The aftermath of Lucifer and Michael's dual-wielded revelation has summoned the rest of the conspiratorial crew to Lux. They meet downstairs in the late morning, wedged into one of the white leather couches while Patrick, ever the loyal bartender, diligently scrubs the remains of yet another debauched night from the bar.
Eve is the first to burst through the doors, her footfalls eerily loud against the freakishly well-lit, silent expanse of nightclub that lays before her.
"Oh, my god," she gasps, running across the dance floor and scooping Chloe into a ragged hug. "Are you okay? We were so worried, you—"
She pulls back, holding Chloe by the shoulders as wide, dark eyes search her face. "Back at the house — I wanted to stay and help," she insists, "But Lucifer was screaming at us to go, and he seemed so upset, and you were—"
Lucifer shifts uncomfortably. It's the first Chloe is hearing of this — the stretch of time between her crash into darkness and her freezing resurrection in the shower is nothing more than blank space.
"I'm fine," she offers kindly, sparing both he and Eve the angst of continuing on. She lays a reassuring hand across Lucifer's thigh, beneath the table that butts against the sofa. "It was…just some crazy fluke."
Not quite.
It seems to put Eve at ease, though, and she nods in sated reassurance. A ways behind her, Maze saunters across the sun-drenched club, pausing in her predatory approach at the sight of Chloe. A singular wave of relief curls the tip of her hooked snarl into something resembling a grin.
"Decker," she nods. "Welcome back."
The easy cadence of her tone is betrayed by a slight, blink-and-you-miss-it waver in her gruff voice. She latches an arm around Chloe's neck and yanks her into her chest, holding her in a suffocatingly friendly chokehold until Chloe is tapping out and scrambling her fingers along Maze's arm.
Amenadiel is the last to join them, slipping into the booth beside Lucifer and folding his hands atop the table. Eve drops down beside Chloe while Maze remains standing, pressing her thighs against the edge of the table as she leans in close and drags the tip of her knife across the wood top.
"Don't scratch my wood," Lucifer whines, catching himself in his own innuendo and offering himself a peevish grin. He looks pointedly to Eve. "Only joking. She's always been more of a biter, as I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear. Aren't you, Mazikeen?"
"Gross," she frowns, hurling a crumpled napkin from the table and hitting him square in the jaw. Chloe stifles a laugh — and for a moment, everything seems easy. Normal. Eve, flushed and blushing beside her, Maze bristling in irked amusement, Amenadiel's eyes narrowed in confusion against the flitting innuendo, and Lucifer, preening against the cushions in the aftermath of Maze's playful assault.
The illusion shatters when irregular footfalls drum against the staircase and mar the sounds of amiable chatter. Michael has taken longer to arrive than any of them, despite having only come from the penthouse — Lucifer had refused to allow him in the elevator with himself and Chloe, and had in fact pressed the emergency button as soon as they had arrived downstairs, rendering the elevator useless and somewhat cruelly forcing his clipped-winged, shuffling brother to take the rather arduous trip down the maintenance stairwell.
"I'm embracing metaphors now, Detective, remember?" He had said, anticipating Chloe's tight-lipped shake of the head, "If he wants his wings back, he'll have to take the first steps." He had laughed here, immune to the effects of her exaggerated eye roll but not to the subtle brush of fingertips against his shirt, or to the warmth in his chest that had erupted beneath her touch.
Despite his more-than-momentary setback, Michael arrives with a staggering pant, alerting the gathered group of his presence well before he can even make it onto the ground floor. Maze, still standing with legs flush against the table, leaps to readied attention. Her blade sways a little with the force of her rapid departure, wiggling against its wedged position in the tabletop.
"Fuck no," she hisses, pointing accusatorially as Michael pauses on the bottom step.
She makes for her knife, reaching for the hilt, but finds only empty space and a crescent wedge in the wood where the blade had nestled. Her lips part in the beginning of a questioning snarl, only to snap shut as Eve launches from the booth and surges past her, demon blade in hand, approaching Michael with all the fiery naïveté of a baby rattlesnake.
