11. Eleven

Chloe cries while she drives.

The cops from the beach don’t follow her. She drives like she’s trying to lose a tail anyway, just in case. When she’s certain she’s not being followed, she gets on the 405, flips on the lights in Dan’s cruiser so everyone will get the hell out of her way, and drives like the Devil himself is chasing her.

Except he’s not. He’s sitting in the passenger seat, watching her with a look of heartbroken concern. 

She doesn’t look at him. She can’t. If she takes her eyes off the road, and if she lets herself think about what she just did and why she did it, she’s going to lose her shit. So she just keeps staring straight ahead, blinking hard every time the tail lights in front of her get too blurry, and wiping the sleeve of Lucifer’s suit jacket over her face every time her cheeks start to feel too wet. 

She should probably ask Lucifer where he thinks they should go. But she doesn’t. She just drives on autopilot until she finds herself steering the car into a metered parking spot on Fairfax Avenue across from The Original Farmer’s Market. 

She shifts the car into park, and then turns Dan’s keys in the ignition. The engine cuts out, and then there’s nothing but silence. She can feel Lucifer’s eyes on her. She doesn’t meet his gaze. She looks out her window at the familiar landmark across the street instead. Silence hangs over them.

“There’s an ice cream stall in there,” she says eventually. 

“In the market?” 

She nods. “Bennett’s. My dad used to take me there after auditions. He always got rum raisin, which I thought was gross. And I always got Fancy Nancy, which he thought was gross.”

A memory surfaces. Her dad, smiling proudly at her over an ice cream cone when she told him she’d landed the part in Hot Tub High School. Chloe swallows around the sudden tightness in her throat. 

“Fancy Nancy?” Lucifer asks softly. 

“Coffee ice cream,” she answers, watching the palm trees across the street blow in the wind. “Caramel swirl and bananas. It’s the best. Trixie loves it.” 

Chloe’s eyes start to feel warm, and she looks down at her hands. She can’t stop thinking about the look on Trixie’s tear stained face as she left. The way her arms were stretched out. The desperation in her voice. Don’t leave me!

Chloe takes a deep, shuddering breath. She can’t decide which emotion she’s drowning in—guilt or grief. She hates them both. She feels like she can’t breathe. 

“She’ll forgive me for leaving her,” she whispers, her voice wavering. “Right?”

“Yes,” Lucifer replies without hesitation. “I have no doubt.”

It’s a nice thing to say. But Chloe has enough doubt for the both of them. 

Lucifer reaches across the center console and sets his hand on her knee. “Look at me, love.”

There it is again. Love. Why can’t he call her that when they’re not in the middle of a waking nightmare?

She looks up at him, and he smiles softly at her. “You’ll eat ice cream with her again soon. You have my word.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Lucifer.”

“I’m not.”

There’s steel in his voice, but softness in his gaze. She wants to bury her face in his chest and cry. But Trixie doesn’t need her mom to fall apart in a parked car right now. She needs her to figure out how to fix this so they can go back to living their lives. 

Chloe sniffs and wipes her eyes and then straightens in her seat. “So what now?”

“Detective,” Lucifer says gently. “If you need—”

“I need my kid back,” she cuts him off. “We need our lives back. Crying in the car isn’t going to fix anything, and I want to fix things. So let’s just...let’s just do something. Okay?”

Lucifer studies her for a moment, and then nods. “Very well.” 

Chloe sniffs again and then takes a deep breath. “I think we should treat it like a case.” 

Lucifer lifts his eyebrows. “A case?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a mystery, right?”

He nods. “Indeed.” And then he smiles. “Lucky for us, no one is better at solving mysteries than you.”

Chloe frowns. “Me?”

Lucifer frowns too. “Surely you’re not questioning your abilities?”

“No,” she replies, shaking her head. “Just surprised you’re not touting yours.”

He blinks at her for a second, and then he smiles again. “I’ll have you know I’ve been working on my modesty as of late.”

Even with everything that’s going on, the impulse to tease him throbs in Chloe’s chest. She follows it.

“Oh I’ve noticed,” she says. “You’re the epitome of humility these days.”

He looks surprised at her response, but then amusement tugs on his lips. “Well you don’t have to sneer when you say it, Detective.”

“Can I laugh?”

“You most certainly cannot.”

“I’ll just settle for a smirk then.”

