18. Eighteen

“It’s about Candy.” 

For a brief, absurd moment, all Chloe can think about is candy. Like, actual candy. Snickers bars and Skittles and the gummy bears Lucifer loves. 

And then it hits her. He’s talking about Candy. 

His wife.

“Oh,” she says softly.

Lucifer is looking at her like he’s about to tell her something truly awful, and nausea roils her stomach and pushes up into her throat. She feels like she’s going to throw up. She swallows it down. 

It takes her a second to find her voice again. When she does, she’s ashamed of how small and scared it sounds.

“Please tell me you aren’t still married.”

He frowns at her. “No, no, of course not.” 

Relief washes over her, but it’s followed by a sense of dread. “Then what is it?”

He reaches for his cufflink, realizes that his shirt sleeves are rolled, and stares down at his wrist in surprise for a second before clearing his throat and straightening his shoulders. 

“Well you see, Candy and I…” 

He trails off. His eyes dart toward the stove, and then flicker to the island, and then glance toward a spot in the distance over her shoulder. He’s looking at everything except her. 

“She wasn’t actually...” he tries again. He doesn’t finish.

The sense of dread is building in Chloe’s chest, pressing against her lungs and leaving her breathless. “Lucifer,” she pleads. Whatever he’s got to say, it can’t be worse than standing here waiting for him to get the words out. 

“We weren’t real,” he blurts out.

He says it like it’s a grand revelation, but Chloe has no idea what he’s talking about. She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”

“She wasn’t what she appeared to be,” he tries to clarify.

Chloe frowns. “You mean a stripper?”

“Exotic dancer,” he corrects.

She gives him a look.

He winces. “Not the time for semantics,” he says quietly. “Apologies.”

Chloe folds her arms over her chest and waits for more of an explanation.

Lucifer shifts from one foot to the other and rolls his shoulders the way he does when his wings are out. She wonders if he’s tempted to unfurl them and fly away rather than tell her whatever it is he’s about to tell her, but she doesn't ask. She doesn’t want to know.

“She was playing a part,” he says. “She and I weren’t…” He waves his hand in a vague gesture between them that Chloe has no idea how to interpret. “It wasn’t a real marriage. I legally married her because I don’t lie, and I couldn’t say she was my wife if she wasn’t, so I made her my wife. But it wasn’t real.”

Chloe stares at him, dumbfounded.  

Lucifer blinks at her for a moment, and then seems to decide that she needs more information. 

“She was just a friend, Detective,” he says quietly. “There was no whirlwind romance. There wasn’t even sex. It was just…well, a business arrangement.” 

Chloe’s brain stutters over the words. She replays them in her head twice, three times, and then they finally sink in.

“You’re telling me you got fake married,” she says. 

He frowns at the stove. “Well that’s not exactly how I’d word it. It was, as I said, legally binding. But I…” 

He glances up at her. The expression on her face seems to rob him of the rest of his explanation. He swallows, and then nods. 

“Yes.” 

The word echoes in the air like a gunshot. Chloe’s brain immediately conjures up memories she’s tried to forget. Candy’s pink dress, and the giant rock on her fourth finger, and her incessant giggle. The shine of a wedding ring on Lucifer’s finger. The words my wife coming out of his mouth.

She spent that whole case with a permanent lump in her throat. Even at her angriest, even when she wanted nothing more than to punch Lucifer hard enough to smudge his eyeliner, she was only ever a breath away from tears. She feels that way now, too. She feels like someone is twisting her heart the way they’d wring out a soaked towel. 

She takes a step back from him, suddenly in desperate need of space, and curls her hand around the edge of the countertop to steady herself. Lucifer flinches a little when she moves back, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to recover the space. 

“You lied to me?” she whispers.

“No,” he says firmly, holding up a hand. “I didn’t lie. She was—”

“You lied, Lucifer. Technicalities might appease your millions of one night stands, but not me. Not about this.” 

Lucifer blinks at her, stunned. She tightens her hold on the counter. The stone is cold and hard beneath her fingertips. She wills herself to be the same.

“Why?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “What?” 

“You married her, but it wasn’t real. Why?” 

He exhales. “Detective, it’s—”

“I swear to god if you say it’s complicated I’m going to scream.”

“But it was complicated.”

“God damn it, Lucifer,” she sighs, rubbing her forehead. 

She expects him to make a comment about his father, but he doesn’t. When she drops her hand, she finds him watching her with a slight wince, like he’s afraid of what she’s going to say next. Rage boils in her gut. He doesn’t get to act like she’s overreacting about this. He doesn’t get to make her feel stupid for being jealous and hurt and furious. He married someone else and broke her heart and it wasn’t even real.

She brandishes her finger and reaches across the distance between them to prod him in the chest. “You kissed me back on that beach.”

“Yes,” he agrees quietly.

“You saved my life. You went to Hell for me.”

“Yes.”

“And then you ghosted me and hired a stripper to pretend to be your wife.”

He closes his eyes briefly as if her words are physically hurting him. “Yes.”

“Why?” she snarls at him. “So you didn’t have to tell me to my face that you were having second thoughts about us?” 

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Was the idea of committing to me that awful for you?” 

“No, Detective.”  

