Chapter 2/7
Cards on the table, we're both showing hearts

After she wrangles her composure back under control, Lucifer finishes cooking and serves a long overdue lunch: Caprese panini with added prosciutto slices and a salad on the side. He sets aside the first sandwich, now slightly burnt and long grown cold, for himself. The one he prepares for her is grilled to perfection.

Chloe polishes off her plate in minutes. Damn him for being such a good cook. Between missing breakfast and the not-quite-crying-thank-you-very-much, she's famished. The way she inhales the food could put Trixie and Maze combined to shame. But Lucifer, with his neatly folded napkin and perfect posture, regards her appalling lack of table manners as nothing short of a compliment.

Tossing her napkin down, she steels herself for the next topic. "So what's the second thing? You said there were two things I didn't know based on the board."

He spears a cherry tomato with his fork and slides it through the vinaigrette. He peers at her from under his long eyelashes, judging and assessing. He hasn't made a peep since they started eating.

"Just tell me," she nearly begs. "It can't be worse than the first thing. Can it?"

"I suppose you're right, Detective." He puts down his utensil and pushes the half-finished plate away. Then with a world-weary sigh, he bends toward her. Having learned from previous experience, he doesn't stop. He doesn't give her pause to question him. "Around you, I become vulnerable, and I mean that in the literal exsanguinating sense. When you're not around, I am functionally immortal in every sense of the word. Save for hell- or celestial-forged weapons, nothing of this earth can harm me. Be it guns, knives, or poison gas. In your proximity, I lose that invulnerability. I can die."

But as usual, he course-corrects too much and overshoots any reasonable expectation by leagues. The silence that settles over them is as devastating as a nuclear winter, leaving Chloe frigid and shaken. Maze had explained Marcus's curse and his immortality: he died but always came back. And she, stupid stupid Chloe, assumed Lucifer operated by the same rules.

"Because I'm a miracle?" she asks with dread welling in the pit of her stomach.

God, he really died when Malcolm shot him. Lucifer died because she, Chloe Decker, had been nearby. Was that why she was put on this earth? To hurt Lucifer?

She really wishes she hadn't bothered with lunch. She's this close to making a run for the bathroom, or better yet, his kitchen sink.

"Detective, calm down." He makes an abortive gesture toward her before reining himself in. "You'll make yourself sick."

How can he be so damn calm? Granted, she's never approved of his recklessness or his risk-seeking behavior even when she thought him human. The amount of danger he's exposed to doesn't change. Not technically. Not mathematically. The probabilities remain the same. Yet the knowledge shakes her to the core.

She shoots him an incredulous look. "Lucifer, this is a big deal. Like a really, really big deal. I am literally hazardous to you. All those times you got hurt on cases, I did that to you!"

"None of that, Detective," he commands. "You're not to blame. The ones who did the hurting are the responsible parties. I did suspect you were the cause in the beginning. You were already immune to my abilities to draw out desires. But recent events have shown me that may not be the case. It's not you that strictly makes me vulnerable, but rather, I make myself vulnerable in response to you."

"That's dumb. Why would you do that?" She can't stop the words before they leave her mouth. Hell, even her previous God-put-her-here-to-harm-Lucifer theory is more credible. She hates the idea, but at least it makes sense.

Lucifer huffs with exasperation, causing the corners of his eyes to crinkle. "Yes, well, it's not like I consciously choose for it to happen. It's bloody inconvenient. You get within a city block and I can stub my toe like any bloke."

"Explain," she demands. "You say it's not my fault. But how can you be sure?"

He folds his hands together, gliding one finger back and forth across his ring. The flare of light in the dark stone catches her by surprise, but he doesn't notice. Another weird Lucifer thing to add to her ever-growing list. She can spend the rest of her natural life interrogating him about the unknowns.

"You humans ultimately decide where you go after death, based on your own conscience and guilt." He speaks with all the authority of someone declaring the sky is blue. He treats it as something self-evident. And for Lucifer, it must be.

She blinks slowly. Okay, that was a lot to throw at her at once, and it's not the direction she'd expected him to go. She thinks that maybe he's told her something similar in the past. Lucifer has no power over human sins, so it stands that he has no authority over their final destination either. He does so pride himself on never lying.

