"Ow", Chloe said, her wing twitching.
She was lying flat on her stomach on the couch, wings spread out to either side of her. Lucifer was busy delicately brushing pieces of glass and leftovers from her bathroom tiles out of her left wing.
The feeling of his fingers running through the feathers was actually quite nice, if it weren't for the pieces of glass that had gotten imbedded in the wings.
"Ow", she said again, as Lucifer removed one of the bigger pieces.
"Sorry", he said, sounding guilty.
Chloe opened her eyes, looking at him. "Did you know this was going to happen? Couldn't you have given me a warning? Or suggested to move to another location?"
Lucifer didn't meet her eyes, keeping himself busy with taking care of the wings. "It doesn't happen to me. Usually. I failed to take your inexperience with the wings into account. This is all my fault. I'm sorry."
She waved her hand. "Don't beat yourself up over it. If I had more self-restraint this wouldn't have happened either. I'm just worried what I'm going to tell Trixie about the state of our bathroom. I don't want to lie to her."
"I know somebody who can fix it for you. He owes me a favour. I can have him come by within the hour. Trixie will never realize it was broken in the first place."
Chloe furrowed her brow. "I highly doubt somebody will be able to order and install perfectly matching tiles by the time Trixie comes home, even if he owes a favor to the devil."
"You're right. Your bathroom could do with a makeover anyway. How about we get somebody in to do a complete renovation? I'll pay for it, of course, seeing as this whole thing was my fault."
"I don't know, Lucifer."
"C'mon. Let me do this small thing, at least."
"And what do I tell Trixie? I woke up this morning and decided to have the bathroom renovated? She's suspicious enough as it is."
"We'll tell her the truth, naturally. You, as in Lucifer, broke it, and insisted to pay for it."
"Yeah, that won't make her suspicious at all. I'm really not comfortable with telling her all these half-truths." She sighed. "But I also don't see any better option at the moment. I don't think I could explain what's really going on in any believable way. It would be way too scary for her."
"You underestimate your daughter", Lucifer said thoughtfully, continuing to clean her wings. He reached another painful spot, and Chloe instinctively retracted the wing.
"Easy", Lucifer said, jumping backwards quickly.
Chloe lifted her head from the couch, trying to meet his eyes again. "How come this hurts so much? Didn't you tell me once that a gunshot is nothing more than a flick of the finger to you? Are your wings especially delicate or what?"
Lucifer sighed. "They're the toughest part, actually."
"You could have fooled me", she said sarcastically. "OW", she added as he picked out another piece of glass.
"I'm having a bit of a mortality situation at the moment. Nothing to worry about. Just try not to get hurt or killed. Since you're usually a full time mortal that should come naturally to you."
She dropped her head back down, closing her eyes. "How does an archangel get into a mortality situation?"
"It's- complicated", he said evasively. Chloe decided not to push him, and changed the topic.
"We still have a case to solve, you know."
Lucifer grimaced. "Can't we hand this one off to one of your colleagues? After all, we are a bit preoccupied at the moment."
"Hmm-mm. And you'll tell them what, exactly?"
"How about, I can't take this case because I swapped bodies with my partner and then came my wings out in the shower?", Lucifer deadpanned.
Chloe groaned. "Yeah, that'll get me off the case for sure. Also any other case I might want to work in the future." She rubbed her hand over her eyes. "How about you just say 'personal reasons'?"
"You know I don't lie."
"That's not a lie. Swapping personalities sounds like a personal reason to me."
"Fine. We don't have time to split our focus anyway. We need to put all our energy into finding a solution for this." He gestured in between the two of them.
"And the victim deserves better than two entirely distracted investigators on their case."
He waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, sure, that too."
"Did you reach Amenadiel?", Chloe asked, already having an inkling what the answer was going to be.
"I didn't text him yet", Lucifer admitted.
"Lucifer", Chloe said, exasperated.
"I'll do it. Eventually. I'm a devil of my word. I just thought, maybe, somehow we could find another way-"
"You know what? I'll text him. Seeing as you're not man enough to ask for help when you need it."
Lucifer sat down on the arm rest of the sofa, pouting. There really was no other word for it. "If you must", he grumbled.
Her phone on the table vibrated. Lucifer went to retrieve it, had a look, and hummed.
"What is it now?", Chloe asked.