“Then what was it? What would possess you to...I mean, you brought her to the precinct, Lucifer. To my job. You made me watch the two of you together when you knew that I—” 

Her voice catches and she stops talking abruptly. She swallows around the vise-like grip of emotion on her throat. Her eyes feel hot with tears, and she hates that. She’s so tired of crying. She’s so tired of getting emotionally bludgeoned every time she lets her guard down with him.

“How could you do that to me?” 

He looks devastated. “I was trying to protect you.”

“From what? ”

“From me.” 

That catches her off guard. She gapes at him, speechless.

“And my father,” he adds as an afterthought. His body tilts toward her like he wants to close the distance between them, but he doesn’t. “I meant every word I said on that beach, Detective. I wanted you. I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But then Mum told me about my father’s hand in your creation and I…”

He trails off. Chloe struggles to keep up, to change gears, and it takes her a second, but then she realizes what he’s saying. Her heart twists again.

“And you didn’t want me anymore,” she says, her voice wavering.

He blinks at her like he’s shocked, and then his expression hardens. “No. My feelings never changed. I just didn’t think you wanted me.”

Chloe frowns. “What?”

“I thought you were being forced. I thought that if my father made you for me, then that meant he forced you to care about me. That you had no control, and you only wanted me because you had to. Because you were made to feel that way. I may be the Devil, Detective, but I’ve no interest in a relationship where one party hasn’t been given the opportunity to consent. No one deserves to be damned to a life with me unless they choose it.” 

The self-loathing in his voice as he spits the last sentence at her takes her breath away. “Lucifer,” she murmurs.

“I wanted to do right by you,” he forges on. “I wanted to protect you. So I left. But I couldn’t…” 

His voice breaks a little, and the determined expression on his face shivers just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of agony. 

“I couldn’t stay away from you,” he continues. “I tried to let you go, but I couldn’t bear it. So I thought if I put a barrier between us, if I gave you a reason to move on and find someone better, someone who actually deserved you, then I could spare you from being my father’s pawn and still get to keep some part of you for myself.”

Chloe stares at him. Everything makes sense all of a sudden. How insistent he was about them being just friends. How quickly he got an annulment and then never spoke of it again. How often he pushed her to go out and have fun and meet someone, only to turn around and be furious and jealous and hurt when she started dating Pierce. 

She can’t stop thinking about the awe in his voice when he whispered This is real, isn’t it? She remembers that day in the interrogation room not too long ago when he told her that he, too, had felt betrayed when he found out she was a miracle. She aches at the realization of how awful it must have been for him to realize that there was a chance it wasn’t real after all. 

The tears that have been sitting in her eyes finally spill down her cheeks. Lucifer lifts his hand like he wants to wipe them away, but catches himself. His hand hovers between them, and then drops. 

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Detective,” he says, dropping his gaze to the floor. “I realize that my intentions don’t nullify the consequences of my actions. I recognize that the damage I’ve done to your trust could be irreversible. If this alters the way you feel about me or our relationship, then I...I understand.”

Chloe blinks at him for a second, stunned by such a sincere apology coming from a man who’s been so unwilling to admit fault in the past. She wonders if, like her betrayal with Kinley, this is another one of those things he came to terms with during his thousands of years in Hell. 

She wipes her tears away and steps into the space between them. “It does change things, Lucifer.”

He looks devastated. “I und—”

“It makes me love you more.”

He whips his head up to look at her. “What?”

“I was wrong before,” she says, leaning closer to him. “When I said that you always put what you want above what I want. That’s not true. You made yourself vulnerable again for me. You waited for me when I needed time to deal with finding out that I was a miracle. And now this.”

He furrows his eyebrows. “Detective, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.”

“Yes I do.”

He shakes his head. “No, I...I broke your heart.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “And I wish you hadn’t. I wish you would’ve told me everything. All of it. Who you are and how you saved me and what you wanted. But I understand why you didn’t. And I don’t blame you for it.”

“But I hurt you,” he insists. 

She lifts a shoulder. “I hurt you when I ran away after I first saw your face. And when I worked with Kinley.”

“That’s different.”

“Why? Because you think I deserve forgiveness and you don’t?” 

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He looks baffled. It’d be adorable if it wasn’t breaking her heart. 

“I forgive you,” she says, just to make it crystal clear. “If you’re looking for punishment, you won’t find it here.”

She knows he recognizes that she’s using his own words because his eyes widen a little. He searches her gaze, and then lets out a soft, surprised exhalation. 

“Just like that?” he murmurs. 

She smiles. “What did you want me to do? Scream at you? Give you the silent treatment for a week?”

He tilts his head. “Well, you are very adept at speaking through silence.”

She laughs at that. “Yeah. But I’m not bad with words either.” She lifts a hand to his chest and presses it over his heart. “I love you, Lucifer.”

He stares at her in wonder, his mouth hanging slightly open, and then he finally reaches for her. His hands smooth over her hips. 

“I don’t want to break your heart again.”

She shrugs. “So don’t.”

“I’m not sure it’s that simple, Detective. I’ve always had good intentions when it comes to you, and yet I—”

“Really?” she cuts him off. “Your intentions for me have always been pure?”

“Well I don’t think I’d say pure.”

“Mhmm,” she hums with a smirk. 

