It's still somewhat dark when she wakes up the following morning, feeling as if she was run over by a semi-trailer truck.
The room does not improve on second impression in the early grey of dawning light, and Chloe feels the stifling weight of something pressing down on her chest. Human feelings, as Maze would undoubtedly say, suck.
She looks over at her silent companion, only to find him dozing in the wretched chair, his long legs stretched before him, head propped against the back of the seat, and arms folded over a still open Kindle. She briefly wonders what's on the Devil's reading list; she somehow doubts she'll Milton's Paradise Lost among the titles.
('Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven' – what a load of rubbish, Detective; I obviously never said any of that, " he would protest, sucking the nicotine out of his cigarette and drinking expensive whiskey from his crystal glass," Free will - to be my own man - was the only thing I've ever wanted. )
Rising from the bed, Chloe creeps quietly towards the bathroom to relieve herself and brush her teeth without waking him up. Let sleeping dragons - or devils - lie, she thinks; at least for the moment. When her getting-ready morning routine is over, she creeps out just as softly as she crept in, and stops in her tracks to regard her sleeping partner.
He looks haggard, like he, too, has not had a proper rest for ages; his hair is mussed, eyeliner smudged – as if he was running his hand through his hair half the night, and rubbing his eyes when fatigue finally kicked in – and his lips are slightly parted, so that she catches a glimpse of his impeccably white teeth.
Chloe almost sighs; Lucifer must have the prettiest set of lips she's ever seen on a man. Possibly on a woman, too.
Finally deciding for waking the poor man up, she leans forward and cups his cheek gently, and he jerks awake immediately, instantly alert.
"Good morning," she says, smiling gently at him, and her heart skips a beat when he groggily returns her smile.
"Morning," he mutters, his voice delightfully raspy, "how's your head, Detective?"
"Better, thank you." She answers, still smiling, "I'm not going to ask how you slept, because you can't lie."
He has the nerve to smile sheepishly at her.
"Yes, so I thought…" she frowns and jerks her head towards the bed, "right, in you get; I'm already up, so you've got no more excuses. Go on, Lucifer; rest your pretty head." She throws his own words back at him, and he rises from the chair without any objections.
"Yes, Ma'am," he says and salutes, and she pushes him towards the bed, where he makes a great show of stumbling and falling unto the mattress.
"Now sleep, while I go and get us some breakfast," she orders, rummaging through one of the sticky console drawers for some fresh clothes, before turning to Lucifer, brandishing a rather threatening, pointed finger at him, "and that's an order!"
He salutes again but settles back to rest against the covers, and when Chloe feels that rebellion and resistance have been safely averted, she heads into the bathroom to change for the day. When she comes out, five minutes later, Lucifer's already asleep; lying atop the covers, with his arms and ankles crossed, as if even in sleep he's uncomfortable with their entire situation. Chloe slinks out of the room, incredibly careful with the door so as not to wake him and inevitably plagued by feelings of guilt.
He's still sleeping, 45 minutes later, when she returns with two cups of coffee and two freshly made sandwiches in hand. He looks so exhausted that she opts not to wake him, but let him sleep until rising comes naturally to him. So, to distract herself from fixating on the fact that the man she aches for at night sleeps in uneasy slumber just a few feet from her, Chloe decides to get started with the day. She downs her coffee, reaches for the discarded case file, sits down on the chair, and, using the console as a makeshift table, wolfs down her sandwich. When it becomes obvious that her sleeping partner is not about to wake up anytime soon, she downs his cup of coffee as well.
At about 11, and after Chloe has read and memorised the damn file cover to cover, Lucifer stirs and rises, rubbing his eyes like a toddler.
"Morning, sleepyhead," she smiles fondly and throws his sandwich at him, "this was very fresh a few hours ago, but I didn't have the heart to wake you. You looked like you could use the extra hours of rest."
Lucifer stretches and nods, eyeing the offering suspiciously, "what's this?"
"Breakfast." Chloe answers and rises to boil some water; he'll probably want his spiked coffee, or something resembling it, at least.
She's not wrong there.
He takes the proffered cup of coffee, spills half of the content of his flask into it and sits on the edge of the bed to eat his sandwich. Oddly enough, and to Chloe's eternal delight, he does not complain even once.
He must still be tired, she thinks guiltily.
"So," he asks when he's done eating, "what are we doing for lunch?"