"Eve, darling—" Lucifer practically shoves Chloe from the booth as he hurries to free himself, wriggling from his tight quarters and trotting doggedly across the dance floor. Maze makes no move to join him, watching instead with lips parted in smug pride.
Michael is shrinking back against the railing as Eve approaches, hell-bent on striking him down. It's only Lucifer's broad hands on her shoulders that break her stupor, inciting a disappointed grumble from Maze.
"As much as I'd love to let this little scene play out," Lucifer hums, gently plucking the knife from Eve's hand and directing her back toward the booth, "I'm afraid he's playing for the home team, this time."
"What do you mean?" She breathes, casting a look over her shoulder to Michael as he resumes his hobbling stride.
"What the hell does that mean, Lucifer?" Maze asks, wheeling on Lucifer as he arrives back at the booth. "Did you forget what he did to us? To you? To her?" She snatches her knife back from Lucifer's hands and thrusts it towards Chloe in an impassioned gesture. Lucifer's eyes flare red — unmistakably red — and he bats her arm down with a steel hand.
"I didn't forget," he growls.
"Yeah, well, screw this. I'm not sticking around here. Not with him."
"Sit down."
The room goes quiet — deathly quiet — as Lucifer's tone strips itself of its thrumming warmth and commands them each into their respective seats with frosty insistence.
"If you think," he whispers, "That I would bring him here, that I would let him live if I thought he might…" his gaze flits quickly to Chloe, then to Amenadiel, who offers him a reassuring nod. "She is the only thing that matters to me. I know what I'm doing, Maze. I don't trust him. But he's desperate." And so am I, he wants to say, as his chest flares with the memory of Chloe's form crumpled against it, surging with heat. "And he needs me. So he'll help."
Michael shifts uncomfortably, now the brunt of five separate, piercing stares as all eyes come to land on him. "It's true," he says, finally. "I need to—I want to help."
There's a long, worn pause. It's only Chloe's curt nod that seems to convince Maze as she shifts her attention from Lucifer to the Detective beside him.
"It was my idea, Maze," she says, softly. Maze shakes her head in wide wonderment, but she lowers the knife at her hip, jamming it with brutal force back into the soft wood of the table. Amenadiel watches in guarded interest. He seems unsurprised to find Chloe has offered the grace he insisted Lucifer leave up to her, but proud nonetheless — gazing in quiet complacency as the heated clamor around the table dies down to a more manageable degree.
"Fine," Maze mutters. She cracks her knuckles, tilting her neck as she focuses on Michael with an unwavering stare. "But not for him. And not for the universe. I'll do it for Chloe."
That's the only reason that matters, Lucifer wants to say again, but his heart is still pounding against the waking nightmare of Chloe's burning form and the words are trapped inside him. He reaches for her, finding her fingers on the leather cushion beside his and covering them with a blind hand. She responds to his touch ever so slightly, as if she can hear the words that are caged within him, beating out their meaning in a kind of morse code as his pulse drums against her wrist.
Lucifer brings everyone up to speed relatively quickly. His hand never leaves its perch atop Chloe's, though his fingers venture occasionally from her own and trace lazy patterns up her wrist. She's moved imperceptibly closer to him throughout his tale: she can sense his marked unease and feel his breath hitch in his chest as he relays his sister's whereabouts. The flickering look in his dark eyes is tempting her to reassure him; to draw his chin to her lips and brush a chaste kiss across his jaw — and for a brief moment she actually feels herself pulling closer to him before the sighing creak of leather as Eve shifts beside her snaps her back to attention.
"I spoke to Gabriel," Lucifer is saying, as her gaze refocuses. "Before you all arrived. Told her to get word on Rory—"
"So we can all see how much shit we're in," Michael scowls. Five sets of eyes glare at him as he interrupts Lucifer's silky admission.
To his credit, Lucifer only sighs. "Hopefully something slightly less ominous. But, at the very least, yes."
"Luci, are you sure that was a good idea? How do we know it's safe? That she'll make it out with Rory down there?"
Lucifer offers a dismissive wave in Amenadiel's direction, but the hand that shields Chloe's palm is clammy. "She'll be fine," he says. "It's what she does, brother. I'm delegating, remember?" Even as Amenadiel nods in concession, Lucifer taps nervously at his phone, eyes darting to the time.