He smiles at her, affection clear in his eyes, but then his smile fades. “It’s not just Monopoly I struggle with. I’m afraid I’m not very good at being in a relationship. And I fear that my inexperience and ignorance will cause you additional pain.”

“Look, Lucifer, I may have more experience than you, but that doesn’t mean I’m great at this, okay? I’m divorced. I almost married an immortal crime boss. I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But I do know that if we want to be together, then we have to do things together.”

He frowns. “I don’t understand.”

“All of our lowest points, all the times when I hurt you, or you hurt me, it was because one or both of us was trying to deal with something alone. We were scared, or hurt, or angry, and instead of communicating that to each other we just…”

“Ran off to Vegas and married a stripper?” he offers with a smile.

“Exotic dancer,” she corrects with a smile of her own.

He laughs, short and surprised, and she grins. 

She brushes her hand over the stubble on his cheek. “I want this to work, Lucifer.”

“I do as well.”

“Okay, then, let’s make a deal.”

“You want to make a deal with the Devil?”

“I want to make a deal with my boyfriend.”

He looks thrilled. “Alright,” he says, smiling broadly.

“From now on, we don’t make decisions for each other. We make them with each other. We don’t just assume we know how the other person is feeling or what they’re thinking. We ask. When we’re upset or angry, we talk about it. And when we’re scared, we don’t run.” 

His arms wrap around her waist and pull her closer. “I think I can manage that,” he murmurs. “Though you may have to be patient with me.”

“I can do that.” She threads her fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. “No more running, Lucifer.”

He leans forward and presses his forehead against hers. “No more running,” he echoes.

Chloe closes her eyes and breathes him in. His hair is soft against her fingers. His chest is close to hers, and she can feel the heat of his body radiating outward.  

The upbeat song that was emanating from the speakers fades, and another one starts. It’s slower. A guitar strums gently, and then a soulful voice starts to sing.

Your precious love 

Means more to me 

Than any love could ever be

Chloe smiles. She thinks of the celestial karaoke jam they were stuck in last week, and how Lucifer’s father had said that music sometimes makes it easier to communicate feelings. She knows he’s in another universe and isn’t responding to Lucifer’s prayers for help, but she can’t help but marvel at the coincidence of lyrics like that coming on at this exact moment. 

“Who is this singing?” she asks Lucifer. 

“Otis Redding.” 

“Never heard of him.” 

Lucifer leans back to look at her with a smile. “Not surprising, considering your repertoire consists mostly of 90s jams by boy bands with ridiculous names like Ferocious Garden.”

Chloe blinks at him for a second, confused, and then she realizes what he means. She laughs. “They’re called Savage Garden, Lucifer.”

“Whatever. Complete rubbish.”

“They are not,” she says, sliding her hands down to his chest to shove him lightly. “You said you liked the song I played for you.”

“I said no such thing. I said it didn’t make my ear drums bleed as profusely as whatever song you’d played before that. Something about waterfalls.”

Chloe lifts her chin in defiance. “Well I don’t care what you think. I like it.” 

“What on earth for?”

“Because it makes me feel nostalgic. It was playing the first time I ever slow danced with a boy.” 

Lucifer’s expression darkens. “What boy?”

She rolls her eyes. “Just a boy, Lucifer.” 

“Well was he a good dancer?” 

Chloe shrugs. “My teenage self thought so.”

Lucifer harrumphs at her. Chloe rolls her eyes at him again, and then disentangles herself from his arms and turns toward the stove. She’s still starving. She grabs a sandwich and takes a bite, and then hums under her breath. They really are delicious. She has the sandwich halfway to her mouth for another bite when Lucifer plucks it out of her hand and drops it back onto the baking sheet.

Chloe looks up at him with a frown. “Hey.”

He ignores her. He dips her sauce-covered thumb and index finger quickly into his mouth to clean them, and then wraps his hand around hers. His other arm slides around her waist and pulls her close. And then, suddenly, they’re swaying.

Chloe stares at him, taken aback. He gazes down at her with a self-satisfied smile on his face. 

“Um,” she says when she finally manages to find her voice again. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he says airily. He lifts his arm and pushes her gently away from him, spinning her in a circle, and then pulls her close again. “Just dancing with my girlfriend.” 

Chloe blinks at him, still stunned. He continues to sway with her, apparently unbothered by her shock. 

When she finally realizes what’s happening, she has to press her lips together to keep a grin at bay. He can say nothing until he’s blue in the face, but she knows exactly what he’s doing. She told him that another man was good at something, and now he wants to prove he’s better. God forbid he not be the best at everything.

A wave of affection washes over her. She tilts closer to him, and he holds her tighter and smiles. Otis Redding’s voice croons through the kitchen, low and soulful. 

For as long as you’re in love with me now

I know our love will grow wider

And deeper than any sea

Temptation flickers before Chloe’s eyes. She doesn’t resist. 

“You know,” she says, letting her voice lift into something innocent, “he was actually the first boy I ever kissed too.”

The smile freezes on Lucifer’s face.

“All my friends had terrible first kisses, but mine was actually pretty great,” she continues. “Just the right amount of—”

Lucifer’s mouth crashing down onto hers cuts off the rest of her sentence. Chloe smiles against his lips, a laugh bubbling up through her chest. He’s so easy to rile up. God, she loves him.