Mischief flickers in his eyes. “I find your smirks very sexy, you know. Particularly when they’re accompanied by snark.”

“You’re saying the King of Hell likes it when his girlfriend gives him attitude.”

His smile widens. “Oh, very much.” 

They smile at each other across the center console. Chloe feels the knot of tension in her chest loosen a bit. Her life is a mess. Everyone she loves is acting insane, and she has no idea how to fix it. But she’s still got her partner, and they’re going to figure this out. They always do. 

“All right,” she says. “So if this was a case, we’d start by reviewing what we know.”

“Yes,” Lucifer agrees. “What do we know?”

Chloe sighs. “Something or someone has brainwashed everyone we know into thinking we need to break up.” 

“Are we certain that it’s them?”

Chloe frowns. “What do you mean?”

“What if it’s us?” he explains. “What if we’re just imagining it all?”

“What, like, we’re having the same dream?”

“I was thinking of a shared hallucination.” 

“Is that even possible?”

“Oh yes.” He smiles the way he does when he’s remembering something. “After I first arrived in Los Angeles, Mazikeen and I flew out with some friends to the Utah desert for a weeklong vacation at Amangiri. We ran into Jennifer and—”

“Jennifer?” Chloe interrupts. And then she frowns. “Like, Jennifer Aniston?”

“Lopez, darling,” Lucifer clarifies. 

Chloe frowns. Is he about to tell her he’s slept with JLo? 

“She’d never tried peyote,” Lucifer continues, oblivious to her thoughts. “So of course I introduced her, and my goodness did we have some fun. On the second night we...” 

He trails off when he glances at Chloe and sees what she’s sure is not an encouraging look on her face. 

“Right,” he says, shifting in his seat. “Not the proper time to share that recollection.”

Chloe swallows the urge to tell him that there’s never going to be a proper time to share all the details about his drug-fueled sexcapades with Jennifer Lopez. 

“The point is shared hallucinations are possible,” he says. 

“I don’t think we’re hallucinating,” Chloe says. She’s still trying to shake the mental image of him and JLo in bed together. “I think everyone else is. That’s why their eyes keep flickering.”

“You mentioned that earlier,” Lucifer says, turning to look at her. “What, exactly, did you see?”

“It’s like...I mean, it’s a flicker. One second their eyes are normal, and then they flicker blue and silver, and then they’re back to normal again. It’s fast. If you blink, you’ll miss it.” She frowns. “Didn’t you see it when you were interrogating Maze?”

“I did, yes,” he confirms. “But I sometimes see things differently than you. So I was curious as to whether we were seeing the same thing.”

“Are we?”

“Yes.”

She waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “So what is it?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Chloe looks down at her hands. Her eyes catch on her fourth finger where she used to wear Dan’s ring. “It wasn’t just Maze,” she says. “Dan’s eyes did it too. And Trixie’s. I didn’t get a good look at Cacuzza or any of the rest, but I bet theirs were too.”

“Seems like a fair assumption.” 

She looks up at him. “And you don’t think it’s celestial? I mean, isn’t the timing a little too coincidental?”

Lucifer frowns. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well your dad is gone, right? When the cat’s away, the mice will play. So what if Michael is, you know, making his move? He said he had an epic plan. Maybe this is it.”

“I’m not willing to rule that out,” Lucifer muses, fiddling with his cufflink. “But Michael doesn’t have this kind of power. Whatever this is, it’s not in his bag of tricks.”

“Are you sure? I mean, he brings out fears, right? And this is...”

She doesn’t finish. Lucifer meets her gaze. Guilt and regret are written plainly on his face. “Your worst fear,” he says softly.

She shakes her head. “No. Not the worst. It’d only be the worst if you hated me too.”

His expression softens. “They don’t hate you, Detective. Quite the contrary. They seem rather intent on saving you.” He drops his gaze. “From me.”

Chloe sets her hand on his arm. “I don’t need to be saved.”

“Yes, you’re quite capable of taking care of yourself,” he murmurs without looking at her. “That was on clear display back at the penthouse.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant I don’t need to be saved from you. ” 

He glances up at her, and she sees a faint gleam of hope in his eyes. She leans toward him.

“It’s all lies, Lucifer,” she murmurs. “All of it, every word they’re saying, none of it is real. I know what the truth is. It’s you. You’re real. We’re real.”

“How can you be sure?” he whispers.

