Note: Hello everyone! Thank you very much for the warm welcome of the first chapter. I havn't written in a very long while, so this means much to me.
On an other note, I don't have any beta reader yet, and I'm not a native english speaker, so I'm sorry if there is grammatical mistakes. If anyone - particularly native english speakers - want to volonteer as a beta, I'd be very thankfull.
Chapter 2.
"Lucifer! " Chloe cried, relieved. She wanted to throw herself at him but she couldn't find a single piece of skin that wasn't burnt. "What happened to you?"
"Oh, nothing to concern you too much about, detective" he waved. "My dad took me for a walk in the desert, as they say, and I hadn't packed sunscreen. Desert is kind of his thing, know that I think of it…" Then, eyeing her completely baffled face "It's all fine, really. I would have cleaned up, but I didn't want to delay any longer and… leave you thinking I had run off again. But what about you? Surely it's not my short delay, right? "
"Lucifer, come in "she eyed his wobbly legs and unnatural leaning on her door, and she carefully placed an arm under his to steady him to the couch. His back felt strange, as if his muscles were all tensed the wrong way. But she couldn't really fathom what he had just gotten through.
"So, your dad did this. " Chloe started slowly, shoving a large glass of water in his hand, leaving the jar on the table. He gulped it rapidly, then served himself another one. He probably needed an IV drop. "Lucifer, you should be in the hospital".
"Not to worry, detective! I'm sure you're an apt nurse." He tried to wiggle his eyebrows, but that was visibly painful. "As for my dad, well, yes, this one's on him. I'm not sure what it all means, thought. He did something strangely appreciative."
"Appreciative?" Chloe started to felt sick. And angry. Really, really angry. The sea of emotions from her day, the gravity of it all, washed over her with fierceness. "Lucifer, that's not appreciative at all. I've seen how hard family matters can be but you can't let that happen. You can't let him continue. Whether you're an adult or a kid this is kidnapping, and torture! You're barely standing. Your dad has to be stopped!"
He smiled fondly, amusingly "A woman after my own heart". Before she could add anything, ready to fight him and his belittling of the situation, his shoulder slumped and he said in a breath "But before you vow to wage war on my family, Detective, there's something you really should know".
His wings opened in a whoosh.
§
"Amenadiel, get your fingers out of your ass!"
He jumped on his feet, startled. Maze was rushing angrily toward him from the other end of the empty improv theater. She grabbed him by the collar and shoved him unceremoniously on the ground.
"Wait, Maze…" She was shoving punchs at him now, but he was just wiggling, trying to avoid them. There was no way he'd hit her. Somehow this made her angrier.
"Fight back!" she screamed. "You want to be on your father's side again, FINE!" She landed a particularly vicious punch on the side of his face, and he tried to say something, but she wasn't giving him any time. "But I have breaking news for you, I'm a demon, and that's not gonna change! So if you won't help Lucifer, FIGHT!"
"I can't!" She punched him again. "Because daddy will think less of you?" Her punch landed on the floor, denting the tiles. "I thought you were his friend, but you're no gonna even ask what they did to him? You HY-PO-CRI-TE!" She drew the word, trying to land punches between the syllables. But he somehow got half up, grabbed her wrists and rolled her to the side, pinning her down. Her eyes were wet with tears of rage and he'd never seen her so wounded.
"Maze, I already did! I already asked. Dad. Every brother and sister I could think of. Nobody's responding!" That seemed to calm her a bit. But not for long.
"Then you're not trying hard enough!" she roared, fighting to get of his grip. "They've taken him, he's probably back to hell. He's gonna be miserable. Chloe's gonna be miserable. And I'm stuck here! But you don't care!"
"Maze! " It was taking him all his forces to keep her on the ground, and his eyes watered at his brother's disappearance, at seeing her like this. "I did my best! No one's answering, and I don't have my wings back, there's nothing I can do! But I care about him! I care about you!"
She was calmer now, and abruptly shoved her arms from his grip. He rolled to the side.
"I'm sorry. My best is just not good enough."
§
Chloe was stunned, mouth open, immobile.
"Right" Lucifer's hands dropped on his tights. "Slight sense of déjà vu. I guess I'll leave you space to process" He got up, fully prepared for Chloe to stay like that all week. But his legs were still weak and his balance was off; he had to steady himself on the couch with his wing.
"You're… an angel."
Lucifer's face lit up. "Speaking already, are we?" he seemed so pleased with her she sought it was absurd: she distinctly felt like an idiot. "Well, yes, angel, I am that, but that's not all of it. I was afraid these were going to give the wrong impression." he added. He was hesitant again, apprehensive. The whole thing made absolutely no sense to Chloe.
