Chloe leaned against the doorway to Trixie's bedroom, watching as Lucifer read Trixie what must already be the fifth story in a row. If he didn't manage to say no at some point, he was going to be doing this all night. To be fair, he was doing a great job. Lucifer was a gifted storyteller, giving every character a unique voice. Thankfully, Trixie seemed to be too focussed on the stories themselves to wonder why her mother was suddenly so much better at doing voices.
Lucifer kept glancing in her direction from time to time, as if he needed to reassure himself that he was doing okay, and that Chloe was still there. He seemed to be taking the job of bringing Trixie to bed very seriously. The devil is reading my daughter a bedtime story, she thought, and waited for the panic to rise up again, but this time it remained strangely absent.
She turned around, convinced that Lucifer could handle this on his own, and sat down in the living room, feeling exhausted. She closed her eyes for a moment. All of a sudden, she was back in the church, wings bursting from her back. She gasped, opening her eyes again. It didn't look like she would be getting any sleep anytime soon.
She looked at her hand, slowly making a fist and then stretching out her fingers several times in a row. Except it wasn't her hand. It was bigger, the fingers longer. It was more masculine. It was impeccably manicured, to be sure, perhaps even more so than her own hands, but it was still a man's. She placed the hand flat on her chest, feeling the muscles through the fabric of the dress shirt. It didn't feel anything like her chest. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the feeling of being a stranger in her own body.
The panic was back again. Don't think about it. It's going to be fine. She took a couple of deep breaths, leaning back on the couch. She felt the rise of her chest under her hand with every breath. She moved her hand downwards slowly, over her abs, all of a sudden assaulted by the memory of a dream she had quite some time ago, where she had run her hands over Lucifer's body much like this.
Chloe was pretty sure that, at the time, she hadn't been able to feel her touch from the other side, feel the muscles in her abdomen tense, then relax again. Her breathing sped up. She opened her eyes again, drawing her hand back quickly, sitting up straight. This was wrong on so many levels. She was not going down that road.
Lucifer came out of Trixie's bedroom, closing his eyes for a moment and sighing, as if he had been busy defusing a bomb rather than reading a story to her daughter. Chloe was immensely grateful that she had managed to stop her train of thought this time before any visible reaction took place. Well, apart from the blush that she felt heating up her cheeks.
She cleared her throat, hoping he wouldn't notice. "You were great with Trixie today", she said sincerely.
Lucifer stared at her, blinking rapidly, as if this were the last thing he had ever expected to hear from her.
"I'm sorry I had a meltdown earlier", Chloe added.
"I assure you, detective, you have nothing to apologize for. I believe it is rather remarkable how well you've been dealing with this whole situation."
Chloe nodded, lost in thought. "Do you think I can-" She stopped mid-sentence, hit by a sudden suspicion. She got up quickly, snuck over to Trixie's bedroom and swiftly opened the door. Trixie almost fell out, having been leaning with her ear against the door, eavesdropping.
Trixie gave her an unapologetic shrug. Chloe pointed to her bed, raising her eyebrows.
"When did you become a detective? That's so cool", Trixie said, clearly trying to divert attention away from the fact that she had been listening in on their conversation.
Chloe furrowed her brow, wondering what she was talking about. Ah. "No, that's just something your mother keeps teasing me with. I'm still just a consultant. Now, off to bed you go."
Trixie narrowed her eyes, looking like she was putting the pieces of a puzzle together. Chloe was certain that if what had happened to her today hadn't been so very unbelievable Trixie would have figured it out by now.
"Still don't like your new voice. It's boring", Trixie complained, then trotted back to her bed.
Chloe took a deep breath, then closed the door and turned around. Lucifer had sat down on the couch in the meantime. Much like herself, he looked exhausted. Well, it had been a long day for him, too.
She dropped down on the couch next to him, leaning back. She rubbed her hand over her eyes, trying to come up with some idea of what to do next. I guess I have to follow Lucifer's lead on this one. He's the expert, she thought, looking over at him. The expert on soul exchanges. Celestial matters. Because he's an archangel. She briefly closed her eyes once more. For the love of God, stop thinking about it!, she told herself again. Oh God. He knows God. Personally. He has talked to God. God. I'm sitting next to a son of God.
"Chloe?", Lucifer whispered, for fear of Trixie listening in on them, or maybe in an effort to calm her, she wasn't sure.
She took a couple of deep breaths. She really had to stop freaking out every time she thought abbout this. So, he's an angel, no big deal, right?
"I'm okay", she answered quietly. He didn't look very convinced.
"What were you about to ask me just now?"
"Hmm? Ah, yes. I was wondering if I'm able to do your what's your deepest desire trick now or if you are still able to do it, even though you're me."
Lucifer frowned. "You make it sound like a parlor trick. I don't know. I guess there is no point in you trying it out on me, as that wouldn't tell us anything."
Chloe nodded thoughtfully. "Why am I immune to your charms, anyway?"
Lucifer looked uncomfortable. Well, slightly more uncomfortable than before. It seemed being in a different body was taking its toll on him as well. He shifted around on the couch restlessly.