She smiles. “Because I know you. And you’re not the only one who’s got faith.”

He stares at her for a moment, stunned. And then his expression dissolves into relief, and she can’t help it—she leans forward, and pulls his face toward hers, and kisses him. She pulls back after a moment, and then presses her forehead to his and strokes her thumb over his stubble. 

“I love you,” she whispers. “No take-backsies.”

He chuckles softly. She smiles, and kisses him again, and then leans back onto her side of the car. He keeps staring at her, his eyebrows furrowed a little, and she knows he’s thinking about that conversation in the evidence room that they never got to finish.

“Okay,” she says, because she doesn’t want him to feel pressured. “Back to the mystery. It could be celestial, but we don’t know. So how do we find out?”

“Well,” Lucifer sighs, “fortunately for us, I happen to know Heaven’s nerdiest angel.” 

Chloe frowns. 

“Amenadiel,” Lucifer answers her unspoken question. “He spent his youth studying like a dullard. I’m sure if anyone can tell us whether our current issue is celestial, and if so how to fix it, he can.”

“But what if he’s been infected too?”

Lucifer smiles. “Is that what we’re calling them? The infected? As if they’re shambling corpses in a cheesy zombie flick?”

“Well what else do you want me to call them?” Chloe asks. “The flickers?”

Lucifer’s smile turns wicked. “Sounds inappropriate.”

“How is—you know what, don’t answer that.” 

Movement catches Chloe’s attention from the corner of her eye, and she glances out the window at a couple jaywalking across the street in the direction of the market. They’re wrapped around each other, their heads bent together as they walk. 

“I could show you rather than answer,” Lucifer offers. His voice is a purr.

“Maybe later,” Chloe says without taking her eyes off the couple. On any other night, that could be her and Lucifer. Envy flickers in her chest. She waits until they’re on the sidewalk, and then glances at Lucifer. He’s giving her an odd look. 

“What?” she asks, suddenly self-conscious. 

Lucifer shakes his head. “Nothing. I’m occasionally caught off guard by how things have changed is all.”

“Changed?” Chloe says with a frown.

“You respond differently to innuendos now,” Lucifer clarifies. “Before, you would have just said no and rolled your eyes.”

“Yeah, well, we weren’t sleeping together before.”

He tilts his head. “I never quite understood that phrase. If you do it right, there should hardly be any sleeping at all.” He grins. “You can attest to that.”

Yeah, she can definitely attest to that. But that doesn’t mean she needs to say it. “Not everyone is as skilled as you are, Lucifer,” she points out.

He looks thrilled. “You think I’m skilled?”

“I didn’t…” She trails off because yes, she did say that. “Can we focus on the task at hand, please?”

He leans toward her. “I would very much like to focus on a task for my hands, and judging by your reaction on the piano earlier this evening, you—”

“Lucifer,” she warns.

He smiles. “My apologies, darling.” He leans back to his side of the car. “We were discussing how we need to speak with Amenadiel.”

“Do you think he’s infected?”

“It’s hard to say. The only people we’ve encountered thus far are those who are firmly in your camp.”

Chloe turns to look at him with a frown. “My camp?”

“Yes. Say, for instance, that we were to get divorced. We would need to split assets. If you think of the people in our lives as assets—”

“Wait,” Chloe says, holding up her hand. “Divorced? So we’re married now?”

He waves his hand. “It’s an analogy, Detective. You would, in the case of such a split, be chosen by all the people who rushed to your defense tonight. Daniel and your spawn, obviously. Your colleagues.”

“But Maze?” Chloe says. “She’s your best friend, Lucifer.”

Lucifer frowns. “I don’t know that I’d call her that. And if she is, she’s a terrible one. Repeated betrayals notwithstanding—”

“Okay, hold up,” Chloe cuts him off. “I’m not disagreeing with you that the betrayals suck. And I lived with her, so I know she doesn’t always make the best choices.”

Lucifer snorts in agreement.

“But have you ever thought that maybe she betrays you all the time because you guys really suck at communicating with each other?”

Lucifer lifts his eyebrows. “I take great pride in my sucking abilities, Detective. Communication does not fall under that category.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. 

“There it is,” Lucifer says happily. 

Chloe presses her lips together to hide a smile. He really wasn’t kidding about liking her attitude. “Focus, Lucifer.”

