[Author's note: I've been dying for season 4 of Lucifer to drop. In desperation, I started writing this fan fiction yesterday. And then Netflix dropped the preview video! I guess this is kind of like going to the bathroom to make the waiter come ask for your order? Anyhoo, I wanted to post this partial chapter to incentivize myself to finish this before S4 drops.

There's a specific place in Chloe's recovery from the shock of seeing Lucifer's face that I want her to be in for this story. So let's just assume the following scenes happened without me having to write out all the gory details. Or in other words...]

[Voice over: "Previously on Lucifer"]

"What happened, Luci?" Amenadiel asked.

Lucifer leaned on the bar in the penthouse, jacket off and the two top buttons of his shirt undone. "Well, where shall I begin? Pierce tried to kill Chloe and I. I stabbed him with Maze's blade. Cain, the world's first murderer, is now dead."

"You killed a mortal, Lucifer?!"

"Yes." Lucifer set his whiskey glass down with a clink. "Yes, I did."

"There will be consequences for this, Luci. Father forbids us from killing mortals."

"Consequences? I've seen some of those. Before Pierce died, I decided to remind him of his regrets about killing Charlotte." Amenadiel raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to ensure he ended up where he belonged. In hell. But apparently that made me feel like my old devilish self, and..."'

Lucifer looked down, toyed with his glass of whiskey, then looked back at Amenadiel. "The Detective saw my devil face, Brother. She was..." Lucifer paused and looked away, throat working. "...terrified."

Lucifer turned, suddenly cheerful, and poured more whiskey into his glass. "And rightly so!" he exclaimed. "Who wouldn't be afraid of the devil?" Amenadiel looked sad at Lucifer denying his feelings. "So I ran. Or rather, flew."

"You need to talk with Chloe about this, Luci," Amenadiel insisted. Lucifer shook his head. "At the very least to ensure she doesn't start to tell other mortals about us."

Lucifer shook his head. "No. No, I don't believe she will. No, I'll just... stay away." He drained his glass in one shot. "It's better this way. Humans and the divine shouldn't mix."

[Camera cuts]

Chloe sat on Linda's couch in her office. "I don't know what to do. I keep remembering what I saw. His face..." Chloe took a shuddering breath. "Lucifer isn't who I thought he was."

Linda tilted her head. Her thick glasses reflected the afternoon light through the blinds. "But Lucifer is who he's always said he is. It's still a shock to find out he's telling the truth, of course. It certainly was for me. I struggled with feeling safe, feeling normal."

Linda smiled gently at a memory. "But after I saw Lucifer's face, a friend told me that I'm still the same old Linda Martin. He's still the same old Lucifer. You're still Chloe Decker. Nothing's changed. You can rebuild your world around this new truth and still hold onto your own identity."

Chloe looked away, pondering that. "I just feel like my world has turned upside down... But maybe I need to focus on righting my world. Being normal. Getting back to work." Linda nodded.

[Camera cuts]

Ella was drunk. She stumbled a bit as she walked down the darkened sidewalk. Lucifer wrapped an arm around Ella to steady her, and advised her in a gentle voice. "Look, I know Charlotte and Pierce's deaths came as a shock, but this isn't you."

"Maybe this is the new me," Ella slurred as they both weaved. "It's nice to be drunk. It's fun to hang out with people who are DFT."

"Do you mean DTF?" Lucifer corrected.

"Yeah, whatever." Ella continued her last train of thought. "It's easier that way. Have fun. Leave. Then none of your friends can just up and die on you."

"That sounds very... empty." Lucifer stopped walking. "It also sounds very... familiar."

[Camera cuts]

Dan is at the precinct, looking worried. "Chloe, you shouldn't be tracking down armed killers without backup. We can find a babysitter for Trixie. I'll go with you."

"No, Dan, I have to follow this lead before another person dies." Chloe had a stubborn look on her face as she put on her jacket. Dan raised an eyebrow. Chloe looked at him, resolute. "I'll be careful, I promise."

[Camera cuts]

Chloe cautiously walked through the darkened warehouse, her gun in her hand. A gun's safety clicked off behind her. "Freeze," the gunman said.

[Camera cuts]

Lucifer struggled with the gunman and head butted him. The gunman slipped to the ground, unconscious. Lucifer straightened his cuffs and dusted off his suit. He turned to leave. Chloe put a hand out. "Lucifer..."

[Fade to black, and back.]

"Lucifer... Please, let's talk."

