Work Text:
Chloe looked out over the landing and spotted Dr. Sally Peterson walking away from the building's coffee cart. Stopping herself from breathing a sigh of relief, Chloe looked around, they weren't out of th woods yet because the shooter could still target her. The doctor was standing in a large lobby with plenty of vantage points from both inside and outside. Chloe shook her head. Of course the building had to be made almost entirely out of glass.
She was about to take a step away from the railing when a voice cut through the air.
"I know you're out there, Mr. Sniper."
Chloe's eyes widened as Lucifer came into view and planted himself right in front of the doctor. Right in front of where Wes Williams, the man she was so desperate to find, would be aiming.
Lucifer, what the hell are you doing? Chloe thought, her mind racing.
There was a second of silence before a bullet ripped through one of the boxes on top of the kiosk, sending plastic knives flying in every direction. Office workers ran in all directions, screaming at the top of their lungs.
"Oh, come on!" Lucifer growled, as the woman behind him cowered. "You have to do better than that."
The detective scanned the room frantically, trying to read the trajectory of the bullet. She cursed silently as she turned back to her partner. His sudden appearance had startled her and she wasn't focusing like she was supposed to. Funny how that always seemed to happen around the club owner.
"Shoot me!" Lucifer shouted and held his arms out. He was practically begging at this point. "Well go on then! What are you waiting for?"
Up on the second floor, Chloe's hand was wrapped so tightly around the handrail her knuckles were turning white.
"Just shoot me, please!"
His voice had taken on a quality she's never heard in it before. Defeat.
"Lucifer, what are you doing?" she shouted.
At her voice the devil smirked. "Uh, oh," he warned mockingly. "The police are here, you're gonna have to hurry up, Mr. Shooter Sir."
Another shot rang out, this time hitting a glass frame to the Devil's right.
Lucifer rolled his eyes. "Seriously? I'm standing right here!"
This was enough. Chloe looked up, hoping she read the bullet's path correctly this time, and took off up the steps. She had to up a stop to this before someone was actually killed.
Williams let loose another shot, this time just over Lucifer's left shoulder, causing another person to flee in terror.
"You're just embarrassing yourself now, could you be any worse of a shot?" Lucifer hollered. He did not have time for this. His eyes flickered over to where Detective Decker had been standing just a second ago, and he grit his teeth. Any second now, she would have the shooter and his golden opportunity would be gone.
Three more bullets sailed through the air, and like with all the rest, they missed their target.
Lucifer was growing angrier by the second. "Not her you idiot! Me!" he growled. "Shoot me!"
Williams studied the dark-haired man in his scope. Why wasn't he moving? This many gun shots would have frightened a normal human, sending them running like all the other workers. So why was this man so bent on ruining his plans? Wes's eyebrows knit together in confusion. If he just clipped him, maybe that would be enough to get him to move. After all, he'd come all this way… for her.
His finger was already pulling the trigger when he spotted movement from the corner of his eye.
"Drop your weapon, now!" Chloe ordered as she pulled back plastic curtains, revealing the sniper's hiding spot.
Wes flinched a bit at the intrusion, his eyes widening in horror, and in that exact moment Chloe did the same thing.
A couple floors below, Lucifer was close to calling it quits when he heard another bullet start to leave the barrel of the sniper's weapon. One of the perks of having supernatural hearing he supposed.
"Maybe this time he won't bloody miss," Lucifer muttered under his breath.
He could hear the bullet whistling through the air, and a split second later he felt himself flying back from the impact, a small smile playing on his lips. That moron finally had the guts to do as he asked. Good on him.
"LUCIFER!"
The Devil still had a smile on his face as he hit the ground, even as bits of glass began burrowing through his suit and into his back. He did it.
"LUCIFER!"
There was that voice again.
Footsteps could be heard as the police made their entrance. Soon Williams would be in custody, but that was fine, he served his purpose, Lucifer mused. He did the one thing he needed of him.
"LUCIFER!"
The Devil frowned as he watched his blood slowly leave his body, making a pool of crimson around him. Why couldn't that voice leave him alone? He'd done it, this was his way of atoning for what he did to his younger brother. A death for a death, it was almost poetic.