Chloe laughs, and he smiles charmingly at her.
"You just had breakfast!"
"Always be prepared," he shrugs, and sips some of his coffee, keeping the grimacing to a minimum, "so, are we going out? We are a couple, after all."
Trying to ignore the nervous fluttering in her stomach at how nice that sounds, she clears her throat and presses her fingers to her nape.
"Er, no," she says, quite unable to look at him, "Ella called, she has some information for us; she said she'll come by sometime after noon, with lunch."
Lucifer downs the rest of his coffee and rises from the bed.
"Very well," he says and places the cup on the console, his arm brushing against Chloe's back, "I have great faith in Miss Lopez and her gastronomic taste. Now, I'll just pop into the shower, shall I?"
He's not waiting for a response, but practically dives into the bathroom and slams the door behind him. He's still uncomfortable, and she's still miserable. Nothing seems to chase away the tension.
Chloe doesn't move for a long while; her back still tingles.
True to her word, bouncy ray-of-sunshine Ella Lopez arrives at their lovely hovel at 12:45 sharp, carrying her backpack and three deliciously smelling, greasy bags of Mexican food. Lucifer unburdens her from her baggage at the door, inhaling the rising scent with a look of pure ecstasy on his handsome face.
"Oh, Miss Lopez," he moans obscenely, making Chloe blush to the roots of her hair, "you're a sight for sore eyes."
The tiny forensic scientist flashes him a grateful smile and pushes at his arm playfully.
"Oh, Lucifer," she croons, winking at Chloe, "you say the sweetest things!"
"You've got news for us, Ella?" Chloe cuts to the chase, because this- the happy, carefree Lucifer that her friend can freely appreciate, is probably forever lost to her. She's suddenly jealous, and hurt, and feels incredibly stupid and petty.
Lucifer looks scandalised by the swift turn to work issues.
"How about we eat first, Detective; 'talk shop' later?"
"Or," Ella cuts in, a stack of papers ready in her hand, "how about we eat while working. Where can we all sit?"
The three of them look around the 'cell' dejectedly; the room is small, and dreadful, and feels like a can of sardines, but Ella is nothing if not an optimist.
"Oh, I know!" she cries, grabbing the rumpled cover from the bed and spreading it over the shred of floor that stretches from the bed to the wall, "There! Now we can all sit together. Come on down here, it will be like a mini picnic!"
It takes some manoeuvring, but soon they're all sited with their backs against the bed, pressed against each other, with Ella in the middle. She spreads the papers before her, while Lucifer arranges the food on the cover.
"So, we have some very interesting results from the autopsy," she begins excitedly, stuffing some beef Empanada in her mouth, and tickly adds," sorry, I'm just super hungry! ", around the big bite. From the corner of her eye, Chloe sees Lucifer smiling affectionately at their friend and her appetite for the half-eaten taco on her plate disappears entirely. Something in her chest twinges painfully at the openness; an openness she's been robbed of when –
But it's futile to think about that now.
"Interesting results, Ella?" she decides to prompt the other woman instead, making her nod frantically and swallow.
"Right! So, as we deduced already, the COD is asphyxiation, but!" Ella holds up a finger, smiling triumphantly, and reaches for one of the papers in front of her, "we also found traces of Flunitrazepam in the vics' system!"
To their left, Lucifer frowns mid-bite.
"But, that's Rohypnol, isn't it?" he asks slowly and fixes his eyes on Chloe. Ella's smile widens.
"Well done, Lucifer! You know your chemistry; ten points to Ravenclaw!"
"The killer is a woman," Chloe says suddenly, frantically rearranging the case file and Dan's additional notes, "look here! All the vics are super tall," she points excitedly at the victims' profiles, "I mean, the shortest one, Andy, is 6'2! And all of them are quite firmly built. Ella, there were no signs of struggle, were there?"
Ella stares at her, eyes wide open, and shakes her head.
"Exactly!" Chloe exclaims, shoving her finger into the open file, "to be able to strangle three big, tall men that are no match to you physically, you'd have to ruffie them! We're probably dealing with a woman who's not large enough to confront a tall man when he's lucid but strong enough to squeeze the light out of an unresisting body!"
"If these are your arguments, Detective," Lucifer contradicts softly, fiddling with his plastic fork and not looking up at her, "a slightly built man will also fit the bill; must we really be so gender biased?"