“Right,” he says. “I acknowledge that Mazikeen was originally in my camp, so to speak. But it is my belief that her allegiance lies elsewhere now. Namely with the Doctor and her offspring, and you and yours. So yes, I believe that if the courts forced her to decide between us, she would choose you.”

Chloe arches an eyebrow. “You are really clinging to this divorce analogy.”

“It’s fitting,” he says with a shrug. And then he frowns. “Does it bother you to pretend to be married to me?”

Chloe blinks. “Does it bother you? ”

“Well we’re getting divorced.”

“So it doesn’t bother you to pretend to be married to me as long as we get a pretend divorce?”

Lucifer looks like a deer in headlights. “Well I don’t...that is, if we were to…”

He doesn’t finish. They stare at each other for a long moment, tension thick in the air, until they both look away. 

Lucifer clears his throat. “In keeping with the analogy, I believe that Amenadiel would choose me.”

Chloe nods and swallows. “Yeah, seems right.”

“And the Doctor, of course.”

“Yeah, I—wait, you think you’d get Linda?”

Lucifer frowns. “Well you can’t possibly think she’d choose you. ”

Chloe tries not to be offended by the tone of his voice and fails. “Linda and I are pretty good friends, Lucifer.”

“Yes, but I’m her favorite client.”

“Yeah, client,” Chloe says. “It’s a professional relationship. That’s not the same.”

“We used to be far more than professional, Detective.”

Chloe frowns. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

Lucifer doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort at the reminder that he and Linda used to sleep together. “She has also called me her friend on more than one occasion. In front of other people, too.”

Chloe opens her mouth to argue with him, but thinks better of it at the last second. If this was an actual divorce, she’d clearly be the winner. All of the people in their lives—even his oldest friend—are on her side. It won’t kill her to let him have Linda.

“Okay,” she says. “You’re right. Linda is probably yours.” 

He looks pleased. “Thank you. And since both my brother and the Doctor are in my corner, so to speak, we should be able to visit them in their home without causing a scene.”

Chloe nods. “All right. Let’s head over there then.” She reaches for the keys in the ignition to start the car, but Lucifer puts his hand on her arm to stop her.

“Not quite yet, Detective. I wish to test a theory first.”

“What theory?”

“I want to see if strangers react to us.”

Chloe frowns. “React?”

“Yes. If my theory is correct, and the only people who will try to forcibly separate us are those who would choose you, then we shouldn’t inspire any negative reactions in complete strangers.” 

“But what if we do?”

Lucifer looks grave. “Then we’re dealing with something on a much grander scale. Something far more dangerous.”

The words are ominous, and they hang in the air like a lingering fog. Chloe’s mind runs through a hundred awful what-if scenarios before she shakes them away and forces herself to focus. 

“There’s a CVS down the street,” she says. “I think it’s open twenty-four hours. We could go in and buy some stuff, see if anyone gets pissed about us being together?”

“Lovely idea,” Lucifer says with a nod. 

Chloe starts the car. She checks for oncoming traffic, and then pulls out and heads for the CVS. 

It only takes them two minutes to get there. It isn’t until she pulls into the parking lot, parks, and turns off the car that she remembers she doesn’t have shoes on. 

“Shoot,” she says. “Do you—” She stops when she turns toward Lucifer, and finds him holding her high heels out for her. She smiles. “Thanks.”

She takes the shoes and bends forward to slip them on. She’s fastening the last strap around her ankle when she glances at the floor, and spots a brown colored pencil that must have rolled under the seat while she was driving. 

Her hands go still on the straps of her shoe. A painful lump wells up in her throat. For a second, she’s right back in that parking lot by the beach, listening to Trixie scream for her. It feels like there’s something sharp in her chest, twisting and cutting and ripping her open every time she tries to breathe. 

She left her kid. 

What kind of mother leaves her kid?

“Detective?” Lucifer calls. 

Chloe sucks in a breath and wills her tears to stay in her eyes. She reaches for the pencil, and then straightens with it still in her hand. She glances up at Lucifer in time to see his eyes flick down and notice what she’s holding. 

His body goes rigid. Pain flares in his eyes, but disappears quickly. He reaches out and covers her hand with his. 

“We’ll get her back,” he murmurs. “You know as well as I that she loves you unconditionally. There isn’t a child on this planet who loves her mother more than your offspring loves you, Detective. You’re doing what’s best for her. She won’t hold that against you.” 