"She should be back any minute," he murmurs, almost to himself. Michael glances over, brows knit in patent unease. Maze rises once more, pacing the length of the bar and shooting Patrick a grimace as she accepts his offering of a swiftly-poured drink.
"Should we go look for her?" Eve blurts, bending the anxious silence that's gathered around them. Chloe looks up, exchanging a glance with Lucifer.
"In…Hell?" She asks, gently, before Lucifer — already tightly wound and certainly not renowned for his delicate demeanor — can respond with a callous remark.
Eve frowns. "Oh. Right, of course," she laughs awkwardly. "I just thought…"
Her fumble is interrupted by the uneven flap of wings as Gabriel materializes on the empty dance floor. She stumbles, slightly, one wing curling in distaste as she wrenches it from a stray light fixture.
Lucifer puffs out a heavy sigh of relief, rising to meet his sister as she ruffles her wings and shakes the dust from her hair. His hand still hasn't left Chloe's, and so he's dragging her halfway across the dance floor as he approaches Gabriel.
"Well?"
"Oh, hey! Good to see you too. Congrats on becoming God — oh — me? No, yeah, I'm doing great, thank you so much for asking." Gabriel shakes her head, her words basking in the heat of her sarcastic tone. She tosses her hands into the air at Lucifer's unchanged expression. "Seriously? That's it? You used to be much more…talkative. We're just gonna get right into it, huh? Not even gonna catch up —" her eyes flutter down, snapping to the ring on Chloe's finger. It happens to be on the hand not currently being possessed by Lucifer's own grasp, instead hanging limply at her side and glinting in the morning light.
"Woah," Gabriel says, her mouth going slack as she stares back up at Lucifer. "What is that? Is that yours?"
The impatient fever seems to slide from his cheeks, instead taking on a light, pinkish hue as warmth coils through his chest and tinges his face. He's suddenly very aware of the group that sits silently behind him, now equally attuned to the conversation at hand as they wait with eager attention for his response.
"It was mine," he says, voice stilted. "Now it's hers."
Chloe's chest tightens. Gabriel's mouth plops open into an exaggerated grin. "No way. You propo—"
"Where's Rory?" Chloe yelps, putting a hasty pin in Gabriel's unfinished thought before the words can never be unsaid. This isn't how she wants it; she wants to know just what he's thinking, more than the entire congregation of celestial beings — and Eve — gathered before her, but not like this. Not with everyone watching. Not with him drawing in labored, uneasy breaths in anticipation of Gabriel's next question. He never lies, after all.
Gabriel takes the hint, petering out with a disappointed shrug. Her smile fades as she tugs on a lip with gritted teeth.
"About that," she grumbles, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first?"
"Bad," comes the chorused response.
"It's way worse than you alluded to in your message," she deadpans, "She didn't see me — I made sure of that much, but…she's got support down there. Lots of it. Powerful support."
"Let's not get carried away. They're demons. Not exactly the sharpest tacks." Even as the sharp rebuke leaves his lips he's reminded of the Coliseum — of how viciously they fought only days before when they had been under Maze's command. He shakes his head to rid it of the thought.
"I'm not just talking about demons," Gabriel says, her gaze measured.
"What's the good news?" Eve chimes, before Lucifer's darkened stare can inquire further.
"Oh." Gabriel shuffles. "Well, I was gonna say, 'good news is, I found Rory', but it kind of only worked if you'd asked for the good news first, cause now that you've heard the bad it's more like rubbing salt in the wound—"
"Who else?" Lucifer interrupts, his voice clear and resounding through the empty club. His hand leaves Chloe's, and she's suddenly very aware of the lack of him — of the emptiness of her own palm and of his own voice. "Who else is helping her?"
Gabriel pauses, breaking her gaze from Eve's doe-eyed stare and returning a wary look to her brother. She's shaking her head, begging him not to make her say it — as if her silence is somehow keeping reality at bay. And then — suddenly — she's not looking at him anymore. She's looking past him, past Chloe, past the booth where Amenadiel and Eve and Michael still sit. She's staring at Maze, sprawled with her back against the bar, glass raised halfway to her lips as black eyes meet her own reluctant gaze.