"So, angels exists" she breathed.
"Yes. Making progress I see."
Somehow, him annoying her was familiar enough to shake her brain. She took it as a pavlovian response to their partnership. "But why do you insist you're the… oh" Realization drowned, and she frowned. This made so little sense! The angel of booze and drugs, protector of threesomes, that's a title she could make sense of. The angel of bad come-ons and whining all the time like a kid. The angel of music. She took a sharp intake of breath. The angel of desire.
But the devil? No way.
Facing her, Lucifer was making faces, palm extended, urging her on. Right, she was probably taking a long time with that thing.
"You're the devil?" and still she hesitated.
"Yes!" Lucifer exclaimed, throwing his hands to the sky. "Like I've been telling you all along! Me! The guy who don't lie!"
"But you're not evil at all! And you're so…"she gestured his body. Don't say handsome, that's a bad idea. "…angelic".
"Am I now?" he said with a big flirty smile, like she just said handsome. So much for synonyms. Then his face fell a bit, more serious. "Well yes, but there is another face to it. Although seeing how you raged on a couple of sunburns, I'm not sure you'd take it so well. " He fell back on the couch, dizzy, and got another glass of water. Could someone get drunk on water? He hadn't really tried that one before.
Face to him, the detective was still eying him critically.
"Yes" he voiced slowly "I really am the Devil. That was not a metaphor" The bloody woman. He thought she'd run upon seeing the monster that he was, or that she'd freeze like Dr Linda. He had barely allowed himself to hope for anything else than her never wanting to talk to him again, and wondered how to convince her he was wasn't the devil everyone described. He never thought it would take so much energy to convince her he was a monster in the first place.
"So your crazy manipulative, asshol-y and abusive dad is… God." He nooded. So much for humanity, she thought. "Great. Wait… is my roommate actually a demon? "
That got him fidgeting a bit. "Well, she is, but please, Detective, don't be too harsh on her. She's already going to kill me for telling on one of her friends again."
Maze, adorably spread on the couch with her daughter in her arms and candy everywhere. That seemed to be somehow the only image she could conjure of her. Then Lucifer: driving Trixie to school. Making breakfast. Telling her her father would be proud. Deeply heartbroken at Father Frank's death. Explaining, that day on the beach, that she was too good for him.
She realized the man had that hesitant, fearful look on his eyes, like a kid expecting to get hit. He was staying carefully away, trying to make himself as non-intrusive as he was capable.
"You know, I know I missed catholic school and all, but you guys are really not as depicted"
She smiled, and he felt like flying again.
The moment stretched a bit, and he was looking at her with un-hidden awe. Right, she knew she should probably be more shocked. Do something. But honestly, she wasn't completely past the fact that he was simply back yet.
Suddenly, his eyes fell on the mess she had done on the floor with the surveillance photos, and he lit up like a kid in front of a Christmas tree.
"Detectiive!" he exclaimed sheepishly. "Are you keeping pictures of me? Oh, this one's not bad – Anyway. What's all this?"
This got her out of her haze: she actually had people to call. Hopefully Maze hadn't killed Amenadiel yet. Who was probably actually an angel too, the odd stalker.
"Well, we were investigating you". He seemed genuinely surprised, and really his obliviousness to other people's feeling was actually the greatest mystery of all. "Lucifer, you were kidnapped. Ella pulled the video surveillance from the hospital. We were looking for you everywhere!" The memory of her all engulfing worry made her voice hitch. She took a long breath "I should call the precinct, and Maze, let them know you're okay."
"But… surely I wasn't gone that long, right?" He looked at his burns again, evaluating. "A couple of days at the most?" Then saw her concerned face, and she could watch the cogs turning behind his eyes. "Wait… is that why you look to bad?"
She let out and exasperated puff. So she was slow with having her world turned over by celestial epiphany kind of stuff. He was slow with regular, kindergarten-level emotions dealings. Full mom's mode, she gestured toward the bathroom.
"You need to go shower. " He wiggled his eyebrows, because of course he would. "I know you don't want to go to the hospital, but we need to do something about those burns. I'll make the calls in the meantime." She frowned, then added "Does petroleum jelly work on celestial beings?"
He smiled fondly, mildly amused "Of course that would be your first theological question." She was starting to protest, but he cut her short. "That'll be fine. You're right, I'll go clean up." He disappeared in the hallway.
Then rushed back a couple of seconds later. "Will you still be there when I'm back?"
His eyes were so hesitant, his posture so different form the exultation of confidence she was used to. Her heart clenched a bit. She was the one having her world turned over by celestial revelations. Why was he the one needing to be comforted?
"Lucifer, I'm not going anywhere."