixe says with a little shrug, still glaring up at Lucifer.

“Dear—you know what, actually, ‘Jeez, Lucifer,’ works pretty well here,” Chloe says, horrified by the very idea. Especially given she now knows Maze is a demon. Who knows what could have happened.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Lucifer says quickly. “And I did explain that it might be going too far. But children have to learn on their own.”

“She would have destroyed our apartment,” Chloe says, looking back at Trixie. “We don’t pretend to be decapitated for laughs, Monkey.”

“I was gonna be right behind her,” Trixie says with a sigh, uncrossing her arms. “Anyway, the next week he said we had to learn how to play Bridge, so we never finished. Just like we never finished the solar system for the guest room, and he never learned to knit. That’s fickle.”

Chloe looks at Lucifer, who’s smiling slyly. “What did you do?” she asks.

Lucifer just winks and turns back to Trixie. “Do you want to continue to denigrate my pursuit of leisure activities, or set the table so we can eat?”

“I can multitask,” Trixie says, narrowing her eyes before giving up with a little laugh.

Chloe watches her skirt around Lucifer to climb up on a stool he pushes toward the cabinets. She would help, but Trixie and Lucifer make a good team, moving around her with ease. Omelets, pancakes, bacon, fresh scones, and cantaloupe cover the table in short order and Chloe finds herself being guided into the seat between Lucifer and Trixie before she knows what to do with herself.

Last night, Trixie being Lucifer’s adopted celestial daughter pricked at her. That he didn’t tell her. That he didn’t mean to. That something like that had happened to her daughter without her consent—without either of their consent, really—dug into her heart and hurt her head.

But in the light of day, watching them together, it makes perfect sense, in the way only something that batshit wild could. She’s still angry, but she’s not really sure what she’s angry with, or who. Because being angry at Lucifer while her daughter giggles at something silly he’s said seems kind of impossible. Being mad that he loves Trixie so much that he changed her celestial existence seems…wrong.

“All right?” Lucifer asks as he places a perfectly warm cup of coffee made with her favorite vanilla creamer down by her elbow. How the Hell—

“S’delicious,” Trixie mumbles around a full mouth of syrup-soaked pancakes.

“Manners, urchin,” Lucifer says in disgust, sitting down on Chloe’s other side. Trixie just grins at him and he shakes his head.

Maybe she should just be mad at God. Add it to the list. Which seems exponentially longer now that she knows Lucifer is really Lucifer.

God threw her boyfriend out of Heaven for asking a question. And he fell down through earth and into Hell, in a way that created a Devil Face that looks like scarred, molten flesh.

And then there’s the whole she’s a Miracle thing, maybe possibly put on earth just to run into Lucifer. Which would make Trixie…

She can be mad at God. Happily. She’s fucking livid with God.

But Lucifer? It seems like an awful lot of work to hold onto her anger when he’s just so wonderfully…Lucifer.

“I’m good,” she says, meeting his eyes. When he looks at her like that, with Trixie obnoxiously smacking her lips in the background, she really is.

He smiles so softly at her that her heart actually aches. “Eat up, Detective.”

She cuts a bite of the perfect ham and cheese omelet while letting her other hand fall to rest on his knee, needing the anchor of him beneath her hand. Because this morning is so wonderfully normal and at the same time, so wildly weird. From the fact that he’s the Devil, to Trixie knowing his kitchen as well as she knows theirs at home, to promises of harnesses and flying—it’s like she has to reframe everything about her life, even though it feels like any normal morning. They’re just in his kitchen instead of hers. And he’s Satan, and her daughter is a demi-angel, and she’s a Miracle.

Her usually analytical mind is tripping over the questions she has yet to ask. She knows they covered the big stuff last night, but sitting here with them she finds she has dozens, if not hundreds of tiny questions. And that’s before she manages to circle back to all the ridiculous things he’s muttered over the past two years about historical figures and events.

Did he mention at some point he met Cleopatra, and Shakespeare? Was the Garden of Eden a real thing? Does that mean all of humanity is descended from one set of humans? How have they not gone extinct?

“I bet Mommy could beat Maze.”

Chloe blinks, forcing herself to focus. “At what?”

“Lucifer’s American Ninja Warrior course,” Trixie says, her mouth smeared with maple syrup.

“Lucifer’s what?” Chloe asks, glancing at him.

“It’s Maze’s obstacle course, to be fair.”

“Here?”

“A few floors down.”

“There’s also a ball pit, and a trampoline room, and there’s a huge slide,” Trixie says, wiggling in her seat.

Chloe looks between them, thoroughly confused. “What?”

“I believe a tour is in order,” Lucifer says, smiling at her, his hand coming to cover hers on his thigh.

“You have a ball pit?” Chloe asks. It’s not her most pressing question, but everything celestial seems to fade away with the slightly mischievous look on his face.

“Among many, many other things,” he says.

“What do you need a ball pit for?” Chloe wonders.

“Fun!” Trixie says.

“Among other things,” Lucifer mutters. Chloe wrinkles her nose, going to pull her hand away to swat at him and he chuckles. “Always promptly sanitized. Cleaner than any McDonald’s the child could ever encounter,” he says, his accent thick over the chain name, almost indignant.

“Really not my biggest concern,” Chloe says honestly. It’s just…in a ball pit?

What has she gotten herself into, falling in love with this ridiculous man?

The Devil? Not a big deal. A ball pit fetish might be a bit beyond her.

“Oh, darling, trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet,” he says, meeting her eyes.

That look goes straight through her and she tightens her hand on his thigh. His eyes actually darken. She’s in so much trouble.

(…)

She watches Trixie shoot out of the three-story slide and into the full-room ball pit, her shriek of glee echoing around them.

He not only has a twelve-foot ball pit, and a slide that goes from the floor below his penthouse down three stories to empty into it, he also has a floor-length obstacle course training gym, an enormous room full of trampolines, a sauna, a ridiculously well stocked arcade, what looked like a full karaoke room she’s a bit peeved she’s never seen before, and two entire floors he wouldn’t let Trixie see. She can only imagine what those entail.

She hasn’t asked enough questions about Lux. She hasn’t asked enough questions about the building. She just hasn’t asked. More fool her.

But she can fix this. She can ask questions. She can be as curious about him as he’s always been about her. She doesn’t need to hold back, for either of their sakes now.

“Okay, shoot, what purpose could this room have that’s not…this?” Chloe asks, watching Trixie scramble out of the ball pit and over to the side of the room, where there’s an elevator bay that only stops if you call for it in this room.

Otherwise, his private elevator goes from the garage, to Lux, to the penthouse. Except, you know, when it comes here. Or to Maze’s old whole floor apartment (where the slide originates), or to the other floors. The system to run the elevator alone makes her head spin.

“You sure you want to know?” Lucifer asks, sitting with her on the edge of the ball pit, their legs dangling and kicking at the rainbow balls.

She’s still in his dress shirt over her jeans from yesterday. He’s in his usual button down and slacks, his collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up. Chloe glances at him to find him watching her, eyebrow raised, teasing and testing her at the same time.

“It seems like a logistical nightmare to actually do anything in here,” she says.

He chuckles and leans into her. “Foreplay comes in all types.”

She snorts and watches Trixie disappear into the elevator. He’s stopped access from the club so she can have full run between the upper floors. Which is a thing he can do.

“Enough people find this a turn on that you built a whole room for it?” she presses.

“Well, we built the slide first,” he says with a little shrug, eyes dancing. “Everyone loves a good glide, don’t they?”

It’s so wrong that he sounds so good talking about this. “So the slide is the turn on, and this was, what, the most reasonable landing?”

“Yes,” he says simply. “And it’s fun. You should try it.”

Trixie comes barreling down the slide again and zooms into the ball pit, flinging balls up into the air with glee.

“I can’t believe neither of you has never mentioned this,” Chloe says, ignoring the way Lucifer’s fingers are dancing along her spine. She cannot get turned on by the side of a ball pit. It’s too absurd, even for this weekend.

Part of her wants to be indignant that on top of everything celestial, the two of them never bothered to tell her about all of the cool and childish stuff Lucifer has crammed into Lux. But she can’t find it in herself to be mad, because Trixie comes home every Thursday with stories about all the awesome things she and Lucifer do, but they’re so comparatively mundane.

Lucifer teaching her to play cards, baking together, building blanket forts, reading books, watching movies and talking through the whole thing—her kid only wants to tell her about the things Lucifer does with her, instead of all the things she gets to play on here.

Which honestly isn’t helping her. Because she’s possibly more turned on by how good he is with her kid than she is by the idea of whatever the Hell kind of foreplay he gets up to.

“I suppose we both wanted you to see for yourself,” he says softly.

She meets his eyes, surprised by the unguarded, slightly shy look that flits across his face. “Yeah?”

“It was always my intention to tell you,” he says.

“I know,” she says. He told her as much, multiple times, before his wings got in the way. “Wanted to save this stuff to sweeten the deal?” she asks, making sure to lilt her voice so he knows she’s teasing.

His eyes crinkle and he leans forward to press his mouth to hers, gently, sweetly, chastely, kissing her just to…kiss her. Because he can.

“Hoped it might entice you to spend some time here, certainly,” he admits, pulling back to meet her eyes.

“I don’t need inducement,” she whispers, giving those words back to him, smiling as his eyes widen. “But this is very cool.”