Chloe swallows the argument sitting on her tongue and glances at his leg where Trixie stabbed him. “Does it hurt where she…?”

“It’s fine,” he says dismissively. “No permanent damage.”

Chloe isn’t sure that’s true. She thinks about how devastated he looked when Trixie went after him, and how hard he’s trying now to focus on assuaging her pain instead of acknowledging his, and that sharp feeling in her chest returns. 

“She didn’t mean it, Lucifer,” she murmurs. “She loves you.”

Lucifer looks out the windshield. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Chloe doesn’t try to fill the silence. 

“Not everything Daniel said on that beach was true,” he says eventually. “But there are some things that I know he may believe.”

“Like?”

“Like how I’ve hurt you. I know I have. And Mazikeen said some things as well that I’m not entirely sure are falsehoods.”

“Lucifer—”

“I think,” he cuts her off. She stops talking. He clears his throat. “I think your child may have shared some things that she is genuinely afraid of. Like, for instance, that I might take you away from her.”

Chloe chews her lip. She doesn’t know how to respond to that because she has no idea if it’s true. Maybe Trixie is afraid that Lucifer will take her away. But Trixie is also afraid that a bullet or a knife or a bomb or a host of other things will take her mom away, and none of that changes the fact that the underlying force of whatever is happening is built on a lie about who Lucifer is. 

“Trixie isn’t just worried about losing me,” Chloe says into the silence. “She’s worried about losing you too.”

Lucifer looks pained. “Detective, I realize that you’re trying to make me feel better—”

“She asked your dad about it.”

Lucifer turns to look at her in surprise. “What?”

“At his retirement party,” Chloe clarifies. “She asked him if he grants favors the way you do. And when he asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted you to stay with us forever.”

Lucifer opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

“You were in the room when I told her about us, Lucifer,” Chloe reminds him. “You saw how thrilled she was. She’s loved you since the moment she met you. And I think, deep down, you know that.”

Lucifer swallows. “She really said that to Dad?” 

Chloe nods. “Yeah.” And then she smiles. “She also asked him to put giraffes on Mars, so I think when all this is over, we should probably talk to her about how she shouldn’t take advantage of her celestial connections for her own benefit.”

Lucifer blinks at her, and then a smile spreads over his lips. “If you insist.”

Chloe studies him, looking for an indication that he needs more reassurance, but finds none. She lifts his hand to her mouth anyway, and presses a kiss to his knuckles.

“Come on,” she murmurs. “Let’s test your theory.”

She gets out of the car. He follows suit. She walks around the back of the car and joins him, and as they head toward the entrance of the store, he drapes his arm over her shoulders. He’s never done that before. Chloe glances up at him in surprise, expecting him to second guess himself and pull away. When he doesn’t, she smiles and leans into him, wrapping her arm around his waist. 

When the red doors slide open, though, and they step into the store, the smile fades from her lips. A few yards in front of them, a CVS employee is stacking packages of Brawny paper towels on top of each other beneath a sign that says Sale!  

“Welcome to CVS,” he says in a bored voice. He glances over his shoulder at them, and then immediately freezes.

Chloe’s steps falter. Lucifer tenses next to her, obviously thinking the same thing she is—their theory is wrong, and they’re about to get in a fight with a store clerk who’s barely eighteen and hasn’t grown into his arms and legs yet. 

Chloe watches the clerk’s eyes, waiting to see the flicker, but it never comes. The only thing his eyes do is travel over her legs and linger on the v-shaped opening of Lucifer’s suit jacket that reveals the low cut front of her dress. 

“Uh,” he says when their eyes meet. 

Chloe smiles. “Hi,” she says, lifting her voice a little so it sounds like a question. 

The clerk’s face goes crimson. “H—hey, uh, hi.” 

Chloe presses her lips together around a smile. This kid is definitely reacting to her, but not in the way they were afraid of.

“Bloody hell,” Lucifer says. “Take a picture, would you? It’ll last longer and you can use it later when you finally get a moment alone with your hand.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe admonishes. 

Lucifer ignores her. “You’ve got a little drool right there,” Lucifer says to the clerk, gesturing at his chin. 

The clerk paws at his chin, his eyes wide. 

Lucifer snorts and looks down at Chloe. “He believed me.”

Chloe rolls her eyes and tugs him toward the snack aisle. He follows her with a snicker. 