"Lilith," she mutters, and her lips fold into a wince.
"Go," Lucifer murmurs. His voice is deathly soft. "Go."
Gabriel doesn't need a reason not to stick around. She's gone with an infinitesimal nod and a flap of her wings, leaving them with the gaping void her words have unraveled. Even Michael turns to look at Maze with an expression of vague unease, glancing stiffly away as Eve runs to her and is met with a steely arm.
"Don't," Maze warns. She straightens as the gazes surrounding her begin to adopt the early stages of pity. "What?" She snaps, "So, the mom who abandoned me wants to wipe out the universe. Checks out."
Chloe's eyes narrow. Sympathy is the bane of Maze's existence, she knows, but she can't help but ache for her friend.
"I mean," Maze continues, sniffing heartily in a show of nonchalance, "I just don't get it. She finally dies, gets down to Hell, and…what? Can't last a few weeks with all the kids she abandoned? She's gotta jump on board a plan to wipe out Hell just so she can leave us again?"
Lucifer is shaking his head. He's silent, his face cast down to the floor — and as Chloe's gaze returns to him, alone in the center of the club, a fresh wound cuts across her heart. He looks distraught; crushed at the news Gabriel has just delivered, and all at once Chloe is reminded of the story Trixie relayed to her one night, months ago.
"She was your friend," Chloe whispers. For his ears, only. His eyes flicker up, dark and glittering in the lonely room. He nods, and he can't help his gaze from floating to the ring on Chloe's finger.
She was.
He responds directly to Maze, sidestepping the emotion that's bubbling up at Chloe's remark. "You're wrong," he says, roughly. "It's the opposite."
Maze is surging from the bar before he can elaborate, slipping past Eve's attempts at comfort and lunging toward where Lucifer stands in the center of the nightclub. Chloe is the only thing between Maze's predatory approach and her boyfriend, whose current state of wounded, reflective disarray has rendered him limp against the impending assault.
Normally, Chloe would have distanced herself to the next building over. Lucifer can handle himself — he's not even vulnerable around her, not anymore — and Maze is…well, Maze. But this isn't normal. Nothing is normal; not anymore, and she can't bring herself to leave his side. She does the only thing she can think to do and steps directly in front of him, bringing Maze's searing charge to a grinding halt as she pauses in front of Chloe, knife raised.
"Move, Decker," she hisses. She looks past Chloe, to Lucifer's glazed stare. "Really? You're gonna hide behind her? Don't tell me I'm wrong, Lucifer, don't tell me I don't know what this is, not when she's done it a thousand times before—"
He's not listening to her. He doesn't even seem aware that Chloe's come to stand directly between himself and Maze's Hell-forged blade. He's lost in thought, shaking his head softly against the workings of his own mind.
"Move," she snarls again, stepping closer to Chloe as the blade glints by her side.
"No," Chloe murmurs, and this time her hand reaches reflexively for Lucifer's, touching his wrist with soft fingers. He starts at this, jerking from his self-imposed torpor and finally gauging the scene before him — Chloe, with her back to his chest, standing inches from Maze's barbed countenance and her equally vicious blade.
"Maze, I know you're upset. Let us help you." She can feel Lucifer coming to life behind her; can feel the heat sprint down her spine as he uncoils to his full height and draws in a hitched breath at her shoulder, and she prays that her words resonate with Maze because she can feel the sparks start to come to life in his eyes.
"I don't need help," Maze says, but this time the words sound more broken than angry. She seems to realize herself, and the blade drops pathetically to her side. She takes a step back from Chloe, dark eyes glistening with tears, and finally allows herself to be drawn into an embrace as Eve runs to her and takes her in her arms.
"Detective."