“Mommy, we should go back to the penthouse so you can see all the other stuff!” Trixie    

And there’s Trixie, right beside them, ruining the moment. Chloe laughs at Lucifer’s almost whining huff, and turns to look at her kid, up to her neck in plastic rainbow balls, grinning at them.

She can’t be mad about it when her kid looks that cute. “There’s more to see upstairs?”

“Yeah!” Trixie says, extending her hand toward Lucifer.

He shakes his head, but reaches down, hauling Trixie out of the ball pit one-handed to swing her around so she lands next to him. She giggles and he squeezes Chloe’s thigh before shuffling back to stand and help them both up.

Chloe lets them lead her back up to the penthouse, listening to them debate what to show her first. She’s seen a bit of the apartment across the last two years. Caught a glimpse of his massive TV, and used his guest bathroom, but she hasn’t explored. And yesterday…well, she never wanted to be far from him or Trixie.

Not that she wants to be today, either. The back of her mind keeps whispering to her, wanting to see his wings again. Wanting to run her hands through them. Wanting to press herself up against him and—

“What are you contemplating there, Detective?” Lucifer asks as they exit the elevator and cross toward the piano.

“Nothing,” she says quickly.

He raises an eyebrow knowingly and she avoids his eyes, looking down at Trixie. “Okay, Monkey, what do I have to see?”

Trixie grins and holds out her hand. Chloe takes it, allowing Trixie to tug her around the piano and bar and down the hall. They pass the kitchen, and Trixie pushes another door open to reveal an expertly equipped gym with rust-colored walls and a bamboo floor.

And she’s been doing sit up and chin ups in her living room, like a peasant.

She glares over her shoulder at Lucifer, who’s trailing them with his hands in his pockets. He simply smiles back at her. If he didn’t look so damned handsome like that, all rumpled and soft, she’d say something. Instead, she huffs and nods for Trixie to keep going, following her further down the hall. There’s a massage room, the big entertainment center, and an entire gallery?

“This is incredible,” Chloe says, spinning slowly in the enormous room that runs the width of the building.

It looks like something out of the 2005 Pride & Prejudice, with a vaulted ceiling and crisp white walls. The floor is polished wood, and every four or so feet there’s a statue, or shield, or piece of exquisite art. The walls are covered in depictions of the Devil from all over the world, each more extraordinary and terrible than the last.

Trixie’s wandering on her own, a little bored, but content enough. Chloe looks over her shoulder and finds Lucifer leaning against a glass display case filled with what looks like Roman or Greek coins.

She wonders why he’s covered the room in the very images she knows he hates. She remembers the Satanic cult, the way his eyes trailed over that painting. Looking back, she can see pain beneath the bravado, beneath his sneer. And she—

She told him she thought he pretended to be the Devil to feel powerful.

She walks back to him now, reaching out to cup his cheek and lift herself up to press her lips to his. He steadies her immediately, his hands on her waist, sighing when she lets herself fall back to her feet.

“Is this all from your trips up here?” she asks, looking up into his wide brown eyes.

“Mostly,” he says, eyes searching her face, for what, she doesn’t know. “Some of them I bought, mostly the art.”

“A very specific collection,” she says tentatively. “It’s particularly, um, thematic?”

“It never hurts to keep track of my reputation topside,” he says with a little shrug.

She’s not sure if that’s the whole truth of it. Not sure if it makes it better or worse that he’s got a room full of humanity’s cruel view of him to keep track of it. Like a slightly masochistic shrine to the cult of Satan.

She’s going to punch God in the face someday.

“Maybe I should commission one,” she says without thinking.

“Oh?”

She blinks up into his curious face and gathers her courage. She promised herself she’d prove she wasn’t scared—prove to him that he could trust her, with all of this.

“Maybe you asleep on your sofa with an inscription in Latin about the Devil at Rest. Or of you and Trixie coloring on my living room floor, the Devil at Work. An accurate portrait, for once.”

He’s staring at her, lips parted, eyes shining, and she smiles, letting her hand slip up his cheek to card through his hair.

“Or maybe one of you asleep on my couch, your hair all curly, Trixie playing videogames next to you,” she says, thinking of one of her favorite recent photos in the album she keeps on her phone.

“A Tired Devil?” he asks, his voice rough.

She rocks her head side to side. “Yeah. Or A Domestic Devil.”

He huffs, eyes closing as she drags her fingertips along his scalp. His hands grip into her waist. She smiles and repeats the gesture, delighting in his full body shiver. He leans into her, his forehead coming to rest against hers. It makes her want to curl up against him and take a nap. And if she’s tired just from exploring his massive skyscraper, he must be exhausted. His wings are probably still healing.

“Maybe we go watch a movie, and I can get another reference photo?” she whispers.

He nods against her forehead and then slowly pulls back to meet her eyes. He leans down and glances his lips off hers, too briefly, before stepping back to take her hand.

“Urchin, should we frost your cake and spend the afternoon watching movies?”

“Yes!” Trixie exclaims, her voice echoing around the room.

Lucifer guides her toward the doorway to the gallery and Trixie meets them there, taking Chloe’s other hand. Lucifer leads them back down the hall toward his entertainment den. Trixie pulls on Chloe’s hand halfway down the hallway, forcing Chloe to tug on Lucifer so they come to a stumbling stop.

“This is the guest room,” Trixie says.

“Urchin, we can show mum another—”

But Trixie’s already pushing the door open. Chloe stands there staring into Lucifer’s second bedroom (though she’s lost count of how many rooms the penthouse actually has at this point). It’s a big, bright space, with northern facing windows that let in the early afternoon light.

“Wow!” Trixie squeals, dropping Chloe’s hand to flit into the room. “You finished it!”

She’s pointing up to the ceiling, which is painted black and dotted with stars that seem to perpetually twinkle. Hanging around the warm, yellow central light in the ceiling are a series of paper mache planets, arranged to look exactly like their solar system. Except for their lightly misshapen spheres, they look like entirely professional, perfectly painted replicas of their planetary counterparts. Pluto’s even there.

The rest of the room is painted like twilight descending into daylight from the ceiling, dark blue to lighter and lighter until just above the baseboards where there’s a ring of the perfect blue of a California sky. And the furniture—there’s a twin bed covered in what looks like a milky way galaxy comforter. A child’s desk, black and dotted with more stars, sits beneath the wide window overlooking the back of the balcony. A small sofa in a deep twilight blue is tucked into the back corner, alongside a full-wall bookshelf in a dark space purple.

It's the perfect bedroom, like it was pulled straight out of Trixie’s imagination, then sent through the world’s most artistic, thoughtful, divine filter. Trixie spins around, delighted, exclaiming over each new discovery. Which means she’s never seen this before. Which means she didn’t have any part in making the room what it is.

Chloe turns slowly to find Lucifer standing just behind her, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck, the other in his pocket. He’s shifting on his feet, watching her hesitantly.

“She spends quite a bit of time here, and I thought it might be…pleasant for her to have a space of her own, and I had a surplus,” he says, his voice casual.

Chloe doesn’t know what to say. It’s beautiful, and presumptuous, and so sweet it actually hurts. There’s an ache in her chest listening to her daughter in raptures over the bedroom her partner decorated just for her.

The Devil designed a beautiful bedroom for her daughter, because he loves her. And she’s…celestially his daughter too. He made space in his home for her—has been making space for her for the better part of two years.

He clearly didn’t do it for Chloe’s benefit, given he was trying to get Trixie to walk right by it. And there’s the whole, he hadn’t told her about his Devil-ness until yesterday thing. He must have been working on this for weeks, or possibly months.

“If that’s all right,” he adds.

She realizes then she’s just been staring at him, arms limp at her sides. “It’s beautiful,” she says, her voice a little hoarse with it.

He smiles tentatively, and she finds the wherewithal to move forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. He takes a stuttering breath and curls around her.

“Not too forward?” he whispers into the crown of her head.

She laughs. “Entirely,” she says honestly, gripping at him. “But I don’t think I care.”

He chuckles and kisses the top of her head. “Would it help if I gave you half my closet?”

She shivers against him. “We’re not moving in,” she says. “But sure. Not sure why I’d need half though. Everything I own that goes on a hanger takes up about a third of my own closet.”

He laughs louder this time, squeezing her against him, and she lets herself giggle into his chest. She thinks she means it. Raising a little girl above a nightclub would be a logistical nightmare, even if Lucifer’s palace of a building is kind of a childhood dream playhouse. And they’re not anywhere close to that, anyway. It’s only been…

She doesn’t know exactly how long they’ve been together, not really. Officially, about twenty-four hours? But realistically? Six months? Longer, maybe?

“Just want you both comfortable here, when you want to be here,” he tells the top of her head.

She smiles into his shoulder and strokes at the base of his neck. This is easy to give. “You wanna take up the rest of the space in my closet?”

He hums. “A suit or two wouldn’t go amiss. The spawn is still rather sticky.”

“I am not,” Trixie calls through the open door.

They both laugh. She lifts a little to press a kiss against his throat, smiling against his skin when he shudders, and then steps back, letting her hands glide down his chest.

“Cake?” she asks.

He grins and then looks into the guest—into Trixie’s room. “Cake, poppet?”

“Yes!” Trixie says, scampering out of the room to grab his hand.