He palms the small of her back and holds her flush against him, and swipes his tongue along the seam of her lips. Her amusement fades as heat flares deep in her body. She opens her mouth for him. He hums, low and pleased, and drops her hand so that he can lift his to hold her face. His palm is warm on her cheek. 

They stop swaying. She curls her hands around his neck, holding his face against hers. He steps into her, pressing her backward and into the island, and the lightness of the previous moment dissolves into something headier. His mouth leaves hers and trails down her neck. She closes her eyes at the feel of his tongue on her skin. His hands slide along her hips, his thumbs dipping beneath the hem of her shirt to ghost over her skin, and she shudders.

“Detective,” he murmurs. He scrapes his teeth against her throat and then soothes the spot with his tongue. “I know you said you’d rather not—”

“Don’t stop,” she whispers, grabbing his face and lifting his mouth back to hers. 

He doesn’t have to be told twice. He kisses her hard, and then his hands tighten on her hips and he lifts her up onto the island. She wraps her legs around his waist the moment her ass hits the counter, pulling him closer to where she wants him. His hands slide up her thighs, his palms hot through the fabric of her jeans. 

A faint pop echoes through the kitchen.

“Blimey, you two are like a pair of rabbits, aren’t you?” Constantine’s voice cuts through the room.

Chloe startles and pulls back from Lucifer’s mouth in surprise. 

Lucifer seems far less surprised and far more annoyed. 

“Bloody hell,” he mutters, burying his face in Chloe’s chest. “Can we not just have one minute alone?”

Constantine, who is standing off to Chloe’s right with an amused smirk on his face, snorts. “Only need a minute, do you?”

Lucifer lifts his head out of Chloe’s chest to glare at the sorcerer. “There’s a special place in Hell for cock blocks, you know.”

Constantine grins. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Chloe bites her lip around a smile and taps her hands on Lucifer’s chest. “Later, yeah?” she says softly.

He turns back to her and drops his gaze to her mouth. “Or he could come back later once we’re finished.”

Chloe just smiles at him, waiting.

He sighs dramatically. “Fine.”

She leans forward to peck him lightly on the lips. “Love you.”

“Yes, well, you can prove that to me later,” he grumbles as he steps back from between her legs. “Repeatedly.”

“Deal,” she says, hopping off the counter and onto the floor. 

Lucifer arches an eyebrow at her. 

Chloe grins at him, and then turns toward Constantine. “So? How’d it go?”

Constantine slides his hands into his pockets. “There’s good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”

Chloe glances at Lucifer. He gestures at her. 

“Good news,” she tells Constantine. 

“Death has agreed to meet with you. I don’t know her as well as you do, Luci, but she seemed troubled by what I told her. I’ve a feeling she’s going to side with you.”

Chloe and Lucifer share a look. He smiles at her, and she exhales a heavy sigh of relief. Nothing is fixed yet. They don’t know for sure that Death will agree to help them. But she feels lighter all of a sudden, the same way she does when she gets a break in a difficult case. They have hope now. Something to hang onto.

“And the bad news?” Lucifer asks.

Constantine sighs. “She won’t meet with you for another week. Sunday morning, to be exact. And she wants to meet in New York.”

Chloe’s heart plummets into her stomach. A week? She has to be away from Trixie for an entire week?

“Why New York?” Lucifer asks.

“You know her once a century schtick,” Constantine says, waving his hand. “Apparently next week is the day, and she’ll be in New York to do it. You’re to meet her in Battery Park at dawn after her day ends. She said she’d find you.”

“What do you mean, once a century schtick?” Chloe asks.

Lucifer turns toward her. “Once every century, Death inhabits the body of a mortal who is destined to die that day.”

Chloe frowns. “Why?”

“She says it keeps her grounded in her purpose,” Lucifer says, lifting his voice as if to mimic Death’s tone. “She thinks it helps her understand humans. I’ve tried to tell her there are far easier ways to understand humans than inhabiting a body as it hurtles toward its sticky end, but she never cared much for sex.”

“There’s more to living than just sex, you know,” Constantine observes.

Lucifer smirks at him. “Spoken like a man who’s bad at it.”

Constantine bristles. “You’re a right git, you know that? Here I am doing you a favor and you—”

“Okay,” Chloe interrupts, holding out her hand. “He didn’t mean that, Constantine.”

“I most certainly did,” Lucifer says.

Chloe gives him a look. 

Lucifer sighs and fusses with one of his rolled sleeves. “I suppose since I haven’t actually slept with you myself, I can’t speak of your abilities with authority.”

“Is that your idea of an apology?” Constantine asks incredulously. 

“Guys, come on,” Chloe sighs. “Can you behave like grown ups for, like, five minutes?”

Lucifer and Constantine glower at each other, but neither of them says anything else.

“So New York in a week,” Chloe says into the tense silence. “And there’s no wiggle room?”

Constantine shakes his head. “Afraid not, darling. Your boyfriend said she could name the time and place, and she has.”

Chloe turns toward Lucifer. “How are we going to get to New York? We can’t fly.”

“Why?” Constantine asks. And then he grins. “Luci, are you afraid of heights?” 

“I have wings, you imbecile,” Lucifer says in disgust. “I can fly.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re not afraid of heights,” Constantine says with a shrug. 