Chloe turns from Maze and Eve, inhaling softly as her eyes follow the low growl to its source. He's staring at her with a particular sort of fire, burning her from the inside out — and for a moment she's afraid his eyes might actually flare crimson under the waxing heat of his gaze. There are six people in the room, less than a hundred feet away — not counting Patrick, who's kept his head valiantly to the ground in a particularly intense show of scrubbing the floor — but he's giving her a look she's only seen flickering in his eyes when his face has been buried between her legs. He doesn't look like he wants her — he looks like he needs her: and between two days' worth of watershed revelations and chaste touches beneath tables and nearly dying — she needs him, too. In more than a desperate, shower-floor way; and in more than a restless, can't sleep scrabble for closeness. She needs all of him — and he's begging to love her.
But there are six people here, and there is a matter of universal importance crashing and receding into the mess already scattered before them. So she only looks at him, hoping he can read the unspoken promise in her eyes as his hand snares around her wrist and presses her to him with an iron grip.
When he lets her go there's a crimson blush dancing across her cheeks. She's all too aware of Amenadiel and Michael still sitting at the booth mere feet from them: Amenadiel is looking at his brother with knowing contentment, while Michael is casting shifty, flitting glances their way. When Chloe catches the tail end of a brief glance, he looks…jealous. Not the same jealousy that had fueled his quest to steal her from Lucifer — the jealousy that had warped his features and crushed his back and molded the rest of him to the scar that runs jagged across his face. A different kind of jealousy: the lost kind, free of resentment but riddled with forlorn acceptance.
She almost — almost — feels sorry for him.
"Mazikeen," Lucifer says. He's relinquished his lifeline hold on Chloe and is striding across the room, standing in expectant silence as Maze sniffles lightly into the crook of Eve's shoulder and straightens.
"What?" She says, harshly.
"You're wrong," he repeats. She doesn't launch at him this time, just laughs in hollow distaste and shakes her head.
"How would you know?" She scoffs. "You're not the one she left behind."
"No," he agrees, and a sympathetic shadow crosses his face. Maze balks at the sight. "But I knew her. I knew her for a long time, Maze. She was…good. Or, trying to be. But she sentenced herself to Hell the second she chose to become mortal. She thought she was doing what was best for you — for all of you — for all of her children. Giving me an army, forcing you to be strong. Unbreakable. But she was still a mother, Maze. You were still her children. She did what she thought was best, and it cost her her soul. There's no amount of repentance that can erase the guilt of abandoning a thousand children."
"She didn't seem very guilty," Maze huffs, but there's a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. "When I came to see her and she slammed the door in my face."
"Because it's easier."
All eyes turn to Michael as he speaks; as his uneven voice breaks across the booth. Maze's gaze narrows, but she lets him continue under her watchful stare.
"It's easier," he continues unsteadily. "To run away. There's nothing she could have said to you. There's nothing that would have changed the fact she abandoned you. So it's easier to slam the door in your face. Pretend that the guilt isn't there instead of facing it."
"She could have told me she was sorry," Maze whispers, her voice breaking. "That she…that she loves me."
"But would you have believed her?" Michael asks, his stare pointed. His own heart is beating out an uneasy melody against his chest. "What good would words have done, after thousands of years of being a terrible mother?"
"I don't know," Maze admits. "It would have been something, at least." She seems to come to; to realize who she's responding to, and her gaze hardens. "Shut up," she says, snapping from her haze and frowning at Michael.
"Much as it pains me to say it, he's right. There's nothing Lilith could say to make up for what she's done. Not now that she's finally reunited with all of her children." Lucifer pauses, threading the next words carefully. "It's why she'll help Rory. You know the saying. Actions speak louder than words— certainly applies in this case, though perhaps not to myself, as I'm sure the Detective would concur." He cracks Chloe the hint of a smile. It seems self-awareness has followed him back from Heaven — the actions had always come easily for him; he'd been trying to tell her he loved her for five years in every way except forthose three little words.
"Rory told us she wanted a blank slate. That she wants to start over: no Heaven, no Hell, wipe the whole thing clean. Let her revisionist justice lead the charge into the new world. And who better to recruit to her cause than the woman who's suddenly found herself confronted by the thousands of children she abandoned millennia ago? Who could want a blank slate more than Lilith? She's surrounded by a waking reminder of her failure as a mother. If Rory is there, spouting her vision for a new Kingdom…Lilith will see a way to absolve herself of her sins. A way to lift her children from the Hell she sent them to so many years ago." He shakes his head softly toward Maze, whose drawn gaze has dropped its armored guard. "She's not abandoning you again, Mazikeen. She's trying to make it right. To save the children she condemned millennia ago."