He grabs Chloe’s in turn, and lets Trixie tug them down the hall and back into the kitchen. Chloe watches the two of them don aprons and gather softened butter she hadn’t even noticed him taking out of the fridge earlier. He’s got the largest, fanciest Kitchen Aide stand mixer she’s ever seen, which Trixie clearly knows how to use, since he lets her set it up.

Chloe settles at the little dining table and watches them move around each other, her chest aching pleasantly again at the sight.

“That’s too much,” Trixie says.

“Too much chocolate? Urchin, are you well?”

Trixie giggles. “Mommy doesn’t like it that chocolaty. Where’s the ‘spresso powder? That’ll make it richer, right?”

“You have been paying attention,” Lucifer says proudly. “Second cabinet. Make sure to read the label. We don’t want another clove disaster.”

“That was your fault,” Trixie says, even as she hops down from the little step stool Lucifer pulled out from…somewhere, and drags it across the kitchen to climb up and rummage in Lucifer’s spice rack.

“…regardless, it was a lesson painfully learned, was it not?”

“Yeah,” Trixie agrees emphatically, grabbing the espresso powder and hopping down to bring her stepstool back to the mixer. “Es-presso pow-der,” she reads off clearly and shockingly sardonic.

Lucifer chuckles and scrutinizes the container before nodding. “A half teaspoon, and no more, or you’ll be awake all night.”

“So?” Trixie asks.

“Children need proper sleep,” Lucifer says simply.

But the look he throws in Chloe’s direction… She just shakes her head, aware and uncaring of her flaming cheeks. He grins at her before turning back to the mixer and watching Trixie measure out the powder. 

It’s not home, but it’s something tantalizingly close. Something Chloe’s not sure she’s ever had before, not like this, and certainly never with the Devil. But he looks so good in his apron, and her daughter is giggling madly at something he’s said. Big white wings and Hell don’t seem so important, not when this is her new reality.

(…)

“So, is it just the mojo and wings and super speed, or do you have other superpowers too?” Chloe whispers.

Lucifer looks down at the top of her head. They’re curled up on the couch in his den, Beatrice’s head in Chloe’s lap, Chloe’s body nestled into his side. Aside from the fact that they’re on their second Disney film, it’s been rather lovely.

Every time he blinks, he expects he’ll wake up back in the desert, desiccated and alone. Or worse, he’ll wake alone in his bed, with a pair of wings, and no Chloe or Beatrice. Instead, he’s being cuddled and snuggled and loved. It’s…unsettling in perhaps the best way possible.

“Do you think I’m some kind of biblical superhero?” he asks.

Chloe shrugs against him. “Aren’t you, sort of?”

“I am nothing of the kind,” he says firmly.

“Didn’t you tell me that you’re where Stan Lee got the idea for Iron Man?” Beatrice asks without tearing her eyes from…it’s the long blonde haired one again. Rapunzel.

“Seriously?” Chloe asks.

“Yes,” he says, grinning when she looks up at him in shock. “But I’m not a superhero.”

“Kinda are,” Beatrice mumbles.

“Do you see me roaming about Los Angeles in a cape, crusading for the masses, urchin?” he asks, equally amused and insulted. 

“No,” Beatrice says archly, lifting up from Chloe’s lap to meet his eyes. “But you saved Mommy’s life, and you can fly, and you have super strength, and you’re absolutely loaded.”

Chloe snorts and Lucifer gapes down at the tiny miscreant. “What has that got to do with it?”

“Who taught you ‘loaded,’ Monkey?” Chloe asks.

“Maze says Lucifer has more money than his Dad.”

“A truly ridiculous expression, considering my Father has no need for earthly possessions of any kind, let alone currency,” Lucifer says.

Chloe looks up at him while Beatrice returns her attention to the television. “Do I want to know your net worth?”

“Probably not,” he says honestly, smiling when she wrinkles her nose.

“Do you know your net worth?” she asks a moment later.

“Not down to the dollar,” he says.

“Estimate it.”

He hesitates. With any other person, he’s sure this would be a delightful reveal. But Chloe, who’s mostly allergic to material gifts and obsessed with her very sensible budget?

“Worse than you being the Devil?” she asks.

He laughs, startled, and she grins, so proud of herself. Well, with a challenge like that…“The most,” he says.

“The most…what?”

“The most money.”

“The most money where? In LA? The country?”

“The world,” he says.

She blinks at him, her eyes darting left and right. “The—”

“So you’re Batman,” Beatrice says, not looking at either of them.

Chloe snorts and Lucifer rolls his eyes, going to smooth down the lapel of the jacket he’s not wearing.

“I am not Batman.” He feels Chloe start giggling. “What?”

“Well you…you do have wings,” she gets out, her giggles giving way to loud guffaws and the most unfairly adorable little snorts.

“Feathered ones,” he says immediately, insulted. “I am not a bat.”

“Didn’t you say you fell asleep in the upside-down thingy?” Beatrice asks, shifting to sit up beside Chloe. She grins at him while he glares at her. “The ‘version table?”

“Inversion table, you tiny cretin. Telling all my secrets now that mum knows the big ones?” Beatrice stares back, unrepentant.

“What secrets, Monkey?” Chloe asks, wheezing a little.

“Urchin,” he warns, going for menacing.

But Beatrice just giggles, burrowing against Chloe. “His favorite color is actually—”

“I will retaliate,” he interjects rapidly.

Beatrice glances at him, an eyebrow arched. That’s a new one. “Yours are worse than mine.”

“Are they? Mazikeen talks when persuaded.” Never about Beatrice—palace secrets, she’s annoyingly begun calling them—but still.

“She would never,” Beatrice says immediately.

“Hey, no secrets mom can’t know,” Chloe says, sitting up against both of them. “Don’t tell Trixie there are things she shouldn’t tell me,” she adds, looking up at him.

“I have never,” he says, meeting her eyes, his chest squirming.

How she could ever believe him given the past twenty-four hours, he doesn’t know. But he’s never lied to her. Never asked Beatrice to lie to her. He’d never do anything to put the child in harm’s way. He hopes she knows that. He thought she did.

“They’re just silly things, Mommy. His favorite color’s actually pink.” Chloe blinks, slowly tearing her eyes from his to look down at her daughter. “And he gives me ten dollars every time I come up with a new sneaky bad word.”

Chloe huffs a small laugh. “I knew that one.”

Her hand comes to rest on his thigh, squeezing, and he tries to make himself relax. She trusts him with the urchin. Obviously, or they wouldn’t be a tangle of limbs on his couch right now, especially now that she knows he’s the Devil.

But still, he’s surprised by the momentary sting of her remonstration. He knows he’s no typical caregiver. Knows too that the claim he has on the urchin is…unusual at best. But she called him Step Satan. He hopes that means as much to her as it does to him.

“And sometimes he cries during movies,” Beatrice whispers.

Lucifer manages to pull himself together. They’re here, all three of them, semantics aside. That’s what matters. And if they’re going down, he and the urchin are going down together. “Beatrice has made more than one phone call to have me replace lamps she’s destroyed with Mazikeen’s knives.”

Beatrice squeaks, looking around Chloe with a glare. “Lucifer broke our fridge shutting the door too hard and had another one delivered the same day.”

Chloe swings her head around to look at him. “What?”

He waves his free hand. Hardly worth mentioning. He narrows his eyes at Beatrice. “Beatrice and Mazikeen made me replace the door to her bedroom after a particularly intense round of throwing stars.”

“Lucifer’s had to replace our front lock four times because he unlocked it too hard. He has a locksmith on retainer now,” Beatrice says, grinning at him.

“Oh, you think you’re clever, do you? How many electronics stores did we have to visit to replace the TV after a certain miscreant hit it with a practice sword?”

“It was only three, and it’s your fault, anyway. You backed me into a corner,” Beatrice fires back.

“I was protecting you from Mazikeen,” Lucifer argues.

“I almost had her!” Beatrice insists.

“How much of my apartment have you replaced?” Chloe cuts in, looking between them, eyes wide.

Lucifer glances at Beatrice, who looks back, both of them thinking.

“Half?” Beatrice asks.

“Perhaps a quarter,” he corrects. “Did you really not notice your couch was suddenly lumpless?” he wonders.

“Oh, yeah. That was Maze though,” Beatrice says, giggling a little.

It was a spectacular maneuver the urchin pulled that actually tripped Hell’s greatest warrior, sending her careening into the couch at full speed, breaking the arm and two of the legs. It was a near miss, having to get the replacement from a warehouse south of Anaheim before Chloe got back from the precinct. They made it by mere minutes, as he recalls.

“I think I take it back,” Chloe says, staring ahead at the TV now.

“Take what back?” Beatrice asks.

“As long as there’s no bodily harm, and you tell me, Dad, or Lucifer if anyone else ever asks you to keep secrets, please feel free to keep me wonderfully in the dark about whatever shenanigans you get up to when I’m not there.”

“Deal,” Beatrice says, leaning up to kiss Chloe’s cheek before snuggling down against her to return to watching the film.

“And maybe you, Trixie, and Maze should be doing all of…whatever it is you’re doing with knives here, instead of in my very breakable apartment?” Chloe says, looking up at him.

He blinks down at her. No issue with the knives, apparently, just the property damage. “I’ll suggest it, as long as you don’t mind Maze driving the urchin here and back when she looks after her.”