Lucifer sounded apologetic when he replied. "It's Ms. Lopez. She wanted to take a closer look at the artifact and found that you had checked it out of evidence and never returned it. She asks what's going on, and if you can bring it to the lab for further testing."
Chloe closed her eyes, beyond exasperated now. "Explain to me how, exactly, you didn't see this coming? You checked it out of evidence as me, using my badge, faking my signature, and thought nobody would notice if you just never brought it back?" Her voice raised considerably towards the end. Lucifer flinched.
"I- forgot about it", Lucifer admitted.
"You forgot about it?" Chloe stood up, advancing on him, the wings spreading out on either side of her as far as the living room would allow. "What if we'd lost the box at that church? I could have gotten into a lot of trouble!"
Lucifer stood frozen in place, staring at her eyes, swallowing.
Chloe glared at him for a moment longer, furious. Then she blinked, and took a step backwards. "Sorry. I should never have allowed you to take it out of the precinct. It's my fault as much as yours."
Lucifer didn't reply. He slowly raised a hand in a placating gesture. It seemed as if he didn't want to make any quick movements. She wasn't some dangerous animal, for God's sake.
"Okay. I'm sorry, too. What do you think we should do?" He spoke calmly, sounding as if he actually meant it when he said he was sorry.
A bit more of Chloe's anger dissipated. "Tell her we were following up on a lead which could tell us more about what happened to us at the crime scene, and we needed the box for it, but it didn't pan out, and we'll get it back to her asap."
Lucifer looked like he wanted to argue but changed his mind at the last second. He nodded.
"It'll be waiting for us in evidence once we figure out how to make it work again, okay? It's a safe place to store it, actually", Chloe reassured him, wondering why he wasn't putting up a fight over this.
"Makes sense", he said, and Chloe still couldn't figure out what had gotten into him.
She reached out her hand. "You know what? Let me write it. Otherwise, she'll pick up on your weird phrasing and excessive use of emojis."
Lucifer gingerly handed her the phone. He cleared his throat. "Would you mind putting those away?", he asked nonchalantly, nodding his head to the side. Chloe followed his eyes and saw that the wings were spread out to almost their full length on either side of her, looking quite threatening.
"Sorry. I didn't realize they were doing that." She managed to fold them up without problems, grimacing when the movement dislodged more glass.
"I am truly sorry. I know your work is important to you, and I would never do anything to jeopardize that. At the time, I thought it would be a quick fix, and we'd return it immediately, and afterwards it just kind of- slipped my mind."
Chloe, being intimately familiar with both her own voice and Lucifer's moods, picked up on a strange tone on the last part. Lucifer sounded almost scared.
"Are you okay?", she asked. It was a stupid question, really. Obviously, he wasn't, just like she wasn't. But there seemed to be something else going on.
"I don't want to burden you with even more worries. Let's just-"
"Out with it. I think you can assume I can handle it at this point", she said, infusing her voice with a little of Lucifer's trademark smugness.
He sighed. "Fine. You know, you and I, we are- ah, very different. You're a mortal and I'm- I'm not. My mind works in a completely different way. There's millennia of memories and experiences and, I guess, all of me to contain, and I'm not sure-"
"Are you trying to tell me that you're worried my puny mortal mind can't handle all of your magnificient angelic presence?", Chloe asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"That's not how I would have phrased it, but yes."
"Okay, Lucifer. As someone who has been dealing with your angelic presence in my life for quite some time now, let me assure you that there is nothing to worry about."
"But what if there is? What if forgetting things is already the first sign of deterioration?" He sounded genuinely scared.
Chloe put her hands on his arms. "So, you've never forgotten anything while you were still yourself, have you?"
He fidgeted in place. "Sure I have, but-"
"But nothing. It's going to be fine."
"Detective, you're literally the last mortal I would ever want to harm."
Chloe was taken aback for a moment. "Why is that?", she asked, wondering what made her so special.
"Because you're special", he replied as if he'd read her mind.
"But why?"
He started fidgeting again. "You're- you just are. Let's just do our utmost to get this situation reverted as soon as possible, okay?"
He was very blatantly trying to steer her away from something he didn't want to talk about. Chloe let him get away with it, again. It didn't seem like the right time to force the issue. She nodded her agreement.
"Okay. But the first thing we're trying is talking to Amenadiel."
Lucifer's shoulders slumped, and Chloe knew he'd accepted defeat on the matter. She nodded her thanks, and picked up his phone again to finally text his brother.