He's smirking, and she can tell that he's jerking her chain with the way he ends his sentence, but it doesn't make his question any less valid.
"They were all straight," she explains simply, watching Ella nod in agreement as she piles some more food on her plate. "Andy, the truck driver, had a wife; Josh was cheating on his, and Mike just broke up with his girlfriend to go and try out his luck in Hollywood; there was no reason for them to accept a drink from a man they just met if there was no sexual attraction involved. Ergo, the killer is a woman who had some access to alcohol."
Lucifer finally looks up at her and his eyes narrow in speculation.
"The bartender," he suggests, all manner of teasing forgotten, "you said she was a woman."
But Chloe just frowns and shakes her head.
"True; but she was serving drinks all night, up until closing time; the murders occurred somewhere between midnight and two a.m., the bar was still open."
Ella puts away her plate, picks up Dan's notes, and shrugs.
"So? She may not be the murderer, just helping one!"
Chloe looks up at Lucifer who's looking right back at her with a frown on his face.
"All the more reason for the Devil to draw out her forbidden desires, right?" she asks, smiling a little; but his frown only deepens and her heart sinks. This is not the reaction she's been expecting her question to invoke, not by a long shot. It seems that no matter what she does, she only ends up making things worse; more strained, more awkward, more…more. She has no idea what to do to set things back to right, doesn't know how to extract Lucifer and herself from this endless loop of never-ending tension and trampled egg-shells.
And this case?
This case is not helping matters between them.
"Right," Ella answers instead, seemingly oblivious to the stiffness between the partners, and turns to squeeze Lucifer's shoulder, "you do your thing, man, and we'll catch this killer!"
He nods, still frowning at Chloe, but the look in his eyes is distant, and she gets the feeling that he's not entirely in the room with them.
"Lucifer…?" Ella prods warily, shaking his shoulder a bit, "everything alright there, buddy?"
He snaps back to himself, a bit dazed, and fixes Ella with a swift smile that has 'masquerade' written all over it.
"Fine and dandy, Miss Lopes," he smiles charmingly at the forensic scientist, "as always."
"Uh-ha," Ella nods sceptically at the swift evasion, clearly not buying his act, "well, I better be off," she says and rises to her feet, brushing off crumbs and any food remains from her pants, "enjoy the rest of the food, peeps. Chloe, walk me to the car? I've got something for you in the trunk."
Chloe follows her out of the room obediently, but the moment they're out of the house, the tiny ball of energy rounds up on her with no plans of letting go.
"Okay," Ella demands, sticking a finger in the detective's chest, "spill, girl. What is up with you two? The tension in that room! I mean, either call the fire department or get a room – oh, wait; you did!"
Chloe sighs and closes her eyes; so, Ella did notice. Of course, she noticed.
"It's…complicated," she explains tightly, not really wishing, or knowing how, to breach the subject, "things are, well, tense between us at the moment."
"I noticed," Ella scoffs, shaking her head, "I mean, how do you cope? There's only one bed, for starters…"
"He sleeps on the chair," Chloe says automatically, and Ella's eyes bulge.
"Woooooow," she says, whistling, "dude's so whipped, he can't even make a proper pass at you. I mean, I know he acts the British gentleman, and all; but that's taking it a bit too far if you ask me…"
Chloe kicks a tiny pebble with her foot. How can she even begin to describe the clusterfuck that is her odd relationship with Lucifer to her friend?
Somehow, she thinks that explaining that he's the Devil, and she's Chloe Decker, a 35-year-old honest to God (oh, ha-ha ) miracle with a nine-year-old child, may come across as a bit insane.
"It's not that, Ella," she says instead, "I don't think he wants to anymore."
Ella snorts and laughs a little manically.
"Are you for real, Chlo'?" she cries, gesturing wildly with her hands as means to vent off her frustration, "that man over there is madly - madly – in love with you; he's just being his usual, emotionally-constipated self. Anybody with eyes can see what Lucifer feels for you, girl."
Well, apparently 'anybody with eyes' needs to get said eyes checked.
"Right," Chloe says, her gaze averted, "well, I better get back inside, or he'll start suspecting that we're conspiring against him."
Ella frowns sadly, and throws herself at the detective, enveloping her in a stifling hug; Chloe jumps in surprise, but her limbs stay trapped in the forced embrace.