Chloe’s hand is still on his thigh, her body relaxed against him. “Does she have access to a car? Trixie’s not getting on her motorcycle.”

He notes Beatrice’s face going carefully blank and has to withhold a laugh and a wince at once. “She can take one of mine. I’ll be sure to mention no motorcycles.”

“And how many cars is that, Batman?”

He sighs, tipping his head back against the couch. “Fifteen, but only seven of them are here.”

Her hand tightens on his thigh. “Honestly, that’s lower than I expected.”

He chuckles, bringing his free arm down to cover her hand. “If you’d ever like one—” he starts.

“Nu-uh. If you’ve already replaced half of my apartment, you’re banned from any big gifts for six months.”

“Only a quarter,” he says instantly, raising his head to meet her eyes. “Your birthday is next month.”

Chloe presses her lips together to keep from laughing at him. “Sounds like you’re going to need to come up with something average then, Satan.”

“There’s nothing average about me,” he says immediately.

“I know,” she says, her tone exceedingly casual.

It still makes his stomach clench. Then she turns back to the TV, her hand still there on his thigh. It takes him a minute to relax, pushing very child-unfriendly thoughts out of his mind.

He stares at the film, taking little of it in. She hasn’t outlawed payment in favors. He’s certain he can get her something extravagant for her birthday without any monetary payment whatsoever.

“What was your first investment?”

“Hmm?”

“You have the most money. You had to start somewhere. Where, when?”

He smiles, allowing himself the freedom to press his lips to the crown of her head. Her quiet curiosity feels like it’s filling up long-unhealed fissures he didn’t know were still deep within his chest.

“I came topside in the early days of Mesopotamia and managed to be gifted a plot of land for helping with some crops in exchange for…” He glances at Beatrice. “The, ah, favor of a particular widowed matriarch, before Amenadiel came to chase me back down. Held onto that for about a thousand years, sold it for a profit the next time I was topside, and then bought some more throughout more than one ancient city each time I visited. Whenever I came back, I’d sell one, buy another. Property has always been a good investment. Eventually, I started putting some of it in banks, got into the markets, and here we are.”

Chloe’s hand goes momentarily tense on his thigh before relaxing, her thumb stroking soothingly against his trousers. “So, you’re the world’s first property magnate?”

“I suppose,” he says. He’s never given it that much thought.

“Do you have a collection of stuff in Hell, like you do here?”

“No,” he says, watching Rapunzel and whatever-his-name-is dance around the palace city. “Almost all earthly things are too fragile for Hell. There’s certainly nowhere secure enough to ensure their safety.”

No one there to enjoy them, either.

Chloe hums contemplatively. “Do you have collections at all your properties?”

“Most,” he says, glancing down at her. “Curious?”

“To see your eons old collections of earthly relics? Just a bit,” Chloe says easily.

He’s not going to cry because Chloe wants to see his bloody treasure troves. He’s really not. “Well, once we’ve figured out the transportation situation, we can visit them all in a day, if you’d like,” he says, like the very thought doesn’t make his heart soar.

“Maybe not all at once, but I’d like that,” Chloe says, turning her cheek to press a kiss to his shoulder. “And maybe you make sure Maze doesn’t teach Trixie anything in the penthouse. Let her trash her old apartment.”

“Do you think she’d build me a whole training floor?” Beatrice asks.

They both laugh.

“Try that again, urchin.”

“If I’m gonna practice here, will you build me a whole training floor?” Beatrice asks, not bothering to look back at him.

“Trixie,” Chloe admonishes. Lucifer opens his mouth. “How do we ask?”

“Please,” Beatrice says, still not looking at either of them.

He grins, his chest expanding with it. “I’ll begin plans with Mazikeen next week.”

Chloe sighs and curls further into him. “You’re never going to be the bad cop, are you?”

“No, darling, that’s your job. I’m the Devil on her shoulder.”

Chloe giggles and he brings their hands up to kiss the back of her palm, settling in to watch the rest of the film. And if he takes a deeper breath when Finn—Fred—Flynn?—gets pulled into Rapunzel’s family hug, Chloe’s kind enough not to mention it.

Many hours, enough chocolate cake that even he’s feeling vaguely nauseated, and multiple further sickly animated films later, Lucifer stands in the doorway to the guest room—Beatrice’s room—watching Chloe kneel beside the urchin’s bed, stroking her forehead as she slips into sleep.

If he thought the tearful animated family reunions were doing something vicious to his heart, it’s nothing compared to the look Chloe gives him when Beatrice falls asleep. The twinkling stars he had installed in the ceiling reflected in her eyes, her hair soft around her shoulders, her smile wide and a little tremulous—his chest feels fit to bursting.

She stands and pads out of the room, going to close Beatrice’s door behind her. He finds his hand reaching out, stalling it before it closes all the way. If the urchin should have another nightmare, he wants them to be able to hear her.

Chloe’s eyes soften further, and she comes close, arching up to kiss his cheek before taking his hand to lead him back to the sitting room. He goes to pull her over to the couch, but she pauses so he turns back to her.

“Hey,” she says, reaching out to take his other hand. “Just to make it clear, keeping secrets—regular, human secrets—can make it hard to know when it’s okay to tell me things, is all I meant earlier.”

He nods slowly, something letting go in his chest.

“It’s a safety thing,” she continues, looking up to meet his eyes, her face sad in a way he doesn’t understand. “If kids get used to keeping secrets for family, they might not always know it’s wrong when someone who’s not family tells them to keep a dangerous secret.”

The word family hits him like a physical squeeze, tight and overwhelming.

“I want to make sure if someone tells Trixie to keep something secret someday—something that’s not celestial—she knows she can tell me, and no one can hurt her and tell her to keep quiet.”

He hates this horrible, evil, vile world his Father created. If anyone so much as breathes wrong in the urchin’s direction, he will—

“Lucifer,” Chloe says softly.

Right, yes, he’s gone rigid with rage. He forces himself to roll his shoulders, to let go of the immediate paralyzing fear that someone could try and hurt Beatrice. Not only hurt her, but coerce her to remain silent in the face of pain.

“I’ve never asked her to keep anything secret, and I never will,” he promises.

Chloe squeezes his hands. “I know Trixie’s safe with you, and I know you didn’t tell her to keep anything about you secret. You guys talked about it in front of me all the time. That’s on me.” He opens his mouth. “The property damage is on you.”

He laughs, just like he figures she intended, and she smiles up at him. “And Maze,” he says, proud when she laughs in return. “She’s always safe, even when we’re destroying parts of your home.”

“I know that too,” Chloe says.

“Good.”

She arches up to press her mouth to his. He sighs against her lips, allowing her to relax him, allowing his fingers to curl into the dress shirt she’s still wearing. She breaks away too soon, falling back to the flats of her feet, and he looks down at her, entranced and grateful. And then she yawns.

He laughs and squeezes her hips. It’s not late, but it’s certainly not early either. “Bedtime for little detectives too, it seems.”

Chloe frowns, even as her face splits in a second, longer yawn. “I have questions,” she mumbles.

“Ask them in bed,” he says easily. He can think of almost nothing better than answering her questions until she passes out.

Well, he can think of many more active, pleasurable things, but he ought not. She’s clearly exhausted, and the urchin is down the hall, and though he does so love his penthouse, the bedroom lacking a door seems, for the very first time, perhaps not the best design choice. For once in his life, he might want something more than the absence of a door.

They slide into bed together, Chloe in another one of his button downs and a pair of his boxers. If she wasn’t practically falling asleep with her head on his pillow, he’d tell her he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything sexier in his life. But he’s not going to tell her, and he’s going to pretend he hasn’t even noticed either, for both their sakes.

“Where’s your favorite place or time you’ve ever been?” Chloe asks, scooting across the sheets to press herself against him. “G—Damn, you’re warm,” she says, nuzzling her cheek into his chest, her arm across his stomach.

He grins up at the ceiling. “Only one of my many bed-related talents.”

He really can’t help himself. But Chloe just snorts and kisses his chest. “Down, Satan. Where’s your favorite place?”

“Right here,” he says, the words coming sure and without any real thought.

She hums. “That’s sweet. Other than now, other than here, where’s your favorite place?”

He stares up at the ceiling, thinking of a slightly less lumpy couch, of a cramped little kitchen, of a backyard that looks out on the Venice Canals. Of a chair beside a desk in a police precinct and a police cruiser with lightly warped seats.

“Los Angeles, 2015 to 2017.”

Chloe sighs, rubbing her hand up and down his side. “All of human history, and you’re choosing now?”

“Yes,” he says simply. “It’s the best. Where is your favorite place you’ve been?” he asks, because turnabout is only fair play.

“I haven’t been many places,” Chloe says softly. “But I like right here too.”

He bends his head to press a kiss to the top of her head, restraining himself, and only barely, from rolling her over to plunder her mouth and press the overwhelming love flooding his chest against her body.

“Start another list,” he says instead, breathing steadily.

“Of what?”

“Places you’d like to go. The urchin has a list of places she’d like to be flown, but vacations do quite nicely. And I know you never take any proper time off, so you’ve got a glut of leave to burn.”