“We can’t fly because we’re on the run,” Chloe clarifies before Lucifer can snap at him. “The guy leading the search for us has connections at the state and federal level and he’s personally invested in finding me. Our pictures are probably already posted in every airport, train station, and bus terminal in the western United States.”

Constantine whistles. “Doesn’t play around, eh?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Not Jax.” She looks at Lucifer. “Can you get us a private jet? Maybe through Javier?”

Lucifer shakes his head. “Mazikeen knows all of my air travel contacts. And I’m certain she’s already gotten to Javier, so she knows we’re no longer in L.A. She’ll be waiting for us to show ourselves. The fewer people we involve, the better.”

Chloe folds her arms over her chest. “Okay. Then I guess we’ve only got one option.”

Lucifer and Constantine frown at her.  

“Road trip,” she says with a shrug.

Lucifer gapes at her. “You’re joking.”

Constantine smirks. “I don’t think she’s joking, mate.”

“What other choice do we have?” Chloe asks Lucifer. “We have a week to get to New York. We can’t take an airplane, a bus, or a train. We already have the Escalade and IDs and cash. So we’ll drive. We’ll stay in places that are under the radar, keep our heads down, and get to New York without anyone noticing us.”

Lucifer opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.

Constantine is grinning. “I’d pay a bloody fortune to see this prima donna in a roadside motel where he has to lug his own bags into a room without a view.”

“John,” Chloe warns.

It’s too late. Lucifer glares at Constantine. “I suppose you think Hell is a five-star resort then?”

Constantine shrugs. “You’ve got full control of the loops, don’t you? You can make it whatever you want.”

“Yes, but it’s not real,” Lucifer spits at him. “It’s like cotton candy when you’re starving.”

“Lucifer,” Chloe says gently, pressing her hand to his chest.

He ignores her. “You think you’ve suffered in this world, John, but you’ve no concept of what that word even means. You can’t even begin to fathom despair or isolation. You have no idea. Yes, I come to earth and indulge. But you bloody well would too if you were me and you had to spend millennia in that Dad forsaken place.”

Constantine blinks at him, taken aback. 

“Lucifer,” Chloe calls again. “Babe. Look at me.”

The pet name immediately draws his eyes to hers. 

“You don’t owe him an explanation,” she tells him quietly. “And you don’t need to justify yourself.”

Lucifer gazes at her. She watches as the anger dissolves from his eyes. He covers her hand with his, his palm warm on the back of her knuckles, and she lifts her other hand to rub gently over his back. 

“Sorry, mate,” Constantine says quietly into the silence. “I didn’t mean…” He clears his throat. “Sorry.”

Lucifer ignores him and keeps his eyes fixed on Chloe. She doesn’t break his gaze until she feels the muscles in his back relax beneath her hand.  

She looks at Constantine. “I have a favor to ask before you go.”

Constantine lifts his eyebrows. “I’m listening.”

“Can you keep an eye on my daughter?”

“Detective,” Lucifer starts.

“Dream wants to take me from you, right?” she cuts him off, meeting his gaze. “That’s what you said.”

“Well I don’t know that for sure. It’s just a theory.”

“But it’s the only one we’ve got. And it’s not working the way he wants it to. What if, at some point in the next week, he decides to up the ante? What if he goes after her?”

“I’m not strong enough to stop Dream on my own, Detective,” Constantine says.

“But you’ll know if something goes wrong,” Chloe insists. “You’ll know if things have changed, or if she’s in danger, and you can warn us. Right?”

Constantine nods warily. “Yes, that’s true.”

“Then do it. Please. Whatever you want from me in exchange, it’s yours. Just keep an eye on her.”

Constantine shakes his head. “I don’t—”

“You have a favor from me at your disposal if you agree,” Lucifer interrupts. “A blank check, to be cashed by either you or Zatanna whenever and however you please.”

Chloe looks up at him. “Lucifer, you don’t—”

“Do we have a deal or not, John?” Lucifer asks.

Constantine glances between them briefly, and then nods. 

“We have a deal.”

Unlike the first time the Detective watched Constantine disappear into thin air, the second time hardly seems to faze her. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, turning to face Lucifer when Constantine is gone.

Lucifer frowns. “Do what?”

“Give him an open-ended favor like that.”

Lucifer waves off her concern. “You needn’t worry, Detective. He won’t cash it in. He’ll give it to Zatanna in an attempt to win her back.”

“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t?”

“He will.”

“Lucifer,” she sighs, rubbing her forehead. “You can’t just...you can’t keep giving out favors for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re yours,” she says, gesturing at him impatiently. “That’s, like, your thing. You shouldn’t have to—”

“Detective,” he cuts her off, lifting his hands to her face. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”

“I know, but—”

“What’s mine is yours. Now and always. Alright?”

She stares at him, her eyes wide and her mouth open. Eventually, she nods. “Alright.”

“Splendid,” he says. He drops his hands and turns toward the stove. “Now, I’m starving, and I know you are, so let’s take these out to the patio and enjoy this beautiful night, hm?”

She smirks at him. “We have a road trip to plan, Lucifer.”

“Of course,” he says. “After we eat the best thing you’ve ever tasted and drink this entire bottle of very expensive wine. And maybe feel each other up a little.”

She snorts. 

