Palmetto Street.

At least, that's what it looks like. Same concrete walls; same grimy, unwashed cement floor. Same gangsters. Same Malcolm.

Dan knows, though. Knows it's not the same, that it's not real. It's one of the perks of being a celestial insider. For a while he had thought that the truth would be a blessing: that the affirmed knowledge that he was in fact in Hell and not trapped inside a dream, or the annals of a nightmarish, medically-induced coma, would bring him some semblance of comfort. That knowing he was being tortured might ease the sting of the punishment itself.

And he had been right, in the beginning. There was something oddly comforting in knowing he really had gone to Hell; something final in the inescapable truth that quieted the racing thoughts of the afterlife that had plagued him on Earth.

That was at first.

Time had proven that the knowledge was infinitely more painful than the ignorance he'd been so glad to rise above. He'd pushed past the demons at first, as if they were figments of a vicious nightmare. Laughing at them, at the absurdity of it all — had turned to ignoring them, which had in turn become fighting them — until their penchant for perseverance chipped away time and time again and left him pathetically attempting to reason with them. Now, he faces the never-ending loop with mute, dead eyes, silently recapturing the flavor of his guilt after what had felt like years of dragging his feet to the hangman's block.

He hadn't been surprised when he'd landed at Palmetto Street. If he was truly the architect of his own misery, he had figured it was no small wonder he'd trapped himself here, where all the trouble started. Where his corruption had put everyone — and everything — he cared about in danger; where things had first spiraled entirely out of control.

He'd tried to remember Amenadiel's words, in the beginning. And Chloe's, and Trixie's. Telling him that he's a good cop, a good father. A good man. He'd even thought about Lucifer, for a while — and the begrudging smirks he'd drawn from the Devil's lips during his finer moments.

But they'd faded. Everyone had faded. Their voices, their faces, the shape of Trixie's smile and the curve of Charlotte's lips against his own. Everything had slipped, slowly, and then all at once — and the knowing made it that much worse.

It's not the loop itself that's Hell so much as it is the brief silence that fills the space between each reset. Because that's the only time he has to think — the only time he has to try and tighten his grip on the memories and reassurances that slide further from the forefront of his mind. But it's like trying to hold water — burning, boiling, water — and the memories trickle from his grasp and evaporate in the thick air.

He's chosen to focus on Charlotte during this particular moment of quietude. He can barely see her face anymore, but he can still smell her hair, and he can still taste the cheap, cherry lipgloss she'd smothered against his lips after a day of being made-up by Trixie. He's long since stopped trying to keep track of how many silences there have been; of how many times he's shot aimlessly into the group of gathered demons. It would be a hopeless exercise, anyway. He's been here for too long, and the pointless, numbing counting only invades the space where thoughts of his family hang on by a thread.

He staggers to his feet when the pounding starts. The relentless, frantic pounding. Always the same tone, always the same number of knocks, always the same grinning gangster greeting him to kick off the unending cycle of disastrous events.

He could swear that the knocking is louder, this time. That there are ten frenzied slaps against the warehouse door, instead of the usual nine. He wonders, vaguely, if it's a ruse to distract him — to let him fall prey to the allure of the new so that he might lose his final grip on the familiar. He doubles down on his Charlotte-centric meditation, sucking in a breath of ashen air as he wills the scent of her perfume to dust his thoughts.

His hand finds the handle and he unlocks the door, wrenching it open with sunken eyes and tear-stained cheeks. He stands back, masked in the shadow of the doorway as he allows the demonic gangsters entry.

Something flickers deep within his brain when the shoe that clicks past the threshold isn't the same, worn sneaker that had stalked endlessly by. It's black — jet black — and the sole that flashes with the step is bright, flaming red.

And it's followed in rapid succession by a very sensible, very brown, pair of boots.

The black shoes stop in the center of the warehouse, shining and well-oiled and distinctly out of place in the dank, grubby space. Tentatively, slowly, Dan lets his gaze lift from the shoes to their owner, allowing the breaths that had settled in the pit of his stomach to rise to his throat.

Even in the shadows; even in the darkest recesses of his own Hell loop — even after he'd forgotten the shape of his face and the glint in his eyes, Lucifer's voice is unmistakable.

"Daniel," he chimes, "Come out come out, wherever you are."

Chloe is the first to run to him when he steps warily from the shadow of the doorway, bowling into him with all the force of a small, impassioned missile. He stands stock-still against the crushing weight of her embrace, his arms pinned to his side by a distinct unwillingness to believe the tantalizing truth that stands before him.

She pulls back, slightly, when he goes perfectly rigid beneath her touch. Her hands trail over the cuffs of his denim jacket and skate across a smudged cheek, drawing his gaze to her. Lucifer watches from a distance, his hands shoved in his pockets and his lips contorted into a nervous grimace.

"Chloe," Dan croaks, finally, as her hands urge color back into his cheeks and her touch chips away at the coal that had settled in the pit of his soul. The name is foreign in his mouth, like the discordant note of a song he used to know.