"She's been gone too long," Maze says, coldly. "Hell is their home, now. They won't want to leave it behind."
"You underestimate a mother's influence," Amenadiel muses. "Maze, you've grown here. During your time on earth. The rest of your siblings…they don't think like you do."
There's silence as understanding seeps in. Maze takes a ginger seat at the edge of the sofa and Eve comes to stand over her, draping wandering hands about her neck and dropping her nose to Maze's head.
"I have to stop her," Maze murmurs, the steel edge returning to her voice as her hands glide up to meet Eve's. Her gaze rises to meet Lucifer's. "You can't stop me."
"I wouldn't dream of it," he responds, his voice low. There's a shared recognition in the stare they hold, and he nods ever so slightly to her. Chloe's throat seizes as he says the next words — she can almost hear them before they emerge, and she wheels to face him before he can speak.
He rolls his shoulders and tilts his head upward in quiet resolution. "I'll take you," he says. They're the words Maze has waited years for him to say — the words she's begged to hear — but now, here, there's a ringing, somber finality to them. She can only return his curt nod of affirmation.
"No." Chloe's voice is rising in growing alarm, as if the searing denial will smother his declaration in its infancy. "What? No. Lucifer."
He turns to her, breaking his sober fixation on Maze, and there's a soft, sad smile playing at his lips. "She can't get down alone, Detective," he murmurs.
"No. No." She squeezes her eyes shut, waving a hand across her chest as if to clear the room of its current mess. She laughs, once — that barking yelp of nervous dissent. "There's — there has to be some other way." She whips her gaze to Amenadiel, eyes blazing as if willing him to step up, but her thoughts turn sharply to Charlie — and Linda pacing her home without a clue — and her gaze softens in helpless disarray.
Eve is looking similarly concerned from her perch above Maze, but she seems to know better than to question the resolute demon that lies nestled in her arms. There's a delicate silence as Chloe's breathing becomes more frantic; as she steps away from Lucifer's attempted grasp and lets the emptiness of the dance floor swallow her.
"Please," she whimpers, and now she's pleading, biting back the nervous sob that's threatening to boil over. "Please don't go." How many times?— she wants to ask — How many times can you send yourself to the edge before you don't come back?
"Chloe," he whispers, and this time she's too limp to evade his touch — too overcome with ragged, hapless emotion to pretend she doesn't need him. He's looming over her, drawing her into his chest with a hand tucked behind her head and fingers skating down the nape of her neck. She can feel his lips pressed to the top of her head, breathing the heated ghost of her name into her hair.
"Luci, are you sure about this?" Amenadiel's voice is drumming behind Lucifer, drilling into the widening gap between them. "If you go…if something happens…Father wanted you to lead us."
"I'll be fine, brother," he says, the words flush against her. "And if she does get the upper hand — well. You were always a close second favorite."
Chloe breaks on the heels of his strained joke. She presses herself further into his chest, smothering her lips in the cotton of his shirt as the tears start to fall. Maze looks quickly away, in a vain attempt to avoid spilling the tears that have begun to sting her own eyes at the sight.
"It's okay," he murmurs, his voice mild. His tone is calm, but the heart that beats against her lips is shuddering in its place, straining against the even breaths he musters. He's terrified; but the hand that holds her in place is unwavering. "I love you."
His hands move to her shoulders; pressing her gently back as he steps away from her and walks to the center of the floor. He sets his jaw as Maze disentangles herself from Eve's searching hands and joins him, his eyes never leaving Chloe's imploring stare.
"Just keeping my promise, Detective," he says, his dark eyes smiling with doleful sincerity.
She chokes on a sob, and suddenly Eve is wrapping an arm around her shoulder, urging Chloe's head into her shoulder as she murmurs faint words of comfort.
"Amenadiel's right."
Lucifer pauses, shoulders flexed as he prepares to unravel white wings. Michael's voice is once again tearing through the agonizing silence, forcing a disgruntled Maze to turn once more from her decided purpose.