A hand gently cupped his face and a second later he could see the detective come into view, her blue eyes wide in fear.
Right, Chloe Decker. She never could leave well enough alone.
"Lucifer, what the hell were you thinking?" Chloe cried as she tried to staunch the bleeding with her jacket.
Lucifer started laughing as blood ran freely down his chin.
"Were you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Yes!" the Devil shouted before almost choking on his own blood. He spat a mouthful on the ground before continuing, "What part of 'shoot me!' did you not understand?"
"Why?" Chloe implored. "Why do this?"
"Because I deserve it!"
Lucifer didn't have a chance to continue because he couldn't. He coughed again, more blood staining his already red teeth. The bullet must have punctured a lung or at the very least nicked it. No matter, it would be all over soon. Lucifer took solace in that thought as his eyes gradually slid shut.
Chloe started to panic when she saw his body go slack and his eyes close. She was so focused on her partner that she didn't notice Dan trying to pull her away to allow the paramedics access.
"Chloe," Dan said, breaking her out of her thoughts. "You're not helping him, let them do their job."
He was right, Chloe surmised as she got to her feet. She watched with unshed tears as Lucifer was loaded onto a gurney, his white shirt saturated with so much blood. His blood.
"What happened?"
Chloe wiped her hands on her pants, trying to clean them. "He told Wes to shoot him."
Dan looked at his ex-wife, confusion written clear across his face.
"He said he deserved it."
That, Dan was not expecting.
"I'm going to the hospital," Chloe said and started for the door. "Maze is looking after Trixie, I'll call and check in, but can you please go by in the morning?"
"You left our daughter with Lucifer's ninja bartender?"
"Ex-bartender," Chloe sighed. "And yes. You can go by right now if you want, but I need to be there with him. He's been off lately, and I have to know why."
Dan and his nose had to agree there. God, that guy hit like a truck. "Don't worry, I'll go by a little later. Just go make sure Morningstar's all right. Despite him punching me earlier today, I still kinda like the guy."
"Thanks Dan," Chloe responded and took off for the door.
After a couple hours, Lucifer was released from surgery, and she was finally able to see him. Chloe did have to flash her badge in order to stay after visiting hours, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. All that mattered was the man lying in front of her.
The white sheets did nothing to help his pallor, all they did was draw attention to how incredibly exhausted he looked. It saddened her, in all the time spent with him, she's never seen him this broken.
She stood peered out the window which was saturated with rain drops and sighed. Rain and gray skies were never her favorite, but she supposed it fit well with what was going on. As she watched the rain pour harder and harder, a thought crossed her mind. The weather man didn't call for rain on the news this morning, she was sure of it. Now that you mention it, the rain had started the moment the ambulance had driven away.
Chloe sat down next to Lucifer's bed, and picked up the discarded sandwich, not feeling hungry anymore.
An hour earlier, she had left to buy some food from the hospital cafeteria, when she bumped into the doctor who oversaw Lucifer's surgery. Chloe had thanked him profusely for saving his life before he admitted that they had nothing to do with it.
"It was like nothing we'd ever seen," Dr. Collins explained. "By the time he arrived in my operating room, the damage to his lung had already begun to heal."
That didn't make any sense.
"All we had to do was remove the bullet and stitch him up. Quite frankly it's a miracle."
Chloe couldn't get over what he said. She wasn't a doctor, but she knew enough to know that bullet wounds just don't start healing within a few hours. Take it from her, the hole left in her shoulder by Jimmy Barnes took a lot longer than she thought to repair itself.
A groan cut off her thoughts as Lucifer jerked awake.
"Lucifer, thank God," Chloe exhaled the breath she had been holding and moved closer to the bed.
It took a second for him to get his bearings, but when he did his eyes flashed crimson. Chloe could only stare in shock as her partner glared around the room with the mentality of a caged animal. He was scared, confused, and above all else, pissed off beyond belief.
He snapped his head back and bared his teeth. "You just couldn't let me have this, could you, old man?" Lucifer sneered. "Why?"
There was a rumble of thunder outside, as if the sky itself was answering.