The idea is bright in his mind. He hasn’t traveled much since arriving in Los Angeles. He’s told himself it’s because air travel is generally deeply unpleasant even at the best price point, but he knows it’s truly because he’s enjoyed staying in the same place for so long. Enjoyed the feeling of home. Particularly within the last two years.

But to take Chloe and Beatrice to places exotic and far flung? To use his money to show them the world? To bring his home away with him?

“I’ve always wanted to see Italy, and Greece,” Chloe says quietly.

“Done. Tell me the dates, and we’ll go,” he says, immediately starting his own list of all the ruins they’ll need to see, the reservations for the best restaurants to get, the art and music and festivals—  

“And I’d kind of like to see the Devil go to Disney World,” Chloe adds.

“Pass,” he says immediately.

“You sure? Trixie would love it,” Chloe says, rising up on her elbow to meet his eyes, smile devious.

Oh, that is exceedingly unfair. “Then send her with Daniel.”

Chloe laughs, leaning down to press her lips chastely to his. “If you gave that to him for Christmas, he might actually accept it.”

“Duly noted,” Lucifer says, reaching up to cup her cheek before she sinks back down to his side. “But no talking about Daniel when you’re kissing me.”

She laughs again, nodding. He arches up for another kiss that ends all too quickly, and she slips back down to curl herself against his side.

“I’m allowed to give Daniel extravagance, but not you?” he asks after a moment.

“I don’t need your extravagance. Just need you,” Chloe says, yawning against him again.

He can’t quite make his throat form words after that. Instead, he lies there feeling Chloe fall asleep against him, his whole body bright with the feeling of her there with him, with Beatrice safely down the hall, with the life it seems they’re suddenly building together. The life he feels like he can admit it feels like they’ve been building for a while now.

His eyes slip closed, and the Devil contentedly falls asleep before 10pm on a Saturday.

Chapter Text

“I’ll be back in just a few hours, urchin,” she hears Lucifer telling Trixie.

She turns from where she’s been staring blankly out the window and can’t help but smile at the sight of Lucifer, the Devil, Satan himself, knelt down on the floor in front of her glaring eight-year-old.

His celestial child.

Now that they’re home, the spell of Lux broken by an impending Monday and all the chores she’s neglected for the past two days, it’s like part of her brain is just on a running loop, whispering all the bizarre, impossible, wild things she’s learned like a chattering gibbon she can’t silence. It’s starting to give her a headache.

“Can’t you just—” Trixie starts.

“Honey, Lucifer spent all weekend with us. We need to give him a few hours to take care of things,” Chloe says, switching easily into mom mode. “You’ve got homework you need to do, and then we’re gonna go to bed early.”

“But what if someone takes you again?” Trixie asks Lucifer, ignoring Chloe entirely.

“I have my wings now. I can just disappear and come back here,” Lucifer says.

Chloe stares at him for a moment. Right, because that’s something they should just know?

“Okay,” Trixie says warily. “You promise?”

“I promise,” he says firmly.

 “And then he’ll tell me who it was, so I can make sure they go away for a long time,” Chloe adds.

Lucifer looks up at her as she comes around the counter to stand next to them. “Yes, she’s much scarier than I am,” he agrees.

“And you’ll be here when I wake up?” Trixie asks.

Lucifer stands up to meet Chloe’s eyes. He raises his eyebrows, giving her the choice, which she appreciates. And while a full night to herself to process would likely be best, she finds she can’t say no. For Trixie’s sake, and her own. When she wakes in the middle of the night with questions, like she did last night, she wants him here. Wants him to explain. Wants him to card his fingers through her hair.

She just wants him, Devil and all.

“He’ll be here tomorrow morning,” Chloe decides, unsurprised by the way Lucifer’s face brightens.

He’s so beautiful, and she’s made him so happy so simply. It’s heady and awe inspiring, and she may want him here tonight, but he needs to leave right now. Or she’s going to drag him upstairs.

“Go on and do your homework, Monkey,” Chloe prompts.

Trixie looks up at her, mutinous for a moment before heaving a dramatic sigh. “Fine,” she huffs, stomping off into her room.

 Chloe closes her eyes and blows out a slow breath. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

“Can I bring you dinner, darling?”

She opens her eyes and turns back to him, taking his hands, already reaching out for her. “Please. Something simple?”

“Pizza?” he suggests.

“Perfect,” she says before leaning around him to glance toward Trixie’s open door. “You’ll be fine, right?” she whispers.

“I’m just going over the ledgers for Lux and overseeing a few deliveries,” he says, squeezing her hands. “And when I’m not with you, I’m rather indestructible.”

“Except when you’re getting whacked and dragged out to the desert,” she prompts, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, that had to be celestial in nature or it wouldn’t have happened,” he says thoughtfully.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He blinks, like that’s new information. “Would you have Amenadiel meet you, at least?” She’s not eager to see the…angel, but two would be better than one.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he says quickly.

“Maze?”

He sighs and leans in to press his lips to hers to shut her up. It’s infuriating how well it works. When he pulls back, she barely remembers her own name, let alone what she was arguing about.

“I’ll be just fine,” he says, his forehead resting against hers. “Just like normal, but with wings.”

She groans and pulls back from him. “I hate you,” she says.

He grins and swoops in for another fast kiss before tugging his hands from hers. “Lying isn’t nice, Detective.”

She rolls her eyes, fighting hard to hang onto her irritation when he pops said wings out of his impeccable suit. “Love and hate are two sides of a very thin line,” she says, but it comes out breathless and he grins, damn him.

“I’ll be back,” he says, winking at her.

And then with a gust of wind, he’s gone.

“Wow!” Trixie exclaims.

He can just vanish? And he hitched back with the Lancaster PD?

Chloe shakes her head, now able to see Trixie standing in the doorway to her room. “Homework, Monkey,” she prompts.

Trixie scowls but shuffles back into her room, leaving Chloe alone in the hall, staring at the spot where her boyfriend disappeared. She knew they drove him here, but somehow, she didn’t think he would fly back to Lux. Or…whatever it really is. She hasn’t gotten to ask about wing mechanics yet. There have been too many other questions.

She takes a deep breath and heads back into the kitchen, intent on doing the dishes they left on Friday when she and Trixie were running late to school, because they were worried about him. Because he had been kidnapped, and the light in her daughter’s chest told them he was far away. And he was.

Chloe takes a shuddering breath, working her way through the pasta pot, and Trixie’s lunchbox, and their smoothie glasses, and the blender, while the last three days swirl through her head.

Her boyfriend is the actual Devil. Satan. And he loves her. And he loves her daughter. And God is real, and God maybe probably ensured Chloe’s existence so that she and Lucifer would meet. But Lucifer doesn’t care about that, which is huge in itself. And she—

She loves him, has loved him for the better part of a year. The fact that he’s the Devil, and his father is God, and his brother is an Angel, and his mom was inhabiting Charlotte Richards, pales in comparison to how much she loves him. She wants this weird, wild, strange life with him. She wants him, no matter what.

But all of the rest of it is still…there. Heaven and Hell, the afterlife, Trixie’s celestial inheritance—it’s all still in her head. It’s like there isn’t enough space for all of that and for how happy she is.

She probably shouldn’t be happy. She should be angry, and hurt, and scared. But she can’t be scared of him. Wings, Devil Face, Lord of Hell—they may all be parts of him, but he’s still just Lucifer. He’s still the man who looks after her daughter on Thursdays, and cooks her food, and keeps her in coffee, and is the best partner she’s ever had. He’s soft, and kind, and thoughtful, and weird as…well…Hell.

And she loves him.

“Mommy?”

Chloe gasps, turning to look down at Trixie through blurry eyes. Oh, she’s crying. Sobbing, actually, the dishes forgotten in the sink. She’s bent over, heaving in air. Shit.

“Sorry, baby,” she says, reaching out with trembling fingers to grab the dish towel and dry her hands.

"What’s wrong?” Trixie asks.

“Nothing,” Chloe says honestly. Because nothing is wrong. Everything’s just different.

Trixie’s staring up at her with wide, confused eyes and Chloe reaches out to tug her in for a hug. Trixie holds tight to her waist and Chloe finds herself swaying, unable to stop the tears even though she knows she’s scaring her kid.

The only thing she can do is gently lower herself to the floor and pull Trixie into her lap like she used to when she was very small, and they’d sit in front of the oven to watch the cookies bake.

“Are you sad?” Trixie whispers.

Chloe shakes her head. “No. No, I’m not. I think—I think Mommy’s just a little…celestially overwhelmed,” she admits.

“Oh,” Trixie says, curling closer and laying her head on Chloe’s shaking shoulder. “He’s still just Lucifer,” she whispers.

“I know,” Chloe says quickly. “I know. I’m not scared or upset with Lucifer, Monkey. It’s just a lot to take in, you know? About Heaven and Hell and God.”

Trixie hums and Chloe chuckles a little. It’s what she does when Trixie cries. Her brave, big girl.

“I don’t think about it like that,” Trixie says a few minutes later.

“No?” Chloe wonders, still crying, but feeling like she might manage to take a full breath sometime in the next thirty minutes. She hasn’t cried like this since her father died, and she hates that she’s doing it with Trixie.

“I think of Heaven as Lucifer’s childhood house,” Trixie says simply. “And God is his daddy. And his daddy is mean,” she adds with a little whisper, glancing at the ceiling with a glare.