He continues, oblivious to her minor existential crisis. "Amenadiel had this theory we celestials may not be so different from humans. He insists that we judge ourselves as you humans do. But unlike you lot, we don't have some ultimate reward or punishment waiting for us on the celestial planes. The Silver City and Hell are always within reach for angels. Well, except for me. I'm banned from Heaven. So when we judge ourselves, we can affect our very nature."

She nods, prompting him to go on. She can only accept what he's saying at face value. She doesn't understand enough to argue otherwise for now.

He inhaled a sharp breath, and his lips thin in a severe line. "Take my brother as an example. He raises a soul from Hell to do his dirty work. Malcolm runs rampant and murders innocent people. You..." He jabs an elegant finger at her. "Nearly died. Your spawn could have been hurt or worse. I think we can both agree that was decidedly not angelic behavior on his part."

"Amenadiel had wanted me back in Hell, consequences be damned. But then, he took responsibility for his actions. So much more than any of us realized because he loses his bloody wings and powers. He thought Father had deemed him unworthy when he judged himself first. While he lost his wings, I got mine back. No matter how many times I cut them off, they kept coming back. Well, I suppose preventing my mother from waging war on Heaven was the polar opposite of what Amenadiel did... But what finally convinced me was Pierce," he says sharply. Even now, he spits out the name like it's poison.

"I'm sorry, Lucifer. How does any of this explain why you're vulnerable around me?"

"I'm getting to that part, Detective. Cain was also under the impression you're the direct cause of my vulnerability. And he hoped you could do the same for him, allowing him to circumvent Dad's curse. First, he tried dying near you, but that didn't stick. Then he got it into his head it was your... that your love was the reason I bleed..." he trails off, his throat convulsing and his gaze dipping to his folded hands.

Laughter bubbles inside her, but nothing he says is remotely funny. Then a wildfire rage, the likes of which she's never known before, sweeps through her. Pierce used her. Even before they'd embarked on a romantic relationship, he was angling for something from Chloe. Maze's previous explanation of her own deal with Marcus combined with what Lucifer just told her paints a stark picture of a callous, manipulative man with no regard for anyone other than himself.

"Detective?" Lucifer's low whisper pierces through her red haze.

"That asshole," she hissed, her anger causing a startled look to flit across Lucifer's face. "That's why he went with me to Firehawk Ranch."

"Ah, yes, Pierce alerted Jerry Blackcrow and told him you two were coming. Gives new meaning to 'suicide by cop', doesn't it?" His usual humor falls flat as a landed fish.

She remembers Marcus playing with his phone, moments before Blackcrow charged out with a shotgun. That had been Chloe's feelings changed toward Marcus. Nightingale Syndrome, she realizes numbly. Marcus won her over by putting his life on the line for her sake. In her line of work, being willing to take a bullet for someone is the ultimate expression of loyalty and bravery. Maybe... Just maybe there was more under Marcus's aloof and condescending shell. No, that had all been in her head. He wanted to die and didn't care if he endangered her physically or emotionally to achieve his goal.

She was an instrument. A tool. A means to a fucking end.

All too easily, she can see how her professional and probably personal life could have imploded if he'd succeeded. Chloe would have never known she was an accomplice to assisted suicide. She would have spent the rest of her life feeling guilty for getting her superior officer killed. She would blame herself for being careless. She would blame herself for not being good enough.

Good riddance to Marcus Pierce, the world's first murderer, and biggest gaping asshole.

"Detective, as much as I enjoy you verbally eviscerating Cain, are you all right?" Concern always transforms Lucifer's sharp lines into something familiar and comforting.

"Did I say that out loud?"

He nods with the specter of a twinkle in his soft eyes.

"Well, I stand by it. World's. Biggest. Gaping. Asshole," she growls.

"I'm sure that's someone's torture in Hell," he snorts.

He falls quiet after that, perhaps recognizing how much Chloe's struggling with the extent of Marcus's betrayal. She hadn't hated Marcus when she shot him at the loft. He was a danger to society and the people she loves. He needed to be stopped. The snarling beast of her rage now wishes she had finished him.

She sucks in a breath. "Okay, so I'm not some kind of supernatural kryptonite. Good to know. How did he break his curse then? He is dead, right?"

"Oh yes, decidedly so," Lucifer confirms with a feral twist of his lips that soothes the hot knot of hatred in her own belly. But it slips away as quickly as it appears, replaced by an expression Chloe's seen countless times. When she first reached for those two gruesome scars carved between his shoulder blades. Or last Halloween when he threw himself in front of that sniper. She wondered if he wore the same expression when he left her that voicemail.

