"All right, so what would be involved in actually talking to Hell?" Chloe asked cautiously.

"Well, for something special like this I'd have to take you to my throne first, Detective. One of two of them, anyway," Lucifer added offhandedly.

At that, Chloe folded her arms across her chest and stared at him.

"You've got two thrones?" she said in disbelief.

"Yes, Detective!" he said a bit too brightly. "That's the main one."

He pointed a finger towards the tall, pale and rocky spire in the distance that Chloe had seen and puzzled over when Lucifer had flown her down to Hell.

There was a throne… at the top of that? One of them, anyway?

She stared at the spire for a long beat then straight back at Lucifer, her eyebrows raised.

He then waved a hand in the direction of the black castle in the distance.

"There's also a second throne in my castle."

"What would Linda say to all this?" she said dryly.

"She would say… oh yes, it was a healthy form of self-expression, Detective," he said helpfully, trying to look as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"Nope. That sentence alone must be worth at least two therapy sessions, I think, Lucifer," she commented, rolling her eyes at him.

"Sorry, it will have to be some other kind of sessions, darling," he said regretfully but with a gleam in his eyes.

"Don't change the subject," she said, though the corner of her mouth twitched. Give him any excuse to outrageously flirt with her and he was running with it. Admittedly, she had missed that about him, after all. Not that she was going to say that out loud.

"Let me get this straight," she said carefully. "So, if I want to talk to Hell itself, you'll have to fly me up to throne number one on top of that spire over there. There's no way I'm climbing up there, of course, because I don't want to fall down and see if I can die twice. Got that?"

"I would never let you fall, Detective," he said soberly, his dark eyes sad.

Chloe blinked. Whoops, she thought and went to give him a hug.

"I've got ash on me, Detective, I don't want to make you dirty," Lucifer said in a bemused voice, trying to put some distance between them. He didn't want the filth of Hell on his Detective.

For indeed, while they had been talking, further ash had been wafting down from time to time upon his shoulders and down his black jacket as well as his hair. Sometimes the ash was easy to remove, Lucifer thought. But on other times it stuck to his skin like tar and only came off after thorough washing, his powers having no affect upon it.

"Hey, it's OK," she said softly, reaching up to brush the ash off his jacket which came off easily at her touch and fell to the ground.

"There's some on your hair too," she added.

Chloe carefully brushed the ash that was in his dark hair off to the side where it blew away. There was a good chance that more ash would fall on him again, she thought. It looked as if this was a feature, not a bug, of Hell. But that didn't mean she had to like it falling on her partner, or not do something about it.

"There, that's better," she said briskly after a few moments.

Lucifer's gaze, slightly wondering now, never left her face.

"Thank you, Detective," he said in a low voice and brushed her cheek gently with his fingers, her smile in return delighting him. For once in eons, he didn't mind the wretched ash at all.

He unfurled his wings.

"Up we go, Detective," Lucifer said gently and swept her up in his arms, holding her close for a moment before his wings gave a powerful flap, propelling them upward.

Chloe saw brief glimpses of shining white wings in some of the mirrored windows of Lucifer's building as they ascended. She would never take for granted flying with him like this, she thought. There were swirls of grey ash in the air but none of it actually fell on them. She felt revulsion at even the thought of smears of ash on his pristine white feathers.

It did not take long for the spire to draw closer; his wings expertly caught an updraft that helped propel them to the top where Chloe could see a throne created out of columns of pale stone.

Lucifer said in her ear, "Hold on, darling!" and in the next few moments everything seemed to blur… then he was sitting on his throne and she was sitting sideways on his lap, an arm of his firmly around her waist. His wings had vanished.

Chloe looked at him and for a moment he seemed to be a remote stranger, a fallen angel regal and cold upon his throne. Quick to punish any sign of wrongdoing in his kingdom.

Then Lucifer smiled at her reassuringly and he was the extrovert goofball he had been at work again, getting her coffee just the way she liked it and eating some of Dan's pudding afterwards because why not?

"The throne isn't big enough for two, Detective. You had to sit upon my lap."

He didn't have to sound so pleased with himself about that fact, Chloe sighed to herself. Men!

She looked around herself, peering at the throne. Looked down... and quickly looked back up. Maybe that hadn't been such a good idea, as it was a long way down.

"You built this yourself?" she asked, amazed.

"Yes, Detective," Lucifer said soberly.

Eons ago, Lucifer had built the spire that climbed upwards to the grey excuse for a sky. He had stopped and built a throne at its top when it would have become too stupid to continue, screaming his rage and fury up to Dad afterwards. Ignoring the tears on his ruined face… some of them for the loss of his flawless white wings that had been replaced with bat-like monstrosities.

"So, you can control things from here?" she ventured.

Lucifer nodded, his arm squeezing her gently.

"Yes, Detective. I can monitor Hell for any signs of instability or trouble amongst my subjects, the flow of souls into this place. When souls come to Hell they are usually brought to me in groups at a time, either at the base of this spire or before my throne in the castle. The ones who feel guilty for their sins get their own cell with a customised Hell loop. Those who refuse to feel guilty… well, they're given special attention, Detective, sometimes by me," he said solemnly.

For a moment that ancient weariness returned to his voice again and there was sympathy in Chloe's eyes when she looked at him.

"What's a Hell loop?" she asked.

Lucifer looked gravely at her.

"Imagine you're looking after a little brother and you both go for a walk in the countryside. But you ignore him when he runs off to look at something and your phone is more interesting, anyway. He falls and hits his head on something, dying later in hospital. The guilt never leaves you and when you end up here, in your Hell loop you endlessly replay what led to his death. Many souls don't always remember the time between when they died and the start of the loop."

Chloe looked at him, her eyes wide.

"So, that would mean that some of them would think they were still alive," she said in realisation. "Stuck in an endless Groundhog Day of guilt without really knowing they're dead."

"Yes, Detective," Lucifer agreed.

TBC

A/N: I think one of the creepiest episodes of Lucifer was the one with Linda's obsessive ex-husband. At the end you realise he's actually in a Hell loop, but because of his circumstances, he doesn't seem to realise he's dead and his loop has been replaying for quite a while. That was my interpretation, anyway. Brr.