He grins at her and presses a kiss to her hairline. “You get the wine. I’ll get the food.”

She shoots him an affectionate smile that makes his heart do that flipping thing in his chest, and then turns toward the wine glasses. 

It’s a gorgeous night outside. They settle onto one of the couches in the seating area sunken into the pool. The stars are glittering above them, and the Vegas skyline is gleaming in the distance. It’s a little chilly, so he grabs one of the cashmere blankets sitting crumpled nearby and drapes it over the Detective’s legs before he joins her.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, smiling at him over the rim of her wine glass. 

He can hear the fondness in her voice, and it makes him feel warm. He likes how touched she is by small gestures. He wonders if she knows how hard he works to seek them out and seize them. It’s one of the things he thought about most often in Hell during their separation—all the moments he’d wasted focusing on himself instead of on her. 

They eat mostly in silence. It’s comfortable, and he finds himself marveling at it. He’s always felt the need to entertain women. They’d have no reason to stay otherwise. But the Detective isn’t like that. Her desire to be with him doesn’t seem dependent on how clever or charming or funny he is at any given moment. 

Wonders never cease, he thinks, admiring the way her hair gleams in the glow of the fire. 

“Can I ask you something?” she murmurs.

He gestures at her with his wine glass. “By all means.”

“You might not like it.”

He chuckles. “Do your worst, Detective.”

She sizes him up for a minute, and then she says, “Why do people keep calling you Lightbringer?”

He freezes with his glass halfway to his mouth. That’s not what he expected her to ask. 

“Maze said it back at the penthouse,” she says quietly, almost apologetically. “And Constantine said it earlier.” 

He stares down into his glass, swirling the red liquid as a million memories fight for dominance. He’s spent millennia hardening himself against the trauma of his fall. But there’s something about the Detective’s presence that makes it all feel fresh. Her impact on his vulnerability isn’t just physical, it seems.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she murmurs. 

The softness in her voice makes him ache. He’s always admired this about her. She’s curious by nature and profession, and she’s demanded answers from him on more than one occasion, but he’s never felt as though her search for answers was a violation. Her deference to his comfort level has been particularly strong since they started sleeping together. When she said I only want what you’re willing to give in the shadow of his wings back in that dark alley in L.A., he knew she meant it. 

“I can’t speak for John,” he tells her, meeting her gaze. “But Maze said it because she knew it would upset me.”

The Detective frowns. “Why would it upset you?”

“Because that’s who I was before I fell. The Latin translation of Lucifer is Lightbringer. That’s why, when we first met, I told you that my name was God-given. It’s one of the things I was created to do. Father said let there be light, and I made it so.”

The Detective blinks at him. He can see the wheels turning in her head. She purses her lips sometimes when she’s trying to connect the dots. It makes him want to kiss her.

“So the sun,” she says slowly. “That was...that was you? You literally lit the sun?”

“I did, yes.”

She glances up at the sky, and then back at him. “And the stars?”

“Also me.” He glances upward with a wistful smile. “The stars are my favorite.” 

He studies the patterns in the sky he knows like the back of his hand, and then glances down at the Detective again. She’s gaping at him. 

“Impressed?” he teases. 

She leans toward him, a thoughtful look on her face. “Do you think that’s what happened outside the club?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said you’re the Lightbringer. And that’s what you did. You brought light. Literally.”

He frowns at her, caught off guard by the connection he never made, and then he nods. “You know, Detective, I think you’re right. I must have summoned my old skills.”

“You said you’d never done it before.”

“Not on earth. Not like that.”

“So what changed?”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

She squints, studying him the way he’s sometimes seen her study a whiteboard full of case notes. “You should try it again.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The laser beam hands thing,” she clarifies. “Try it again.”

He sighs. “They’re not laser beam hands.”

“Light beam. Whatever. You should see if you can do it again.”

He huffs at her and sets his wine glass down on a nearby table. “I’m not a bloody comic book hero, Detective. I don’t have superpowers that I can call upon whenever I please.”

She shrugs and sips her wine. “If you’re afraid to try it again, you don’t have to.”

He blinks at her, extremely offended. “Excuse me, I am not—” 

And then he notices the glint in her eye. 

He narrows his eyes at her. “I know what you’re doing.” 

“I’m not doing anything,” she says innocently. “I’m just saying.”

“Fine then,” he says, helpless against the urge to rise to her challenge. He straightens on the couch and holds his hands out in front of him. “Watch and be amazed.”

He narrows his eyes, takes a deep breath, and calls on the power that dwells deep within him. Light, he silently commands.

Nothing happens. 

He frowns. He glances between his hands, takes a deep breath, and makes his internal command more forceful, more like something he’d shout at an unruly demon. 

Light!

Nothing.

He huffs in frustration. He sits up straighter, scooting his ass toward the edge of the couch, and focuses on just one hand. He studies the lines of his palm, furrows his eyebrows, and focuses. Let there be light, he thinks. Let there be LIGHT!

Still nothing.

“Lucifer,” the Detective says gently. 

He can hear it in her voice—she thinks he can’t do it—and that annoys him. 

“I can do it,” he insists. 

She presses her lips together and doesn’t argue. 