"Then how?"

"Cain broke my Father's curse when he... well, simply put, I suppose when he fell in love with you."

Her mouth dries, and she can't force words past the cold lump lodged in her throat. Love? A few weeks ago, she wanted nothing more than the love and stability of a good man. A decent man. Now? She knows better. Marcus Pierce is anything but a good man. He used her. He threatened Maze. He killed Charlotte. He wanted to kill Lucifer. Everything he'd put her through cannot come from a place of love.

"Psychopaths don't love, Lucifer." Her head spins.

He squirms in his seat, as discomforted by this line of conversation as she is. "Yes, the point is he became... attached. When faced with the choice between hurting you further and achieving his goal, he chose you. He chose to sacrifice for once in his miserable life. He lost his Mark by heeding his better angels. Then I killed him, and my Devil face returned. How's that for irony?"

Lucifer hides his face behind his hands, laughing hollowly. The harsh sound, bordering on hysteria, shakes her out of her stupor. They've come full circle to where they started, but Chloe finally understands the full implications of what he's told her.

She hops off the counter stool and slides into Lucifer's space. The movement catches him by surprise, and his hands drop limply into his lap to reveal his wild, haunted eyes. With him seated, she doesn't have to crane her head to maintain eye contact.

He doesn't try to evade her. She thinks he's too tired to try.

He's given her the final pieces of the puzzle, and she's a damn good Detective. Celestials like Lucifer can punish and reward themselves based on what they believed they deserved. It's self-determination in its purest form.

"You're physically vulnerable because you feel emotionally vulnerable around me," she says, voice holding steady despite her somersaulting stomach.

She can see her board in her mind's eye. In the top left corner, their first case together solving Delilah's murder. CSI had recovered 9 bullet casings from the recording studio, one of which ripped through her shoulder, another shattered a glass sculpture, and the rest? Recovered as crushed slugs in a breadcrumb trail from a pool of her dried blood to where Jimmy Barnes laid injured.

"But you didn't start out that way." She plants one hand on his cheek. He stills, but she can see the muscles in his neck straining not to lean into the contact. "Not until the Carver case. Not until I shot you."

He swallows visibly, eyelids fluttering shut before nodding weakly.

That had been their fourth case together. They had known each other for less than two months, and he already felt enough to be wounded by man-made weapons. She longs desperately for the cool metal of the bullet necklace safely stowed away in her nightstand drawer. She should be wearing it. She should have never taken it off.

"Why?" Her heart hammers against her rib-cage, faster than a hummingbird's fluttering wingbeat. "Why did you keep coming back? Why work with me at all? If you stayed away, you would've been safe."

When he opens his eyes, something in him gives way. Another brick loosens and crumbles between them. He turns his head, not quite kissing her palm but his warm breath tickles her skin. "At first, I didn't know it was you. By the time I figured it out, I didn't want to stay away."

A dam inside Chloe bursts and hot tears flow down her cheeks freely. She's been searching for any hint of Lucifer's feelings for the longest time. She's turned over rock after rock through their partnership, wondering if he cared enough to see her as a friend. As something more. She'd resigned herself to never knowing the truth. She'd forced herself to accept that she would never understand him. She decommissioned her heart and stowed it away in a hiding place Pierce could only guess at.

You did choose me, he said on Forest Clay's balcony before the shit hit the fan. That was almost four weeks ago.

Why did it take him so long to realize that? Time and time again, Chloe chose Lucifer. She keeps choosing him as a partner. As a friend. As everything in between and more.

But never in a thousand years did she imagine he'd feel the same. Never did she dare to think he'd present her with proof, especially evidence this damning in its simplicity. He may be willing to die for her. He's been to Hell and back for her. But nothing will ever top this unconscious admission to the depth of his feelings.

"Detective?" He winds his voice high with distress and confusion.

She leans her forehead against his, barely seeing through the wet droplets clinging to her eyelashes. "Don't you see? We chose each other."

She wills her words to sink into his thick skull. She needs him to understand. She lowers her guard for him, knowing he could destroy her from the inside out. He offers his metaphorical heart, however ancient and atrophied it may be, and bleeds as a price. These are their choices manifested, mutual and freely given.