"You can't go. Rory will cut you down the first chance she has. And now that she's got Lilith on her side, and your demon army — and who knows how many murders under her belt by now — that staff has your name on it. Once you're gone, the coast is clear. You're supposed to be our leader," he says, the word spitting forth with some pained derision, "If she kills you off the bat, it's kind of a sucker for team morale."
"Right, well, I'll just try not to die, then. Not like that was on the agenda already." Lucifer shakes his head. "Thank you for the words of wisdom, and for the vote of confidence, Michael — I know pep talks have never been your wheelhouse, but this is truly a new low for you—"
"I'll go." He falters on the edge of the word, feeling a particular blush creep to his cheeks as five narrowed gazes stare him down with vicious precision.
"Well, that's a lovely sentiment, but in case you've forgotten, someone's conveniently cut off your wings. Just in time for you not go down to Hell. So, if you'll excuse me—"
Michael stands with a labored grunt, practically unending the table from its base as he scrambles to stand. There's a heavy, discordant rattle as he rolls his shoulders with a violent yelp, and a set of sickly, ashen wings unfold limply at his back.
Chloe's face rises from its place against Eve's shoulder, and she stares at Michael through thickly parted lips. Michael seems equally surprised to see the wings sprout from his shoulders, and a wince passes over his scarred face as he buckles under their fraying weight.
They look awful — gray and patchy and fluttering unsurely against the steady, ventilated blow of Lux's AC system.
"See?" He laughs, through gritted teeth. "I told you I'd get them back. Didn't even need your help." His smile fades under the laborious weight of sinking wings, and he shuffles forward.
"You don't belong there," he hisses at Lucifer. "But I do."
He's looking at Amenadiel; breathing out on a strained exhale. "I'm sorry," he says, roughly. "I'm sorry for Remiel."
Tears jump to Amenadiel's eyes, sullying the portrait of stoic solemnity he had mastered from his seat. Michael is stalking back to where Lucifer stands before he can respond, his unsteady footfalls the only sounds in the club.
He reaches out a hand as if to place it on Lucifer's shoulder, but thinks better of the motion and drops it to his side, instead. He's standing only a short distance from his twin, now, and his gaze lifts slightly to fix on both he and Chloe alike.
"I tried to take her from you twice," he admits, flatly. "Let me go, while there's time to make it right. So that it doesn't happen a third." He stares at Chloe for a long moment, and the wince that breaks his gaze widens with each passing moment. These words seem the hardest to find; the hardest to eek out in a broken voice.
"I wanted Lucifer's life," he says, quietly. "I wanted you. I wanted to be God. I couldn't have either. I hurt you trying for both." He swallows, hard. "I'm…sorry." He bows his head, ever so slightly, in what she can only assume is the first genuine show of deference since he first stepped off the elevator days before.
She doesn't know why she says it — why she's the one to break the pressing silence suffocating the lonely club. But he needs to hear it — the same way Lucifer needed to say it for himself, all those months ago — and she means it when the words finally tumble out.
"I forgive you," she says, simply, fingers brushing against the scar on her stomach.
"You won't make it back up," Lucifer says, his voice low. "Not with those."
His eyes are fixed on Michael's wings, already molting in a pathetic, wilting fever. Michael's lips curve somewhere between a hollow smile and a pained grimace.
"I figured," he says, voice dripping in brotherly condescension. Maze's breath falls heavy between them. There's no love lost between Michael and the group he faces, but his admission — and subsequent forgiveness — has blanketed them in heavy quietude. No one makes a move to stop him, nor is there an attempt to add to Chloe's declaration of forgiveness — but Lucifer does place a fleeting hand on his twin's hunched shoulder as Michael steps forward to take his place.
"I'll be back," Maze promises, as Eve lurches forward to meet her in a lingering kiss. "I'll find some way."
"I know," she whispers, laughing lightly as she traces a finger from her temple to her chin. "Give em hell."
Maze nods, once, turning as a single tear carves a path down her cheek. She clambers awkwardly into Michael's pained grasp, flicking her blade in a demonic salute as tattered wings sludge to life and steal them away.