"WHY?" Lucifer roared. "AFTER MILENIA OF IGNORING ME, WHY START CARING NOW?"
Chloe laid her hand on his arm, and he flinched visibly. "Lucifer, you have to calm down," she pleaded.
"You," Lucifer mumbled and turned to her. "It should have worked…"
"What are you talking about?"
The dark-haired man clenched his fists so tightly he was almost drawing blood. "All you needed to do was be near me, and that would be it."
"Lucifer, you're not making any sense," Chloe replied, her mind racing.
The temperature in the room rose, causing the detective jump. What was going on?
"I deserved to die," Lucifer said softly. "To be punished for what I've done."
Chloe didn't take her gaze off him. "What did you do?" she asked. "Help me understand. Please."
"I can't," Lucifer growled. "You don't believe me, even though I've told you the truth since the day I met you."
The detective stared at her partner's eyes, their normal warm brown was replaced with pools of fire and she could almost swear she could feel it licking her skin. Then his visage melted away to reveal charred flesh and muscle. Chloe had to stop herself from backing away.
It was unsettling to say the least, but she could still see that it was Lucifer.
"But maybe now you'll understand," Lucifer continued. "I am the Devil. The one responsible for all the evil in the world."
One second Chloe was sitting in front of Lucifer, and the next her mind was back in Lux, watching him trying to drown his pain in whiskey.
"Well... where do I begin? With the grandest fall in the history of time? Or perhaps the far more agonizing punishment that followed? To be blamed for every morsel of evil humanity's endured, every atrocity committed in my name? As though I wanted people to suffer. All I ever wanted was to be my own man here. To be judged for my own doing."
"You're not evil," she whispered.
Lucifer stopped.
"I know who you are," Chloe said and stared at him unblinking, almost challenging him to dismiss her. "Your name is Lucifer Morningstar, club owner and an incredible pain in my ass."
She stood up and climbed onto the bed next to him.
"But you're also my partner," Detective Decker finished. "You literally carried me through a fire once, remember? You saved my life more times than should be humanly possible."
The Devil snorted at the word "humanly." He was anything but.
Chloe reached forward and touched his cheek, ignoring how he tried to move away. "You are who you choose to be. And to me, you're just Lucifer."
At her words Lucifer's hellish form faded away and was replaced by his human one. His dark hair was starting to curl from lack of product and the general humidity of Los Angeles, and his brown eyes held nothing but relief and exhaustion.
She didn't run away, he thought to himself.
Even after seeing his true form, she still stayed right beside him. What was it he always said, oh right, humans were fascinating creatures. He'd never encountered one that didn't turn a basket case after only glimpsing his real face. But then again, Chloe Decker wasn't a normal person. After all, his powers didn't seem to affect her one bit, so who's to say she would be any more susceptible to the rest of him?
Could he really choose who he wanted to be? When he was around Chloe, he felt like anything was possible. For the past year, he was content on playing the part of the Devil but never actively proving it her. He didn't want that charade to shatter and for her to look at him like so many people in the past did.
But he was wrong.
She stared at his true form, and was still sitting next to him, stroking the side of his face. Perhaps he could finally tell her about his past, tell her about what happened with Uriel.
"Thank you, Chloe," Lucifer whispered as he struggled to hold his eyelids open. They suddenly felt like lead.
Chloe Decker leaned down a placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "Get some rest. I'll be here when you wake up."
And you know what? Lucifer believed her. He gave her a small smile before he gave into unconsciousness, his body finally relaxing for the first time in days.
The detective was going to move back to her chair, when she realized Lucifer's left arm was wrapped firmly around her waist. She stared down at the sleeping man next to her and laughed.
"Still trying to get me into bed, huh?"
Not wanting to wake the other occupant, Chloe slid down next to him, careful to avoid the still healing wound on the right side of his chest. After getting settled in, Chloe suddenly noticed that it was quiet.
The rain had stopped.
A second later, the eventful day finally caught up to her and she yawned widely. It was late, and Chloe couldn’t fight it any longer as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, the last thing she heard before everything faded away was the steady beat of Lucifer’s heart.