Chloe sobs out a laugh. Damn, does she agree. “Yeah?”

“Yeah! And Hell was Lucifer’s home before he came to us. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but Maze says it’s awesome.”

“That sounds like Maze,” Chloe says, her chest heaving just a bit less now. “It doesn’t scare you at all?”

Trixie’s known all of this for almost two years now, and she’s never had to cry in the kitchen about it. Maybe she’s made of tougher stuff than Chloe. She’d have to be, to become the Devil’s kid, right?

“Nope,” Trixie says confidently. “Lucifer isn’t scary, and he’ll always protect us. He does such a good job, Mommy, we don’t have to be scared. And you have a gun, so I know you’ll protect me too.”

Chloe sniffles and hugs her tighter. “Yeah, baby, I will. We will always protect you,” she says, feeling some of the panic and overwhelm starting to recede.

They sit for a quiet minute. Trixie plays with the collar of Chloe’s shirt, another of Lucifer’s button downs that she tucked into her jeans before heading home. She smells like him now, and it’s helping to calm her back down.

“Is the light all better, now that Lucifer’s back?” she asks Trixie.

“Yep,” she says brightly, raising one hand to touch the place above her heart.

“Do you feel it all the time?” Chloe wonders. That has to be distracting.

“No, only when I want to, or need to,” Trixie says thoughtfully. “When I’m scared, I can feel it. Or if I’m sad. Or when something’s wrong.”

“Like when he was kidnapped,” Chloe supplies.

“And when he died in the hospital,” Trixie says, her voice tighter.

Chloe presses a kiss to her hair. “But he got better,” she says quickly. It’s weirdly comforting, even if the idea that he died and went to Hell for her makes her slightly want to claw her face off.

“Do you think he can always get better?” Trixie asks, leaning back to meet Chloe’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” she says honestly, using both hands to smooth Trixie’s hair back from her face. “But I think he’ll do everything he can to come back to us if something goes wrong.”

“‘Cause he’s our Fairy Dad Monster,” Trixie agrees.

Chloe smiles. “Yes.”

“I’m glad you know now,” Trixie says after a moment.

“Me too, Monkey.”

It’s going to take time for all of it to feel normal—or whatever normal will feel like—but she’s so very glad she knows.

“Are you mad that I didn’t tell you?” Trixie wonders.

Chloe shakes her head immediately. “No, baby. And you did tell me,” she says, smiling through her congestion. She’s not crying anymore, at least. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen.”

Trixie reaches up to hold Chloe’s cheeks like she’s holding hers. “Lucifer says it’s hard for grownups to understand. But I knew when he told you that you would. Because you’re smart and brave!”

Damn. Chloe sniffles again, laughing at a renewed rush of tears that Trixie brushes away. “Thank you, honey,” she manages to say.

“Are you and Lucifer gonna get married now?” Trixie asks, her smile turning sly.

Chloe laughs again and shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

Do angels even get married?

She’s never, ever, thought of Lucifer as the marrying type. But she also didn’t think he was the actual Devil, nor that he’d celestially adopt her precocious eight-year-old because he loves her so much. And she certainly never thought she’d fall so deeply in love with him that him being the Devil wouldn’t matter at all. But here she is.

“That’s okay. You have time to figure it out,” Trixie says wisely. “But if you want to, I want you to.”

Well, they have her daughter’s blessing, so that’s…something.

“Thank you, Monkey,” she whispers, wrapping her back into a tight hug for as long as she’ll stay there.

(...)

“Another one,” Beatrice mumbles.

Chloe snickers behind her on the little twin bed and Lucifer huffs. Beatrice’s small hand twists into his dress shirt where he’s sat on the floor against her nightstand, his head level with hers there on her pillow.

“Monkey, it’s time to sleep,” Chloe chides.

“One more song,” Beatrice demands, her voice heavy. “Please.”

He sighs and glances at Chloe, who’s watching him like she knows there’s no way he’d deny the urchin. Which he wouldn’t. Because he’s pathetic, and soft, and besotted by them both. Dad help him if Maze comes home now to see him so whipped.

“Last one,” he insists.

Beatrice’s little lips quirk and her hand jostles his shoulder feebly. He leans his head back and stares up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers Beatrice and Chloe put up when they moved in. They’re fading, because he’s been sitting here on the floor for almost an hour singing the sneaky child to sleep.

Still, he can’t deny her request and begins to sing “Into the Mystic” in Enochian. His voice is a bit tired, but watching the way Chloe stares at him, eyes wide, lips parted, almost enchanted…he could keep singing all night.

He can hear Beatrice’s breathing even out, finally drifting to sleep as he comes to the last chorus. He finishes the song and looks from Chloe to Beatrice, his chest immeasurably full. He didn’t think, seven years ago, that he’d ever have something like this. That he’d have people who felt like his whole world, who he loved so fully and so deeply it feels like they’re lodged in his heart.

Chloe’s still watching him. Her face is a bit puffy, her eyes a little red. He hasn’t gotten to ask—didn’t want to upset Beatrice—but he thinks maybe things were not so sanguine while he was at the club. He wants to push, and yet he doesn’t. So much of him just wants to float here in the quiet with them, where everything is wonderful.

“She asleep?” Chloe asks a few minutes later.

He nods and watches with amusement as she slowly extricates herself from Beatrice’s bed. The child stirs and they both freeze, like she’s some apex predator. But she calms quickly enough, and Chloe tiptoes around the bed, coming to stand in front of him. She extends her hands, and he takes them, giving her the illusion of helping him up.

She guides him out of Beatrice’s room and slides the door shut, leaving them in the stillness of the living room. In the brighter lighting, her puffy red eyes stand out starkly.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

She smiles up at him and lifts onto her toes to press a soft kiss to his mouth. “Just had a human moment earlier.” She lowers herself back to the soles of her feet and laughs at what must be the confusion on his face. “I had a good cry.”

His heart clenches. “I wouldn’t have left had I known—”

Her fingers cover his lips. “I found out that Heaven, Hell, God, and the Devil were real on Friday. I just needed to…feel all of it, but it’s fine. I’m fine.”

He works his jaw, his stomach twisting at the thought of Chloe breaking down on her own. He thought she was too calm. He should have called Linda. She should have called him—

“Trixie and I had a talk,” she says, looking up at him like she knows he’s working himself into knots. “She had some good insights.”

“The child is clever,” he agrees, concern still tugging at his chest.

She snorts and leads him over to the couch. He lets her sit him down, trying to figure out how to help—how to make this easier, eliminate her pain, her suffering—she should never be upset, or scared or—

“Lucifer, stop,” she says.

He blinks when the couch dips beside his hip and she settles herself astride his lap, her arms around his shoulders. The movement stalls his words, his senses quickly overwhelmed by the reality of her there against him, slotted perfectly together, warm and wonderful and promising.

“You’d be upset if I hadn’t gotten a little upset,” she says almost sternly.

But it’s not about her being upset; it’s that he wasn’t here to help her. It’s his fault she’s overwhelmed, and grappling with the concept of concrete divinity, and having to deal with being in love with—

Her mouth covers his, her hands cupping his cheeks, and he sighs against her. He’s here now. He’ll make it up to her now. And maybe if he does it well enough, she’ll let him come home with her every night and…

“Stop thinking,” she mumbles against his lips.

He grips at her waist, groaning as her tongue slicks against his bottom lip. He opens his mouth by reflex and then everything gets hazy. His worry slips away with the movement of her hips against his, the feeling of her exquisitely soft skin beneath his fingers, beneath his lips. All he wants to think about now is how to make sure he finds every single place on her body that makes her make that breathy, sinful moan.

“Bedroom,” she rasps as he laves his way across her jaw, down her neck.

She goes to pull away from him and he tuts, rising with her still in his arms. She’s on his wavelength immediately, legs tightening around his hips, her body rolling against his. Were he a lesser Devil, he’d stumble. Instead, he sucks at the tendon of her supple neck and grips at her arse, putting one foot in front of the other despite all her efforts to stall him, until he’s kicking the door to her bedroom shut and they’re falling onto her bed.

They’re a mess of limbs and half-undone buttons. She giggles up at him, her hands in his hair, her lips beautifully plump already, cheeks wonderfully pink.

“Did you ever think when we did this for the first time it would be in my bed?” she asks.

He blinks down at her, barely able to think as it is. “What?”

“I always thought it would be at Lux,” she says, shrugging a little, which makes his dress shirt slip down her shoulder just a bit more.

“Do you want me to take us there?” he asks, confused.

She giggles and pulls him down to her mouth, dragging him into a languid kiss that leaves them both panting and writhing against each other.

“No, but some night, that might be fun. I just…I thought about this a lot,” she says.

“Not more than I have,” he says, letting one hand trail down her side. “And reality far surpasses my imagination.” She smiles up at him, her body relaxing a bit beneath his hands. He leans down to press kisses to her cheeks, her chin, her nose. “Never thought I’d get so lucky as to be in love with you, Chloe Decker.”

It comes so easily, words he never thought he’d have cause to say, words he never thought he’d want to shout from the rooftop. Words so true he finds suddenly he’s a little bit nervous about all of this.

The Devil, nervous in bed. The firsts just keep coming.

Oh, how he hopes they do—

Chloe cradles his face in her delicate hands, eyes shining. “I love you,” she says, like a benediction.