"Oh..." He speaks in the way when children have learned something momentous, full of awe and no small amount of incredulity.

She weeps for them both.

-x-x-x-

They spend a long while afterward treading eggshells. Chloe can leave, but she won't. The threat that Lucifer might vanish as soon as she takes her eyes off him is too great. She can't take that chance now they're talking, even if only in fits and starts. But Lucifer treats her like a feral cat, keeping her at arm's length lest she bites and gives him rabies or something.

By the time evening sets in, they've done a full circuit of the penthouse: from the kitchen to the balcony to the library and back to the living room. By unspoken agreement, they steer clear of certain topics between them, about them. It's easy when Lucifer is a treasure trove of stories. This isn't the first time he's come "topside" as he terms it. Lucifer's visited humanity many, many times over the course of its history.

She misses her Lucifer though. Her unflappable partner who uses humor to soften the blow at crime scenes and the larger-than-life personality that draws her out of her own turtle shell. This subdued creature may tell extraordinary stories, but he is a stranger.

So Chloe devises a plan.

Leaning against his bar as he pours another drink, she suggests, "Maybe we should go downstairs for the next one. I'll even join you."

He set the decanter down and twirls to face her. "Who are you and what have you done to the Detective?" he asks in jest. But his grin isn't as wide as it should be.

Chloe shrugs. "What? It could be fun. You're always telling me I need to have more fun."

Mostly, she wants to banish the gloom lingering in the depths of his fathomless eyes. Maybe Lux and its manic energy can breathe color and vibrancy back into him.

"I suppose it has been a while since I've made my rounds. People might start to wonder soon." He considers her proposal, already perking up at the prospect of attention and an adoring audience.

"It's decided. Now go get cleaned up or whatever." She gestures toward his wrinkled waistcoat with several streaks of dried snot. "You wouldn't want to disappoint your fans."

"Yourself included, Detective?" he purrs, hot breath fanning across her cheek.

She shivers. Damn, but the low registers of his voice did things to her. "You betcha. I might even be the Devil's number one fan." She means it as a joke. But the resulting smile almost splits his face in half, and she realizes how true it might be.

"Be back in a jiffy!" He bounds off to his bedroom with a renewed bounce in his steps.

Chloe knows from experience she has a good hour before Lucifer's ready. He's nothing if not fastidious about his appearance. She's seen the wall of grooming products in his bathroom. At the sound of running water, she decides she best distract herself from thoughts of a naked and wet Lucifer.

She calls Trixie. Out on the terrace with the wind in her hair, the conversation injects much-needed normality into her topsy-turvy world. She lounges on Lucifer's plush patio furniture while her daughter regales her with tales about the day-trip to the zoo. When her daughter passes the phone over to her ex, Chloe almost feels like herself again.

"Thanks again for taking her, Dan. You can drop her off tomorrow morning."

"I know it's not my weekend, but can I keep her until Monday? I'll get her to school." On the other end of the call, Dan opens and shuts several cabinet doors probably in search of dinner.

"That's fine with me," she replies absently. That would give her more time to sort out whatever the new status quo with Lucifer will be.

"Hey, Chlo." Concern bleeds through every word. "Don't spend tonight shut away alone at home. Go see a movie or take a walk. I'm worried about you after everything that's happened with Pierce."

She hesitates before answering, not knowing how he'd react. "I won't. I'm actually at Lucifer's place."

"Oh," his shock and worry ring as clear as bells. "Good to know he's doing okay then. Be careful?"

"I will."

After ending the call, she stands and stretches her hands heavenwards. Tension unfurls in the base of her spine, leaving her lighter than she's been in months. When she turns, she runs face-first into a firm chest. Lucifer. Thank... Hell, he's already dressed: dark suit, vest, and a red pocket square for a pop of color. His hair is perfectly coiffed with not a strand out of place. Tying together his effortlessly roguish appearance are his five o'clock shadow and smoky eyes.

He returns her once-over. "Detective, would you like a change of attire?"

Her gaze travels south, down her floral-print blouse and washed-out mom jeans. A wave of self-consciousness washes over her. "Should I? I mean, I didn't bring anything..."

"No need, darling. You're already perfect. Shall we?" He offers her his forearm, eyes bright with sincerity.

With her heart lodged in her throat, she takes his arm and lets him escort her to the elevator and downstairs into Lux.