Lucifer slowly turned back. The glow from a nearby cone of yellow light glinted off his eyes. Chloe was relieved his eyes weren't red, like the last time she had seen him. Chloe kept her hand out, even though it was shaking. "I know I reacted badly when I first saw... your face. It scared me." She sucked in a breath. "It still scares me. But you could have hurt me a long time ago, and you didn't."

Lucifer looked at Chloe's hand, but didn't take it. "I would never hurt you, Detective."

Chloe dropped her hand. "You've been my partner for all this time. The least you can do is talk to me."

Lucifer shifted nervously, still half hidden in the darkness. "I have enjoyed our partnership, Detective." Chloe could tell his walls were still up. "But I wasn't sure whether you wanted to continue working with me after you knew who I am."

"I won't lie, Lucifer. Knowing that you were the actual devil, that my housemate is a demon and your brother is an angel... It really messed me up for a while." Chloe paused, gathering her thoughts. "For you, nothing has changed. You've always been, well, Lucifer. But for me, everything has changed. I mean, a week ago I didn't believe in God, let alone devils or angels or demons. And it's just..." Chloe looked up and took a deep breath, trying not to cry or scream, which were the two reactions she had when thinking about the fact that Lucifer was really the devil. "It's... too big to think about."

Lucifer took a step towards the light, the corners of his mouth turned down. "Believe me, Detective, the last thing I want is to drive you insane."

"I don't think there's any danger of me ending up in a straight jacket." Lucifer quirked his head and said nothing. "But I really need some time to process this. I can't do my job if I'm struggling with an existential crisis every day. I just need... for everything to be normal for a while. And being normal means having you back as my partner."

"Really?" Lucifer asked. "You would partner with the devil himself?"

Chloe choked on a laugh. "Yes, I guess so? I just... want us to try for a while. To try to get back to normal. Even if it... even if it means being a partner with- with the devil."

Lucifer still wasn't buying it. "So you want us to go right back into the old routine, solving murders, fighting crime, catching sinners-"

"Lucifer!" Chloe exclaimed. "Is that why you teamed up with me? To punish sinners?"

"No, Detective. Well, maybe, at first. But later on, it was more about seeking justice."

Chloe's mouth went flat. "Is justice what you did to Marcus?"

"He tried to kill us both!" Lucifer protested.

"So you shot an entire gang and stabbed our lieutenant in the chest?" Chloe crossed her arms.

"Cain. I stabbed Cain. The immortal man who masqueraded as a lieutenant in order to try and get close to you so you could break his curse."

Chloe stared at Lucifer. "Cain." She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Lucifer, this is exactly what I mean. I can't handle random biblical characters just showing up in my life. Who's next, Eve seeking revenge for Cain's death?"

"Well, not exactly seeking revenge, but-"

"Lucifer, stop! I can't handle this! I just need to be normal!" Chloe shouted.

Lucifer threw up his hands in defense. "Okay. Fine. Normal. We'll try it." He straightened his cuffs as he warmed up to the idea. "Normal partnership. Normal cases. No biblical figures or angelic beings at all. Well, aside from me." Lucifer smiled at Chloe.

Chloe took a deep breath. "Yep. Just you." Chloe made a circular hand motion at him. "Just the same old... Lucifer." Chloe cringed at the devil's name. She bent down and started cuffing the killer, who was beginning to stir. "Okay, let's get this suspect back to the precinct."

"Coming, my normal partner," Lucifer purred. Chloe glared at him.

Dan walked up to Chloe's desk, engrossed in a case folder. "Next case dropped, Chloe." Dan looked up to find Lucifer leaning back in Chloe's chair, his red-soled Italian loafers resting on her desk. "Lucifer." Dan's lip curled around the name, and then he tried to be more civil. "So. You're back."

"Glad to see you missed me during my absence, Daniel."

"I didn't," Dan muttered. He spoke louder, "You, uh, missed the fallout after the Lieutenant was murdered."

"Oh, do we have a new lieutenant yet? Is it a woman again? I'll have to get in her good graces." Lucifer raised his eyebrows and looked pleased at this new challenge.

Dan's tempter snapped. He loomed over Lucifer and pointed a finger at him. "I know you k-" Dan cut himself off and glanced around the police precinct. He lowered his voice. "I know you were the last one to speak to Pierce. He needed to be brought to justice..." Dan whispered emphatically, "Charlotte deserved justice."

"Pierce is getting the justice he deserves. In hell."