It’s the only one he’ll ever accept, the only one he’ll ever want, and he bends his neck to seal it between their mouths.

(…)

She wakes with a start in the middle of the night. Her chest heaves as she takes in her surroundings: her ceiling, her bed, the quiet sounds of the water out her window. She’s muzzy and heavy, her body sore and sated and—

Lucifer is in her bed, his head pillowed on her chest, an arm wrapped over her waist. He’s a wall of heat and muscle against her, his breath puffing over her breasts. She’s in bed with the Devil, deliciously naked, and so damn happy that she even can’t remember the dream that woke her.

Being with Lucifer was so spectacularly, wonderfully beyond her furthest, wildest dreams that it makes her blush even now. He lit up nerves she didn’t even know she had, brought her to heights she didn’t know she could reach, and throughout it all, he watched her like she was the most important, precious thing he had ever seen.

And she made him feel things too, which seems insane. She’s always been good in bed, but she rather thought she’d be an average night for Lucifer. But the way he shuddered, the way he called her name, the way his eyes found hers, brimming with tears—it was special for him too. Perfect, he said.

She believes him.

Believes him so much she’s tempted to wake him for another round. Tempted to wake him and keep him awake through dawn. Tempted to walk into the precinct tired and love sore for the sheer pleasure of it.

Then he snuffles in his sleep, his arm tightening around her, and she can’t wake him. Not when she can amuse herself instead with carding her fingers through his soft curls. Not when she can revel in the glorious heat of him against her. Not when she’s got the Devil at Rest on top of her, looking younger and happier than she’s ever seen him before, even in sleep.

He shifts again, turning his face into her chest, his arm tightening around her further, like he’s trying to hold onto her. She smiles and cups the back of his head, wrapping her other arm around his to stroke at his shoulder.

And then his wings pop out.

Chloe squeaks in shock, the whole world going white around her. Something clatters off her dresser and the shades knock against the windows on the other side of the room. She stays still, breathing shallowly, trying to wrap her mind around it, around them. In the dim moonlight filtering through her windows, his wings almost glow, opalescent and ethereal.

It takes her a long moment to tear her eyes away from them and look down at her boyfriend. But he’s still asleep, his arm still tight around her. His wings rise and fall gently as he breathes, shifting lightly on their own as well.

Without much thought she lifts her hand from the back of his head to stroke her fingers along the arch of his right wing. His feathers are silky soft beneath her touch, and a warmth travels from her fingers all over her body, like a cascade of affection she can feel down to her toes.

She smiles, her eyes watering. The feeling is even stronger tonight than it was on Friday, like their weekend together with Trixie has only increased the love that courses out of him. Because now she can feel how he held them in his wings when Trixie had her nightmare, how he stroked at her cheek when she woke with questions on Saturday night, how he looked at her while he and Trixie frosted their cake, full of delight and mischief. And how he looked up at her, tears trailing down his face, when she fixed his wings, when he shared this sacred part of himself with her with such trust and raw vulnerability.

Every moment they’ve spent together coalesces beneath her fingers now and she finds herself crying and pulling her hand back just as Lucifer seems to rouse himself there on her chest.

“’tective?” he asks, blinking before raising his head to meet her gaze. His eyes sharpen at her tears, and he shifts immediately, rising up on one arm to hover over her. “Darling?”

She shakes her head, letting her outstretched hand come to rest on his cheek. She takes a few deep breaths, trying to rein herself in enough to speak.

“Chloe,” he whispers, leaning forward to press his lips to her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her nose. “What’s wrong?”

His wings shiver and she gasps out something between a sob and a laugh.

“What on—oh,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. His eyes widen in seeming panic. “My apologies, I…”

“No,” she says quickly, her voice thick and watery. “No, don’t apologize, and don’t put them away.” He blinks back at her and she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to get a handle on herself. “Unless you want to. Sorry, I know—I know you don’t like them. I just, I woke up, and you were here, and they popped out, and I touched them, and I love you so very much, and it was all just a lot?”

He stares at her for a moment, confused, and then his face breaks into a beautifully soft smile. “I love you too,” he whispers, bending to press his mouth gently to hers.

She clutches at him, bringing her other hand up so she can hold his face to hers, breathing through her stuffy nose to keep kissing him, keep kissing him, keep kissing him.

He pulls back after a long, languid moment and smiles down at her, his free hand tracing gently up and down her side. His wings block just about everything else from sight and she feels safe and hidden beneath them.

He turns his cheek and kisses one of her palms. Her heart aches. How could anyone hurt him so much he wants to cut off his wings?

“What is happening in that beautiful head of yours?” he whispers.

She smiles, blinking rapidly against the tears still gathered in her eyes. She vows then and there that no one will hurt him again, not on her watch.

“Plotting revenge against God, if you must know,” falls out of her mouth before she can think to stop it.

He blinks down at her. “What?”

“Um,” she says, scrabbling for any way to claw that back. The wings are still fresh, his stolen Devil Face hanging over him in moments of silence, and he’s so weird about his family.

“You’re plotting revenge on my Father while I’m kissing you?”

Chloe squirms a little under the look he’s giving her, all serious and baffled and incredulous. “Just—you’ve told me a lot of shitty things your Dad did, and your Mom, over the years, and it’s all catching up, and I love you, so I’m pissed, okay?”

He gapes at her for a moment, and then he’s kissing her again, all lips and teeth and ragged breath. She loses herself in it, holding him tightly against her, trying to explain with the press of her mouth and the roll of her body up into his. He’s hers, and someone hurt him, and she wants them to pay.

She squeaks against his mouth when he tucks his wings in and rolls them, landing with him on his back. He clutches her to his chest and then, oh, his wings come around them, cocooning them in white down that tingles and warms and adores her everywhere it touches. 

It’s different against her naked skin, all the way along her body, with the rest of him pressed to her front, his hands cradling her face now, mouth still working against hers. She makes a sound she’s not sure she’s ever made before, guttural and whining and primal, and he chuckles against her lips.

“The wings really do it for you, don’t they?” he asks against her lips.

She has to pull back to suck air into her lungs, staring down at him. His wings move against her and her whole body feels like liquid. “If I say yes, are you ever going to let it go?”

“Not if it makes you look like this,” he says, and of course, he doesn’t lie.

“Are you okay with it making me look like this?” she wonders. She’s not sure how she looks, but given how she feels, it’s probably unbearably aroused and already debauched.

“Of course,” he says, peering up at her. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you hate them?” she offers, completely confused.

He seems to consider her words, his head tilting there against her pillows, hair all askew and curly, lips still plump. It makes her shiver. The Devil is vulnerable around her, so she can bruise his lips with kisses and mark his neck with hickeys and scrape her nails against his back in the throes. And while she hates that he’s vulnerable around her, because it means he’s not safe at work, here in their—her—bed…

“I believe I can loathe my wings for all they connect to my Father and simultaneously be delighted to discover I might be able to get you off with just their touch at the same time. I contain multitudes, you see,” he says, a smile returning to his face, like maybe he’s just figured that out for himself.

She contains multitudes too, she supposes. And—“You think you can get me off with just the wings?”

“I can certainly give it the old college try,” he says, reaching up to tug her down so her forehead presses against his. “If you’re game. I completely understand if not. A wing kink on top of the celestial knowledge bomb might be a bit much.”

His hands skate up and down her sides, his chest rising and falling beneath her, all of him warm and firm and perfect. “I think I can handle it,” Chloe says, going for playful. It comes out more breathless as his feathers flutter over her back, but still.

“I think you can handle anything,” Lucifer says, one of his hands rising to trace the line of her cheek. “You’re incredible, Chloe.”

She turns and kisses his palm, gasping as his wings seem to hold her tighter. “It’s not a wing kink,” she whispers.

He laughs, loud and free. “Give me time,” he says and surges up to kiss her.

She will. Oh, she will.

(...)

Sunlight filters in through the curtains they never bothered to close, and he lays there in the golden light of dawn, grinning up at the wood beam ceiling. The trite human euphemism of “making love” actually has meaning. Who would have thought?

He drags his fingers through Chloe’s hair where she’s still sleeping against his chest, snoring lightly. He could stay just like this forever. Well, if there were time, he’d absolutely wake her for another round, or three. He wants to see if he can make her come with just his wings again. Wants to bury his face between her legs, and himself within her body, and never, ever stop.

He’ll never get enough of her. Never spend enough time worshiping at the altar of her body. Never slake his lust for her. Never stop his love for her.

But it’s nearing 6am, and while he’s been awake and rested for an hour, after the weekend they had, it would be irresponsible of him to wake her now and send her to work more exhausted.

Two years ago, he never would have contemplated climbing out from beneath such a beautiful, deliciously naked woman—his woman, his miracle, his love—to go feed a child, of all things. But now, a quiet minute with the urchin before they part for the day tugs at his heart.

He’s been thoroughly wrecked by the Deckers, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He slips carefully out of her grasp, making sure to wrap the blanket up over her bare shoulder. He spends more than a minute staring down at her, watching how she curls herself around his pillow in his absence. It warms his heart and makes his eyes suspiciously misty. He has to turn away to gather himself.

He dresses in his pants and button down from the previous night, forgoing the vest and jacket to pad downstairs and into the kitchen on bare feet. He thinks Chloe deserves pancakes, and eggs, and bacon, and possibly waffles. And maybe a new car, and a rack of new dresses, and diamonds.