"We need to talk. About a lot of things. But it's probably better if we wait until we've fixed this. You already had more than enough to deal with for one day, don't you agree?"
Chloe made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort. If that wasn't the understatement of the year.
"What's your plan?", she asked.
Lucifer looked at her with a blank expression, and she realized, to her horror, that he didn't have any clue what to do next.
"How about we ask Amenadiel or Maze for help? They are celestial beings too, right? They know about this stuff, don't they?"
Lucifer started laughing, then caught himself. "Yeah, don't ever call Maze a celestial being to her face, that won't end well."
"Fine, Amenadiel, then. Would he know something about this box?"
Lucifer looked affronted. "We don't need his help. We can sort this out ourselves, without him ever needing to know that it happened at all."
"Lucifer."
"I've been doing just fine on my own for millennia, I really don't see why we need to bring h-"
"Lucifer."
He looked at her with an almost pleading expression. "But he's going to be all smug and condescending about it."
"Yeah? You know what? I don't care. If he can help us get out of this mess, it's worth it. Your ego can deal with a little bruising."
"But- but- you don't understand. I'll never hear the end of this. Tectonic plates will have shifted and he will still be smugly reminding me of how I needed his help because I accidentally swapped souls with a mortal."
"Oh, stop being so dramatic. Besides, tectonic plates shift all the time. Call him or I will do it. I already have your phone. I just need to figure out your lock pattern and I can call him myself." She took his phone out of her pocket. "Hmm, what could it be? Some obscene gesture perhaps?"
"Give me that", Lucifer grumbled, grabbing for the phone. Chloe let him have it. "I'll text him. Happy now?"
"Thank you", Chloe said sincerely.
"For the record, this is my lock pattern." He unlocked the phone in front of her. The pattern spelled out a capital D. Chloe snorted.
"D? What, for devil? Isn't that a little corny? And not very secure?"
"Pssh. I have nothing to hide. There's a bunch of dick pics on here that I keep trying to leak, but for some reason the papers refuse to print them."
"Outrageous."
"Indeed." He glared at her. "You were being sarcastic again, weren't you?"
Chloe grinned at him. Then her smile faltered. "That's what the D stands for, isn't it?"
Lucifer rolled his eyes. "It doesn't refer to me or my penis. Let it go. Now, I would offer to sleep on the couch and let you have your bedroom, but that might look strange to the offspring in the morning, so I'm afraid you'll have to make do with the couch."
"Wouldn't it make more sense for me to stay at Lux? Trixie might get confused if you stay the night. I mean, I. You know what I mean."
He gave her a horrified expression. "What if the child needs something in the middle of the night?"
"You seemed to be doing perfectly fine earlier."
He shook his head, giving her a panicky look, and Chloe took pity on him. "Fine. I'll sleep on the couch. I'll set an alarm and try to get up before her."
Lucifer looked immensely relieved. "Are you sure you're fine with me sleeping in your bed?", he inquired.
"Seriously?" Her voice had risen considerably, so she tuned it back down to a whisper. "You're in my body. I don't think sleeping in my bed can invade my privacy any further at this point."
"Detective, I-", he sounded like he wanted to apologize, and Chloe interrupted him, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. This is not your fault. You've been a perfect gentlemen."
He smiled brightly at her compliment, clearly pleased. Chloe shook her head. "I really should know better at this point than to further inflate your ego."
"My ego is not inflated. It is perfectly in line with my skills, which are vastly superior to the average mortal's."
Chloe chuckled. "Okay, then. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, detective." Chloe didn't move, and Lucifer wondered what she was waiting for, until he remembered that he was the one sleeping in her bedroom. He stood up quickly. "Right. Any drawers I should stay out of?"
Chloe rolled her eyes at him, and sighed. "Please stay out of all the drawers. The pyjamas are on the bed."
"Okay. Yes. Goodnight." With that, he vanished into Chloe's bedroom. Chloe tried to recall the location of Dan's old sweat pants and sweater that were lying around somewhere. It was going to be uncomfortable enough sleeping in a different body, she was for sure not going to attempt it in a suit.
And now her mind was getting ahead of her again, presenting her with a vivid picture of undressing Lucifer, and dammit when had she become a horny teenager? Maybe she just wasn't used to Lucifer's hormones? Did angels even have those? She closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind. It would be a long restless night if she kept this up.
She realized that they never came back to Ella to talk about the case. They were letting the murder victim down. Time was crucial in an investigation like this. Maybe she should have handed this case over to one of her colleagues due to personal reasons. But then Lucifer would have had to explain those reasons to the lieutenant, and she had some doubts how that would have turned out, given his whole deal with always teling the truth.
She decided she would get on the case first thing in the morning, even if she was still stuck in Lucifer's body. After all, it wasn't like there was anything she could do about it. Better to leave that in the hands of Amenadiel and Lucifer, and work on something where she could actually make a difference. Take her mind off of this whole madness until they found a way to reverse it.
And, who knew, maybe she would go to sleep, and wake up in her own bed, and her own body, tomorrow morning, and it would turn out that all of this had been nothing more than a crazy dream after all. She could always hope, right?