Chloe walked up to her desk and put a hand on Dan's shoulder. "Not now. Not here," she whispered. "Later." Chloe leaned to look at the folder in Dan's hand and raised her voice to a normal conversational tone. "So, that looks like a new case file."

"Yep. A body was found at a restaurant called..." Dan checked the file. "Sushi Go Round. A regular customer was surprised the restaurant wasn't open, looked in the window, and saw the owner laying on the floor. Forensics is already processing the scene."

"Ah, there you go, Detective. A perfectly normal sushi murder to get us back into our good cop, devil cop routine." Chloe glared. "Too soon?" Lucifer asked as she walked away.

Lucifer opened the glass door to Sushi Go Round and held up the yellow crime scene tape for Chloe. The empty sushi train made a lonely circuit around the various police officers and forensic technicians. A body dressed in casual clothing was lying on the gray concrete floor behind the counter. Their feet could just be seen from the door.

Ella Lopez crouched down beside the victim, taking pictures. She stood up to meet Lucifer and Chloe.

"So what happened to this poor sod, my perfectly normal forensic scientist?" Lucifer asked. Chloe glared at him.

"Lucifer!" Ella immediately hugged him. Lucifer stiffened and looked uncomfortable. Ella lightly punched him in the arm. "See, I knew you'd be back on the crime fighting scene after our talk."

Chloe looked confused, but shrugged. "So, Ella, what do we have?"

"Meet Sam Kobert. 28 years old. Owner of Sushi Go Round. Cause of death was blunt trauma to the back of the head. The death was initially classified as accidental. When forensics first looked at the scene, it looked like our vic slipped and fell."

Ella gestured to a puddle of brown liquid that was pooled at the fallen victim's feet. Lucifer used his shoe to nudge a broken bottle of soy sauce away from the puddle. "Well, this gives a new meaning to the phrase hitting the sauce."

Chloe looked at the body and then back to Ella. "But it wasn't an accident?"

"Nope. Our 'accident' smelled fishy." Ella grinned at her own pun.

"Are you sure it wasn't the mackerel?" Lucifer piped up.

"No, take a look at this puddle. See how the slip marks point back towards the victim's feet?" Chloe nodded, and Lucifer looked bored and wandered off. "If the vic slipped and fell backwards..." Ella dramatically mimed slipping, raising her leg in front of her. "...then their foot would have pushed the puddle away from where their body landed."

"So someone staged this to look like the person slipped."

"Yep. I don't even think the vic was killed here. The head wounds are consistent with striking a concrete floor, but the blood spatter at the scene is all wrong."

Chloe looked at the victim. "This is a body dump. By someone who knew our vic worked here."

"Exactly!" Ella exclaimed.

Chloe looked up to see Lucifer at a cutting board with a knife. "Lucifer, what are you doing?"

Lucifer intently stared at the fish he was slicing into thin slices. "Just making a snack, Detective. Would you like some sashimi?" Chloe shook her head and started marching towards Lucifer. "No? Maybe a nigiri? Let me just get you some sushi rice." Chloe grabbed Lucifer's elbow as just as he popped open the rice cooker. "Oh, it's still warm. You're in luck, Detective."

Chloe frowned and dropped Lucifer's elbow. "Wait, that makes no sense."

"No, it makes perfect sense." Lucifer said, popping a piece of sushi in his mouth. "Room temperature fish, warm rice." Chloe looked annoyed at him talking with his mouth full. Lucifer swallowed. "It's how all sushi should be served."

Chloe ignored Lucifer and examined the rice cooker. "No, it doesn't make sense that the rice cooker was even on." Lucifer continued to use the bamboo mat to make a seaweed wrapped sushi roll. Chloe looked back at the body on the floor. "Our victim is in plain clothes, without any apron on or gloves on to handle raw fish. But the rice cooker is on, the cutting board is out, and the train is on."

"Maybe he was interrupted in the middle of food prep?" Ella hypothesized. "Started to make the sushi for this evening, and then had to leave?"

Chloe shook her head. "And then the killer brought him back here? I don't know what happened, but it doesn't add up."

Lucifer smirked, putting some sushi into a plastic to go container. "All these wonderful clues that you've noticed just because I opened the rice cooker. See, Detective, you need me to help you solve your perfectly normal murder cases." Lucifer smiled, and handed Chloe the container. "For the road. I assume we're off to question this poor sap's family or friends."

Chloe made a face and handed the container back to Lucifer. "We've got a home address from the vic's wallet. Let's go." Chloe walked out of the restaurant, and Lucifer followed, snagging a piece of seaweed to munch on in the car.