He stills, halfway through stirring the pancake batter. Perhaps diamonds aren’t the way. She did forbid him extravagances. But when has he ever listened to rules or reason?

As he cooks though, he realizes there’s something else he could give her, something distinctly more her style—their style, in fact.

He smiles to himself, planning in his head, and heats up the griddle. The pancakes may be a thank you for the most amazing night of his life, but there’s still a child to feed, so he finds himself making them in shapes. Mickey Mouse, a snake, a pair of angel wings, one of Mazikeen’s knives, a gun, a pair of admittedly misshapen handcuffs—he amuses himself for a while and then shoves them in the oven on low to stay warm, moving on to the eggs and bacon before he hears the creak of the door to Beatrice’s room.

Little feet scamper across the floorboards and then there are tiny arms wrapped about his middle. The urchin looks up at him with spectacular bedhead and he can’t help but smile.

“Good morning,” he says.

“You’re still here,” she replies in croaky Lilim.

“That I am,” he says, running a hand over her head, taming her hair into a semblance of order.

He is still here, and she is still here, and her mother loves him. He can’t tell if they’re glowing or if it’s the sunlight filtering in from the kitchen window.

“Hungry?” She nods against his hip but doesn’t move. “Urchin,” he says softly.

“I had a dream that you didn’t come back,” she mumbles.

He quickly turns off the griddle and reaches down to haul the girl up and into his arms. She wraps her arms tightly around his neck and buries her head in his shoulder.

“Just a dream,” he promises.

“I know,” Beatrice says, squeezing his neck.

“Did you need me or mum?” he wonders.

He’s never had to consider post-coital child preparedness before. He has a feeling Chloe wasn’t thinking about it last night either.

“No, I woke up and the light was there, so I knew you were there,” she whispers.

“Good,” he says, stroking her back.

“Are you always up this early?” she asks.

“Mostly,” he says, turning with her still on his hip. He restarts the burner to finish the eggs. “You know I don’t need as much sleep as you or mum.”

“So cool,” Beatrice says.

“Mm, yes, I suppose if you always have things to do, it is. But it can be lonely too,” he admits. “Less so with your mother’s snoring to keep me company though.”

Beatrice giggles. “She’s so loud.”

“She really is,” he agrees, laughing.

“I’d be insulted if you guys weren’t so cute.”

He spins around, both he and Beatrice wincing when they find Chloe standing behind them in a robe over her tee shirt and sleep shorts. She’s a vision, blinking at them sleepily.  

“Lucifer was just saying that your snoring keeps him company when he can’t sleep though,” Beatrice says.

He groans and Chloe laughs. “Very smooth,” she tells him, padding over to join them in front of the stove. “Morning, Monkey.” She kisses Beatrice’s cheek and then rises on her toes to press her lips to the corner of his mouth. “Morning. What’cha makin’ me?”

“Pancakes, eggs, bacon, and I thought maybe waffles, but it might be a bit much,” he says.

“Well, I am famished,” she says, looking up at him through her lashes, which is just unfair when he’s holding the urchin.

“So, waffles?” Beatrice asks.

He and Chloe laugh. “Yes, spawn,” he says, attempting to place her back onto the floor, but she clings to his neck. He huffs and she giggles.

“Here, baby, let’s make the batter for Lucifer, huh?” Chloe suggests.

Beatrice nods and allows him to let her down. He listens to the two of them whispering while he finishes off the eggs and bacon. There’s a sense of peace settled over the three of them that feels like it sinks straight through to his bones. He could get used to this so easily. He hopes he does.

“What’s this called?” he hears Chloe ask. He turns and finds her holding up a fork.

“Fork,” Beatrice responds in Lilim.

“Fo-ork,” Chloe repeats.

He blinks. That wasn’t terrible.

“And this?” she asks, holding up a spoon.

“Spoon,” Beatrice says happily.

“Spoon,” Chloe repeats, nodding. “Spoon. And what about me?”

“Mater,” Beatrice says.

“Like Latin,” Chloe says with a nod. “Easy enough. And what about him?” she asks, pointing to Lucifer.

“That’s Pater,” Beatrice says.

Chloe looks slowly over at him, biting her lip, and he does his very best to keep his face neutral. He didn’t know Maze had taught Beatrice to call him that. And he didn’t know it would feel like a punch to the gut to hear it in her little voice. Pater.

“Is that what I call him, or what you call him?” Chloe asks, dragging her eyes away from him.

Beatrice cocks her head. “Maze calls him Dominus of Hell sometimes, but usually just Lucifer.”

“And what does Maze call you?” Chloe asks, her voice tight, eyes a bit wet.

"Princess,” Beatrice says. “And filia domini sometimes.”

Chloe nods and runs a hand over Beatrice’s head before looking back at him. “Are all titles in Lilim the same in Latin?”

“Most,” he manages, his own voice rough.

He hopes she isn’t offended. Hopes she doesn’t think he’s overstepped, allowing Maze to have Beatrice call him—to let her acknowledge their celestial bond like that, so casually. Especially since he didn’t teach it to her. Hopes she doesn’t mind, because now that he’s heard Beatrice call him Pater once, he thinks he’ll be quietly devastated if he never hears it again.

He clears his throat, lest all the sentiment bleed out of his chest. “There was a…demon possession issue when the Romans were mucking about. It was an unexpected language exchange. There aren’t possessions anymore, though, I forbade it,” he adds quickly.

Chloe doesn’t look discomfited, either by the language or the demon possessions. In fact, she’s smiling at him.

“So then it’s amantis, isn’t it?” she asks.

Lover. He has to take a moment to breathe. She is so much more than he ever could have hoped for.

He nods slowly and offers her his own smile. “Yes, amantis.”

Chloe grins and turns back to Beatrice to help her plug in the waffle iron. Her hand runs over his back when she and Beatrice move to his side of the kitchen to spoon the batter into the waffle iron, and he turns to watch them both. It’s like there’s something expanding in his chest. It takes him a moment to realize it’s Beatrice’s light, thrumming happily, mirrored by the happiness pounding against his ribcage. We’re in this for the long haul.

“I didn’t know you knew Latin,” he says, clearing his throat when it comes out a bit cracked.

Chloe grins back at him. “I had a really dedicated set teacher.”

“Apparently. And good on you, spawn. Perhaps you can teach your mother all the Lilim she wants.”

“And then we move on to Enochian?” Chloe asks while Beatrice grins up at them.

“That’s a lot of language to learn,” he cautions.

Chloe raises her hand to rub between his wing joints. “Yes,” she whispers, turning to press a kiss to his shoulder. “But we’re game, aren’t we, Monkey?”

“Yep!” Beatrice says brightly.

“If you’re sure,” he says, meeting Chloe’s eyes.

“We’ve got a lifetime, don’t we?” she asks softly.

His heart pounds in his chest. Beatrice looks up at him in surprise, her hand rising to the spot above her heart.

Chloe looks between them. “Everything all right?”

“Yes,” he says quickly, reaching around to brush his hand over Beatrice’s head in assurance. “Yes, it is, we do.”

Chloe’s eyes glisten and she leans up to press her lips to his. He gets a bit lost in her, in all of it, his hands gliding down to hook into the tie of her robe, tugging her closer.

“The waffle’s burning,” Beatrice says a minute later.

They break apart, laughing, and Chloe quickly opens the iron while he pushes the window open.

“Sorry, Monkey,” Chloe says. “We’re just happy.”

He nods at Beatrice’s inquisitive look and reaches out to pluck up the burnt waffle, ignoring the twinge in his fingertips. Chloe rolls her eyes but scoops another ladle of batter into the iron and lets Beatrice close it and flip it.

“And who knows, since Hell has frozen over, maybe we’ll have more than one lifetime,” he whispers, tugging Chloe in by the fingers he still has twisted in her robe.

She looks up at him in confusion for a moment before letting out a loud “Hah.”

“Why would Hell freeze over?” Beatrice asks, her head cocked.

Chloe raises an eyebrow at him, and he laughs. If she thinks that will deter him— “Because your mother said that Hell would freeze over before she ever—”

Chloe slaps a hand over his mouth, laughing. He grins against her palm. “Bad Fairy Dad Monster.”

He kisses her palm and winks at Beatrice. Chloe narrows her eyes and lowers her hand. “I’m simply answering the urchin’s question,” he says innocently.

“Can Hell freeze over or is that just an…id—id—what was it?” Beatrice asks.

“An idiom,” he supplies. Chloe presses her lips together to keep from smiling. “And no, it can’t. It is infernally hot, you see. Though, at the same time, it’s also rather cold depending on where you are.”

He shivers lightly at the thought of his previous home and feels his wings rustle in their pocket dimension. He never wants to go back. But more, he never wants to leave this. Never wants to leave them.

“Then you definitely have to stay here with us forever. You don’t like the cold or the hot,” Beatrice says simply.

“That’s the plan,” he assures her.

Chloe’s hand wraps around his waist and his wings settle instantly.

Beatrice nods, a flicker of gold behind her eyes. Then she turns back to the waffle iron to scrutinize the steam, just the way he taught her.

Chloe kisses her daughter’s head and then looks up at him, eyes sparkling. “Damn straight.”