“You’re a jerk,” she tells him when they’re out of earshot of the clerk.

Lucifer tightens his arm around her shoulders so that the side of her body presses harder into his. “He deserved it.”

“Women look at you like that all the time and you don’t see me acting like that.”

“Well I wouldn’t mind if you did. A possessive Detective is a sexy Detective. Oooh!” He drops his arm from around her shoulders and reaches for a bag of cool ranch puffs. “Jumbo size,” he says, reading the package. He looks up at Chloe with a glint in his eye. “How fortunate. I, too, am jumbo sized. As you’re well aware.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Chloe tells him. 

He grins, and then rips open the bag and shoves his hand inside. 

“Seriously?” she hisses at him. She glances around, but no one is in sight. 

“What?” Lucifer says around a mouthful of puffs. “It’s not like I won’t pay for them.”

Chloe sighs but doesn’t bother to chastise him further because there’s no point. He’s just going to keep eating. 

“You need a snack,” he says in between fistfuls of cool ranch puffs. “Pick whatever your heart desires. My treat. Although you really should be treating me, given your trust fund.” 

Chloe rolls her eyes. She is hungry, though, so she wanders down the aisle, scanning the various boxes and bags in search of her favorite crackers. She stops dead in her tracks when she sees a shelf full of Goldfish crackers. 

Trixie loves Goldfish. 

A memory surfaces. Six-year-old Trixie in a bright pink swimsuit, sitting cross-legged on a towel in the sand. 

“Mommy?” Trixie says thoughtfully as she digs her hand into a ziploc bag full of Goldfish.

“Yeah, Monkey?” Chloe says as she looks up from her book.

Trixie smiles. “This is my favorite.”

“What is? Goldfish crackers?”

“No, Mommy,” Trixie says, rolling her eyes. “Being at the beach with you.”

Chloe remembers that the words made her feel warm all over. She doesn’t feel warm now, though. She just feels cold and empty and rubbed raw with guilt. 

“Looking for something in particular?” Lucifer wonders. 

The sound of his voice snaps Chloe out of her memory. For a second, she can’t remember how to breathe. She closes her eyes and sucks in a breath, and then exhales it slowly. 

“Detective?” Lucifer asks, worry creeping into his voice.

“Yeah,” she says. She refocuses on the shelves before her. “I was looking for…” She finally spots what she was searching for. “Ah. These.” She grabs a box of Club crackers off the shelf. 

“You must be joking.”

Chloe turns to look at him with a frown. “What? Why?”

“That’s your snack of choice?” Lucifer says, gesturing at the green box in her hand with fingers that are covered in cool ranch dust. “Old lady crackers?”

“They’re not old lady crackers.”

“They most certainly are. I think they serve those in nursing homes along with daily pill doses.”

Chloe rolls her eyes. 

“Would you like some prune juice to wash them down?” Lucifer asks, his eyes twinkling. “Perhaps a tube of BENGAY for the ache in your back?”

“Haha, very funny,” Chloe says, turning away from him and walking down the aisle. “That’s rich coming from the guy who is literally older than dirt.”

“Don’t look like it though, do I?” he says, preening. 

Chloe decides not to dignify his arrogance with a response. She gets to the end of the aisle and glances down the center lane of the store, looking for more people they can test their theory on. Lucifer follows her, crunching loudly on his puffs. Eventually, she finds a woman in the aisle stocked with cold medicine. 

Chloe stops at the end of the aisle and turns toward Lucifer. “Give me those,” she says, snatching the bag from his hand. 

“Hey,” he says. “Snatching is rude.”

Chloe glances down the aisle at the woman, who is now walking toward them, and then back at Lucifer. “Kiss me.”

Lucifer frowns. “Here? Now?”

Chloe lifts her eyebrows. “What happened to always ready and willing?”

Lucifer straightens as if she’s just issued him a challenge, wipes his hands on his pants, and then grabs her face in his hands and kisses her. 

He smells like cool ranch puffs. Which, honestly, aren’t her favorite. But it’s hard to complain when he’s kissing her like this, and for a second, she forgets why she even asked him to do it. She’s got her crackers in one hand and his cool ranch puffs in the other so she can’t touch him, but she leans into his chest and opens her mouth for him. He doesn’t need a second invitation. He makes a low, pleased sound in the back of his throat and buries a hand in her hair as he strokes his tongue into her mouth.

“God, get a room,” a voice mutters nearby. 

