Just a Door
Chloe couldn't even meet her daughter's eyes. Passing out again on Lucifer's bed, bullet clatched on her fist with Lucifer fondly sipping his drink had been an unorthodox ending to an admittedly crazy birthday day. Breaking and entering into your almost ex-boyfriend's house, drinking his fifty grand liquor, as Lucifer had revealed appraisingly later on and trashing the place did not technically count as crazy. Clinically insane was though, according to Linda.
This morning the sun had found her waking up to the sight of Dan sheepishly spackling the ruined antique Assyrian wall. Chloe had been right, the spackle didn't actually help. Under Lucifer's hard stare on Dan's drill and Linda's hushed instructions, the trio had made a quiet exit. Lucifer, on the other hand, was left staring with a grimace the white paste drying on his bedroom's wall.
"I still need a new light!" Trixie demanded in an uncommon dramatic exasperation.
"You will have one tomorrow, the corridor's light will have to do for tonight Monkey." Chloe tried to reason the slowly cheek flushed child.
Trixie had insisted on sleeping with a nightlight on since the Malcolm incident. The said nightlight was currently mysteriously missing along with Maze. Chloe had just stopped asking questions after their sixth pan went missing. It was not worth the grief when the woman always replaced the missing utensils and appliances from the house eventually. Still, she would have loved to know where the two hairdryers had ended up.
"The corridor light does not reach my bed!" The girl whined playing her pasta around, no longer hungry with this turn of events.
"It will have to do." A firm voice always worked as it did this time but the distress on Trixie's face spoke of how actually dreadful the delivered news were.
It almost made Chloe want to grab her bag and drive half an hour to the nearest open store to get her daughter a new nightlight. Yet she already knew the store didn't have one. She had already called two hours ago.
"It will certainly not do!" A gruff voice delivered while the man closed the door behind him.
Chloe was certain she had triple-locked the door and had even used the newly acquired brass latch. Lucifer-proofing her house had proven to be a challenge since day one so why would that change now?
"That's it! Trixie get Annabel down here." Chloe instructed, irrational anger clouding conventionally the whole day's embarrassment over yesterday's events.
She could see his dark eyes calculating her scolding features. When he was satisfied that she had no access to her gun from behind the kitchen counter, Lucifer flashed her his ever infuriating, cheeky grin.
"The spackle smells." Lucifer stated simply and threw his jacket on the nearest stool.
"Spackle doesn't smell Lucifer, and you waited until… Ten at night to figure that out?" She could swear someone had changed the minutes' hand again and it certainly wasn't Trixie. An identical new clock then perhaps?
"It does, it has this horrid chalky odour. Rather unsettling really." Lucifer insisted eyeing the couch with greater appreciation than he had ever done before.
"You are not sleeping on the couch Lucifer." Chloe deadpanned not liking the challenging look she received from him in response.
"It's soft enough, albeit textile not leather but it will do." He claimed with confidence squeezing the material between his fingers to assess how comfortable it might be for a night's rest.
"But not big enough. You are sleeping in Maze's room" She closed Trixie's lunchbox for school and put it in the fridge.
Perhaps it was her growing frustration that made her miss the petulant expression of displeasure at the two persons now standing behind her.
"I value my remaining limbs and more so my other appendices. Thank you." Lucifer admonished gathering his jacket and threw a knowing look at the child.
On Trixie's credit, she just shrugged and set the cat plush named Annabell on the kitchen counter no questions asked.
"It's almost a quarter after ten, I want you both in bed in five."
While cleaning the counter she could feel two pairs of eyes glaring her way. Thankfully not long after a little set of stomping feet made their way up the stairs and she exhaled on the one battle she had won tonight.
Which reminded her.
"Come here." Grabbing his arm, Chloe sat him on the edge of the couch and begun wrestling with the plush.
"Detective what on this plane of existence, are you doing?" He seemed adorably perplexed over her tagging sharply the animal in front of him.
"It's either sleeping in Maze's bedroom or getting a hotel room for the night. Your choice as you can certainly afford it" Chloe sighed finally freeing the piece she wanted from the stuffed animal.
"It has a door…" Lucifer whispered uncomfortably, but she paid no notice on the slight shiver that shook his form.
Her hands were shaking by the time she touched his shirt's open buttons. Securing the little shining object on him was surprisingly an easier feat that she had expected.
Lucifer lowering his chin to his chest gapped openly giving her afterwards an incredulous look of astonishment. Chloe could have said there was also a healthy amount of lust there as well, but that was something she would not contemplate this evening, if ever.
"A bell? I'm wearing a bell?" He chocked trying to look at the small object better under the kitchen's light.
"Don't tell me it's your first time…" Chloe knew this wasn't the case and when he shook his head, he nonchalantly confirmed it.
"It's just I haven't worn any for many, many years… But... If a tunic can pull it off, I guess a three-piece can as well." He exhaled a long breath defeated on his fate for the evening.
Giving her a small smile Lucifer simply made his way up the stairs leaving Chloe to celebrate humming her second win that night. Belated cosmic birthday presents perhaps did happen.
Checking the clock at ten thirty, when everything was set for the household's morning routine, Chloe dried her hands and decided to check on the hopefully sleeping child.
The door in Maze's room was closed making Chloe sigh in relief on not having to deal with Lucifer again that night. Yet that did not explain why there was an unhinged door in the middle of the corridor.
Trixie had gotten her way in the most unconventional way apparently.
The devious little monkey had convinced Lucifer to take her door off the hinges for the light to go through her entire bedroom. The pair seemed to appreciate more each other after the Academy fiasco. Well, Lucifer that is. Trixie thought since day one that Lucifer had hung the moon and the stars, and as he often claimed, he had indeed.
Chloe considered this as another win when she saw the little girl wrapped in her bedding with all the worry lines she wore until recently, relaxed and on the verge of sleep. And Lucifer… Lucifer had outsmarted her again. Endearingly so.
He was now slumbering peacefully on the floor, on top of her daughter's pile of soft plushies. Tucked tightly in Trixie's favourite pink bed comforter, he must have been out once his head hit Eric, the huge yellow elephant.
"It's just a door Mum." The little girl mumbled turning sides in her bed, content with the amount of light her bedroom was getting now.
There would be questions tomorrow, perhaps it would take a miracle for them to be answered but for now, Chloe had to agree.
It was just a door.
The End
This is a quick one-shot I wrote just because I wanted to get rid this particular idea. Nothing much as always. A bit fluffy, a bit funny, a bit heartwarming... Again as always not perfect but then again neither am I so... I guess it's either your cup of tea or it isn't.