Lucifer spends the case doing his devil best to prove he's the better choice. He brings her coffee, her favorite dessert, reminds her of their beginnings, tries to show her the history they have. He invites her to dinner, the final step of his plan, he'll prove it to her.
Dinner is a disaster. He doesn't even notice until he realizes the tears in Chloe's eyes aren't tears of joy. She's upset, angry even, that he so obviously doesn't get why. He's baffled, he just wants to show her that Cain (Pierce, him) isn't good enough for her, she deserves more, better, but she just cries, starts to leave (leave him). He's only saved by a phone call about the case and he's still confused, but for some reason she lets him come along to the scene. He has an epiphany while she arrests the murderer. She leads the culprit away, doesn't look back at him once.
He heads home. Alone.
Linda saves him. He doesn't know how she's shown up at exactly the right time but he's beyond grateful that she has. He struggles to understand human emotions, she knows this, he knows this, and here she is, she can tell him that this is. He can feel the moisture gather in his eyes, a knot forming in his stomach. Admits maybe he should've just told the detective how he felt. Linda agrees, why don't you. He breaks, yells, screams, rails against his father. But Linda accepts this for what it is. Tells him to make a choice, a decision, asks him the question he asks everyone else but avoids asking himself-what do you truly desire. He has nothing left to hide behind. He tells her. (I want her to choose me)
He lets his conversation with Linda bolster him, propel him to the detectives side. His greatest desire finally put into words, spoken aloud. He doesn't remember getting to her apartment, isn't quite sure he knows what he's going to say to her, terrified it will be undignified begging (choose me) but it turns out it doesn't matter because she isn't alone and oh he can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe a single breath because Cain (Pierce, him) is on one knee and he understands little about human relationships but he knows what this means.
He's not sure which hurts more, his fall to hell or watching Chloe say yes to someone else.
He leaves, can't watch any more, burning in his chest, his eyes. He ignores it, spends the night trying to erase the image, the tightness, with as much alcohol as he can get his hands on (all of it) but when he closes his eyes, it's still there, burned onto his eyelids. He leaves his penthouse, thinking to lose himself in whatever he can find that isn't her. He throws back shots, touching and being touched by anyone who'll let him. He takes them to bed-lips, hands, bodies. Spends hours chasing pleasure, determined, don't think.
It doesn't work.
He wakes, pressed under bodies whose names he doesn't remember, doesn't care to remember. He wakes them and amid grumbles and displeased moans, promptly kicks them all out. His brother has let himself in, waits for him while he pulls on his robe and refills the glass he drained last night. If he has to have this conversation (he knows he does) it will be with whiskey in hand. Amenadiel finds the detectives actions as baffling as he does, doesn't understand why she said yes, asks him what the plan is. He tells him-understand why she's made such a spectacularly bad decision and then make her see sense. His brother insists he just tell her how he feels but Lucifer knows it's too late for that, far too late for that.
His phone chirps, a text message and he doesn't need to look to know who it's from. Fervently wishes he could make himself stay but he will never not come when she calls him. It doesn't seem to matter what he's doing or where he is. If she needs him, he goes. He can't seem to help it.
So he goes.
She's beautiful still, punch to the gut when he sees the ring on her finger. He takes a breath, tells her she looks nice (not nearly an adequate enough description) and decides to start enacting his plan. He throws the envelope of papers on her desk and plays it off as one of his eccentricities. But she leaves instead, tells him that she's taking time off to plan the wedding, that he should shadow Dan because all of her cases have been reassigned. He does, surprisingly he learns, accepts that maybe she's not as confused as he had hoped her to be. That perhaps, this isn't really on her.
He returns to her (always) begins to tell her that he finally understands why but he sees the empty ring finger and the look on her face and his heart stutters in his chest. She prompts him to continue, asks what he's learned. He can feel all the things he wants to say bubble up at the back of his throat but he knows, knows, knows he shouldn't say them. It takes effort but he swallows them down and smiles at her instead, tells her it's irrelevant even though it's not. Because he wants her to be happy, of course he does. He had just hoped, desperately hoped, that she would choose to be happy with him. But he sees now, understands why she hasn't been willing to take a chance on him, why she had accepted Cain (Pierce, him) in the first place. He's unreliable, unstable, a flight risk, all the reasons he had berated Dan. He takes another breath. She offers him a case file; suggests they go back to work. He takes it, clutches it too tightly with slightly shaky hands, and backs away. He makes himself smile, wonders if he should feel relieved instead of slightly sick to his stomach. Because he knows now.
This, everything about this, is all his own fault.