"Don't worry, Chlo'," Ella sighs, face pressed to Chloe's chest, "you'll work out your differences in no time, and we'll have beautiful Deckerstar babies to pamper! I mean, I thought you and Pierce looked good together, but man! You and Lucifer?! Holy Moley, you two are like divine together or something! That man is so pretty, he makes me want to sigh half the time, and you – "
Ella's verbal diarrhoea is interrupted by Chloe's hysterical laughter.
The Devil and a miracle – they can hardly be less divine if they tried. Chloe briefly wanders where Ella stands on all matters concerning the Antichrist.
The forensic scientist releases her hesitatingly and looks at her with an unsure smile and the beginning of a worried frown.
"Right," Ella says, nodding uncertainly, and starts retreating to her car without turning her back, "then I shall leave you both to it," and diving into her car, she hurriedly adds, "see you in a few, Decker," and slams the door shut.
Chloe is still laughing madly when Ella's car pulls away, tears running down her face, her belly aching. She can't seem to stop, and, through the ringing in her ears, doesn't hear the door behind her open, until, bend double and rocking backwards, she bumps into Lucifer's abdomen. His hands are at her waist, steadying her and stopping her from falling before either of them realises that he's holding her. Chloe jumps forward and turns to him.
"What has you laughing so hard, darling?" he asks with the beginning of a smile, now lounging in the doorway like a being made of pure lust and sin.
Well.
"Can you father the Antichrist?" Chloe blurts out before she can stop herself, and watches in sinking misery as the smile drops completely from his lips. He closes his eyes and releases a pained breath.
"There is no such thing as the Antichrist, Detective," he says quietly, opening his eyes to fix her with a look that smacks of disappointment, "but if you mean, can I procreate, then the answer is 'yes'; I can father a child, but I most defiantly am not planning to."
Chloe nods, wringing her hands in mortification, unable to look into his disappointed eyes again. She hears him exhale tiredly, somewhere above her head.
"Let me guess," he sighs, and his voice is soft – almost deceptively so – as if they are near a sickbed, or in Trixie's room, after she's fallen asleep, "Miss Lopez suggested something along the lines of 'beautiful Deckerstar babies', and it got you thinking?"
She nods, ashamed; tears gathering in her eyes.
Lucifer laughs, and the sound is cruel and harsh, and she can't help but wonder if this is how he sounded, back in –
"Don't worry, Detective," he cries in manic glee, already retreating into the room, "such ill fate will never befall you consider yourself saved from the Devil's attentions."
The door smashing in her face feels like a ringing slap to her cheek. Suddenly sick to her stomach, she leans forward and brings up the little lunch she did eat, tears clouding her sight. Bile burns down her throat, her belly cramps in pain, and she sobs in earnest, leaning against the door to fortify herself against the agony of it all.
She keeps putting her foot in her mouth, keeps hurting him with misguided assumptions and half-truths – or downright lies – she managed to glean online. Or rather , a small voice pipes from somewhere to the right of her spleen, he keeps hurting himself at your expense.
And maybe both guesses are wrong. Maybe, they keep hurting each other, and themselves, because the misunderstandings are now too great to resolve, the knots are too tight to untangle, and this is how things are going to be between them from now on. Maybe, no matter how hard she tries, she'll never get through to him, never reassure him of her – of her what? Her feelings? Her understanding?
Of her love?
And maybe, no matter how hard he tries, he'll never let her.
Perhaps the Devil and his miracle are a lost cause.
Sometime later, when Chloe finally drags herself inside the room, she finds Lucifer reading in bed, his expression thunderous. He glances up at her, no doubt ready to dismiss her as an insect, but one look at her face drives him off the bed and into her orbit.
"Detective – "he begins, worry and guilt etched on his face, "what-?"
"I'm an idiot," she croaks, and tries to bypass him to head into the bathroom, but he grabs her forearms and holds her in place.
"No," he sighs mournfully, rubbing his thumbs over her sleeves, "no, don't say that – "
"Please," she sighs, and hangs her head, suddenly very, very tired, "I just…"
He leads her to the bed, supporting her shoulders. She sinks into the dent left by his body, her nose seeking out his scent on the pillow.
"Rest, Detective, I'll wake you when it's time to go to the bar, " Lucifer says, and his voice carries over to her like an echo from beyond the Sambation, "Rest now."
She's asleep within seconds.