He focuses on just one of his fingers, and summons the same well of pain and heartbreak that helped him ignite the flaming sword. When nothing happens, he reaches out for more. The hatred in the urchin’s eyes in the beach parking lot. The steel in the Doctor’s voice when she told him he wasn’t worthy. Ms. Lopez saying that he didn’t deserve the Detective. The fear and devastation in the Detective’s eyes inside the club.

His heart constricts. His eyes water. He feels that familiar weight sitting on his chest again, and he can barely breathe around it, but there’s still no light.

There’s nothing. 

“Light,” he mutters. “Light, damn it.”

He tries again, focusing in on the grief and the agony he felt when the Detective cried in his arms last night after her dream, but nothing happens. He’s just as helpless and useless now as he was then.

A sudden wave of fury crashes over him. He sweeps his arm out before he can stop himself and swats his wine glass, sending it flying across the seating area and into the glass wall around the pool. It shatters and splashes red liquid everywhere.

The Detective startles next to him, and he knows he’s frightened her. Shame heats his face. He wants to apologize, but the words wither and die on his lips. He buries his head in his hands. 

A moment passes. He hears rustling nearby, but doesn’t look up. The Detective’s fingers stroke through the hair on the side of his head all of a sudden, and he flinches. 

“Lucifer,” she whispers.

“Apologies,” he rasps. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t.”

Liar, he almost says. He doesn’t. 

Her fingers stop stroking his hair. He misses the contact immediately but doesn’t say so. She’s too kind. If he asks for it, she’ll give it to him whether she wants to or not. 

He feels something bump the inside of his knee, and he opens his eyes but doesn’t lift his head. He sees her sensible boots standing between his feet, and her legs between his thighs. Her hands smooth over either side of his head. 

“Look at me, Lucifer.”

There’s gentle authority in her voice. He lifts his head to look at her. 

She smiles at him. It makes him hurt. Something so beautiful shouldn’t look at him with so much love. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

“You shouldn’t apologize when you’ve done nothing wrong,” he tells her. He sighs. “I was merely frustrated with myself. I can’t seem to make it work.”

“That’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he growls. “What if you’re in danger again? What good am I to you if I can’t protect you?”

“Please tell me you don’t mean that.”

He frowns at her. “I can assure you, I do.”

She sighs at him. It’s not annoyance—he knows that sigh intimately. It’s something else. Like the way she reacts when she’s asked her offspring to do her homework several times but the child still hasn’t done it. There’s affection in it. Fondness. 

She curls her fingers around his shoulders and climbs into his lap without warning. He’s surprised, but he doesn’t complain. He’ll never complain about her being in his lap. 

She drapes her arms around his neck and ducks forward so that he has no choice but to look her in the eye. “I love you.”

It’s his turn to sigh at her. “Detective—”

“I,” she cuts him off, her voice firm. “Love. You. You, Lucifer. Not what you can do, or what you can give me. I love you for who you are. I don’t care if you never use your laser beam hands again.”

“I swear to Dad, if you don’t stop calling them that…”

She laughs. Her nails scratch along the back of his scalp, and it takes some serious effort for him not to purr like a contented cat. 

“I love you,” she whispers. She leans forward, and brushes her lips gently over his. “I love you so much.”

Say it back, he thinks. Say it.

But just like with his light, he can’t seem to bring the words to the surface. She kisses him again, and the fact that she’s clearly not expecting him to say it back makes him feel worse. He searches for something to give her, something to say, something to make her understand that he wants to say the words even if he can’t yet. 

Maybe someone else’s words will do until he can find his own. 

“My heart is full of you,” he whispers into her mouth. She starts to pull back but he holds her fast, his nose bumping hers gently as he presses his forehead against hers. “None other than you in my thoughts, yet when I seek to say to you something not for the world, words fail me.”

She doesn’t move except for her chest, rising and falling near his. 

“Emily Dickinson said that,” he tells her quietly, lifting his hand to her face. “But it’s…it’s an appropriate representation of how I feel about you as well.”

Her breath seems to catch. He kisses her before she can say anything. He kisses her the way he dreamt of kissing her for thousands of years down in Hell, where the only respite he had from the darkness and despair were the moments when he closed his eyes and thought of her. He kisses her like he wants to kiss her for the rest of eternity. Like she’s the best thing that ever happened to him. 

She is. 

He drops his hand from her face down to the couch to steady himself, and then wraps his other arm around her waist and pulls her closer. She shifts in his lap, her legs spreading to bracket his hips, and he feels a familiar heat start to build within him. He wants her. 

He trails his mouth across her jaw, and then down the column of her neck. 

“Lucifer,” she breathes.

He flicks his tongue over her throat and tastes her skin. He loves the way she tastes. 

“Lucifer,” she says more insistently. Her hands press against his chest as if to push him away. 

He leans back and finds her staring at his side with wide eyes. He follows her gaze, confused, and then he sees it.

His hand is on fire. 

He stares at it, stunned. No other part of him is alight. Just his right hand, which moments ago had been pressed against the Detective’s face. It’s glowing brightly in the darkness of the night, a mix of blinding white and golden yellow. There are flames flickering over his skin, but he can’t feel them. There’s no sensation of burning. He doesn’t even feel warm.

“You did it,” she whispers.

He frowns as he lifts his hand to get a closer look. “How?”

“You tell me.”