Chloe suddenly remembers that they’re making out in the middle of a CVS, and then she remembers why. She leans back from Lucifer just in time to see the woman walk past them with an eye roll, but nothing else. No speech about Lucifer being the Devil, no threats, no violence. She doesn’t even look over her shoulder at them. 

“She didn’t care,” Chloe whispers. 

Lucifer frowns. “What?”

“About us,” Chloe clarifies. “She didn’t care that we were together.” She looks up at him. “Your theory must be right. People who don’t know us aren’t infected.”

Lucifer studies her for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, and then he grabs her by the wrist and yanks her toward the end of the aisle. 

“What are you doing?” she asks, tripping along behind him.

“One last test,” he mutters, his head on a swivel. “Just need to find...ah, here we are.” 

He tugs her forward until they come to a stop behind a guy with a Dodgers hat sitting backwards on his head. 

“Excuse me,” Lucifer says. 

The guy in the hat turns around slowly. He glances at Chloe, checks her out quickly, and then looks back at Lucifer with his eyebrows furrowed. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, actually,” Lucifer says brightly. “Are you gay?”

“Lucifer,” Chloe hisses.

The guy in the hat blinks. “Uh. What?”

“Gay,” Lucifer repeats. “Do you enjoy having sex with men?”

“No,” the guy says. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“So you would sleep with her?” Lucifer asks, gesturing at Chloe. “Provided she consented, of course.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Chloe tells him.

The guy looks down at Lucifer’s hand around Chloe’s wrist and frowns. “Isn’t she like...your girlfriend?”

“Why yes she is,” Lucifer says, puffing out his chest in pride. He drapes his arm around Chloe and pulls her flush against his side. “What do you think of us? Do you think we’re cute together?”

“Dude, I don’t even know you.”

“Minor detail,” Lucifer says, waving his hand dismissively. “Based on what you see, what do you think? Do we make a nice pair?”

“Uh...sure?”

“So you don’t have a sudden and inexplicable desire to rescue her?”

“Am I supposed to?” the guy says incredulously. And then his expression goes slack in horror. “Wait, are you guys swingers? Are you hitting on me?”

“No,” Chloe says, feeling her face flush. 

“Oh, look at you trolling for partners in your local convenience store,” Lucifer says with a grin. “No shame. I like it.”

The guy’s face turns crimson. “I’m not hitting on you. You’re hitting on me. ”

“I most certainly am not,” Lucifer says. “I’m in a committed relationship, thank you very much. Speaking of, if I told you that we plan on spending the rest of forever together, would you support that decision?”

“Wait, what?” Chloe says, looking up at Lucifer.

Lucifer ignores her. “Answer the question,” he says, waving impatiently at the guy in the hat. “We don’t have all night.”

“Yeah, sure bro,” the guy says. “You do you.”

Lucifer grins. “Well, actually, she does me these days. And quite well, I might add. She does this thing where she—”

“Okay,” Chloe cuts him off before he can embarrass her even more. “That’s enough.” She smiles apologetically at the guy in the hat. “So sorry to bother you. We’re leaving.”

She shoves Lucifer toward the front of the store. 

“Detective,” he huffs at her. “There’s no need to push. And we can’t leave yet. I’d like to get some gummy bears before we go, and I believe they’re located in that direction.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Chloe hisses, shoving him again. “You can’t just walk up to people and say stuff like that.”

“Well I had to,” he says, turning to face her. “Every man we’ve encountered tonight has looked at you like he can’t wait to bend you over—”

“Lucifer!”

“—and I needed to be sure that it was you and not the infection.”

“Me?” Chloe says incredulously. “What did I do?”

“Well you put on that dress, for starters.” 

Chloe casts an exasperated look at the ceiling and sighs. This is what she gets for wishing things were normal. She gets Lucifer being peak Lucifer. 

“Can we agree that the theory checks out so far?” she asks.

He smiles. “Why of course, darling.”

“Great. Then let’s go.”

She brushes past him toward the exit, but Lucifer grabs her elbow and yanks her back. “Nope,” he says, dragging her toward the candy aisle. “Not until I get my gummies.” 

Chloe casts another look at the ceiling. “Why am I dating a middle school boy?” 

Lucifer grins at her over his shoulder. “Because you love me.” And then he winks. “No take-backsies.”

Chloe can’t help it. 

She laughs.