He doesn’t have an answer. He can’t stop staring at his hand. He twists it to scan his knuckles, and then turns it back over to study his palm. It’s strangely beautiful. It reminds him of the way he looked eons ago, before he fell. Back when his wings were a source of pride, and the sound of his given name didn’t fill him with despair. Back when he spread the stars across the sky, and was proud when his father told him they were good.

His memories fade when the Detective reaches toward him slowly. He goes still, his hand frozen in the air. He trusts her to pull her hand back when she starts to feel the heat of the flames, but she doesn’t pull back. Her hand inches toward his, and then her fingertips brush lightly over the slight curve of his palm. 

“I don’t feel it,” she whispers in wonder.

He looks up at her. “You don’t?”

“I mean, it’s warm,” she says, meeting his gaze. “But it’s not...it doesn’t burn.” 

She glances down at his hand again, and he follows her gaze. She strokes her fingers over his palm, her touch soft but sure, and he wonders why he can feel her so distinctly but she can’t feel the flames. 

She looks up at him. “Why did it hurt the cops in L.A. but it’s not hurting me?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, and then weaves her fingers through his. He stares at their hands joined together, watching in awe as the flames lick over her skin but don’t burn her. 

And then, just as quickly as it happened, the flames disappear. 

“Oh,” she says quietly. She looks up at him. “Did you do that on purpose?”

“No.” He frowns at his hand, but it doesn’t ignite again. “I’m not sure how I did it in the first place, to be honest.”

“Well, the good news is we’re about to spend a week driving across the country,” she says with a smile. “You’ll have plenty of time to figure it out.”

“Indeed,” he hums, still frowning at his hand.

“Speaking of, we’ve got some planning to do. I’ll go grab that laptop I saw in the kitchen.”

She presses a quick kiss to his cheek, and then climbs off his lap and heads toward the house. He glances after her, and then turns his attention back to his hand. 

What the hell?

Chloe and Lucifer plot out their road trip with a bottle of wine, a pint of ice cream, and a laptop between them. 

They bicker over how far they’ll travel every day. They bicker about where they’ll stay and who will drive. He says ridiculous things. She rolls her eyes. They laugh a lot. 

At some point during a lull in conversation, Chloe glances up from the laptop and sees Lucifer watching the fire. He looks relaxed. His sleeves are still rolled up, and he’s slumped a little against the back of the couch. It’d make a hell of a photo, she thinks. Angel in Repose.  

He’s beautiful. Almost painfully so. His clothes look like they were made for him—and they probably were—but she knows he’s just as beautiful beneath those clothes. She’s traced the dips and curves of his muscles with her fingertips. She’s mapped the paths of his freckles with her mouth. She knows the way his body shudders when she flicks her tongue over his skin. She knows what he sounds like when he comes apart.

Desire throbs deep in her body. She wants him, and there’s nothing stopping her from having him, so she takes what she wants. 

He smiles against her lips when she kisses him, like he knew it was only a matter of time before she couldn’t resist him anymore. She doesn’t care if that’s what he thinks. It’s true.

They take their time, shedding their clothes slowly as they explore each other. When she finally sinks onto him, he sighs into her collarbone. It sounds like relief. She goes still for a moment, giving her body time to adjust. He brushes an open mouthed kiss over the bullet scar on her shoulder from their first case together. She wonders if he knows how often his mouth and his hands gravitate toward that scar. She’ll never ask him about it, though. She doesn’t want to make him self-conscious enough to stop. She likes it too much. 

His fingers curl around her hips and squeeze gently, an unspoken request. She hangs onto his shoulders, lifts her hips slowly, and then sinks back down. She does it again, and then again, until she’s set a slow but purposeful pace. 

She’s so focused on how good he feels that she almost doesn’t hear him whisper something into the hollow of her throat. 

“What?” she murmurs in his ear. 

His tongue traces a trail up the column of her throat and then he sucks lightly on her pulsepoint. “You feel like home,” he whispers against her skin.

The movement of her hips stutters to a stop. She goes still on top of him, breathless.

His palm smooths over her hip but he doesn’t urge her to move again. His chest rises and falls against hers, his skin warm even in the chilly night air. Her heart is thudding in her chest, pounding in her ears. 

She leans back to look at him, wondering if he realizes the magnitude of what he just said. He meets her gaze. There’s no regret in his eyes, but she’s still not sure. 

“Home?” she breathes. 

“It’s not L.A.,” he whispers, lifting a hand to her face. “It’s not Lux or Hell or the Silver City. It’s you, Chloe. You’re home.”

Emotion seizes her throat. Tears fill her eyes. “Lucifer,” she whispers. 

“I know those aren’t the words you want to hear,” he says, leaning toward her. “I know Shakespeare and Dickinson aren’t either.” 

“It’s okay.” 

And she means it. She wants to hear those words—she wants to hear them so badly—but not if he’s not ready. Not if they’re not real. 

“It’s like you said,” she tells him, carding her fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. “No shortcuts. Take as much time as you need.”

That doesn’t seem to reassure him. He looks desperate, like a man searching for water in the desert.

“Tell me you know what you are to me,” he begs. “Tell me you know.”

She presses her forehead against his and closes her eyes. 

“I know, Lucifer,” she whispers. “I know.”