She laughs: a wet, bubbling noise that greets the sound of his voice. "Trixie misses you," she sobs, smiling at him with bright, imploring eyes. That was the one thing they'd never gotten right, in this godforsaken loop. Her eyes. He hadn't noticed at first — he'd been too busy punching demons, or attempting to barter for the salvation of his soul. But as he'd succumbed to the inevitability of an eternity at Palmetto Street, he'd begun to pick up on the little things. The tiny, nuanced details that his own subconscious had so dutifully constructed for him. And it was perfect — nearly better than the real thing — except for her eyes.

Chloe was always there. It was her, after all, that he'd thrown into harm's way with his illicit behavior — he was the reason she'd been there, snooping, that night at the warehouse. The reason they'd nearly killed her, and robbed Trixie of her mother. He was never shocked to see her here, then, but he was surprised to find that for all of Hell's demonic attention to detail, they couldn't replicate the blue of her eyes — a feat he would have thought simple given their seemingly extensive skillset and vast experiential pool. Her eyes were always dark, like seething pits of tar: an eternal reminder of the inescapable truth of his torture.

But these eyes are real. These eyes are bright — brighter than anything he's seen after what feels like centuries trapped between walls of muted grey. These eyes don't belong here.

He nearly squints against the light of her stare.

"Chloe," Dan says again, more affirmed in the name this time. She smiles, casting a tentative glance back to Lucifer as if to garner his reassurance. He meets her eye and nods, taking a careful step forward as if approaching a caged tiger.

"I—" It's been so long since Dan's spoken; since he's drawn anything from his throat that's not a raw plea or a guttural cry. He searches for the words and finds them, buried in her lead. "I missed you," he rasps, eyes welling with tears. He folds into the hug he'd left behind only moments ago, sinking his head into the crook of Chloe's shoulder. He looks up from the comfort of her arms, and when Dan speaks his words imprint against Chloe's jacket before they tear free and reach Lucifer.

"What are you doing here?" He asks, shaking his head in a mild show of denial. When Lucifer hesitates he pulls back from Chloe, suddenly, and stares at her with widening eyes. "Wait. You're not—"

"No! No." Lucifer surges forward and lays a protective hand on the same shoulder of Chloe's that Dan has just vacated. "The Detective is very much alive. You, on the other hand…" he trails off.

"Yeah." Dan tosses his hands in the air, lips pursed as he looks Lucifer up and down. "Super dead. In Hell. Being tortured for all of eternity. Thanks, man. I got that much."

Lucifer flicks an eyebrow to the sky. "Change of plans, actually," he says, with a brief look to the door. "This whole... eternity of torture is a bit Old Testament for my tastes. And seeing as that particular book is now rather obsolete, given that the star of the show's thrown in his glorified towel — I thought we might try things my way. Or—" a proud smile settles around the corners of his mouth, and he gestures toward Chloe with open arms, "Her way."

Dan looks between the both of them, bewildered. "What?" He blinks. "You're breaking me out of Hell?"

"Not breaking you out," Lucifer intones. "It's not Alcatraz, Daniel. You've got to earn your way out."

"Earn my way out." Dan swallows, his voice still jagged and his vision increasingly blurry as his pulse builds to a crescendo. "Sure. Yeah. No, sure. I'll just—" he unfastens the gun from his holster and waves it around the empty room. "I'll just show these demons who's boss, and we can walk right out of here. Oh, wait—" He shoves the gun back into its holster with a frustrated click, whirling to face Lucifer with a remarkably familiar look of crabby malcontent. "I can't. Tried killing them, tried reasoning with them, tried closing my eyes and making it all go away. Guess what? Didn't work. You know why? Cause this—" he puffs out a sharp bark, "Is Hell! Actual Hell! I am in actual, honest to God — or the Devil — or, whatever — Hell. And, you know, speaking of—" Years and years of silence are converging, now, and bringing with them a tirade of intangible, disjointed thoughts that are now being focused in a beam of confused anger and pointed directly at Lucifer. "Speaking of, I would have liked a visit. I know you're busy, man, just living on Earth, drinking your cocktails, whatever it is you do all day. But you are the literal Devil. You couldn't have checked in? I know you could have found me! Same place every day, bro!"

"Daniel—" Lucifer's eyes dart nervously toward the door, again, and he raises his hands in a placating gesture. "Dan."

"I mean, wha—what does earn my way out even mean?" Dan plows ahead, panting steadily now. "Do I fight someone? Some kind of gladiator-style, Hell-stadium thing? Is that the deal? Do I have to apologize to God? Is that it? Because I've been trying to talk to him, down here, and I'm either really bad at praying, or he is just not listening, because —"

"Dan," Chloe interjects, putting a hand on his forearm. He stalls in his jumbled rant. She nudges her head toward Lucifer, standing just behind her with a quizzical look drawing his brows. "He is listening. He came to help you," she smiles, threading her hand behind her to brush against Lucifer's waiting finger. "We both came to help you."

The color that had returned to Dan's face after Chloe's initial touch now fades to an even ghastlier, more pallid shade than the one that had met his torture. He blinks, and for a moment he forgets that he's trapped inside a never-ending Hell loop, standing before his inexplicably alive ex-wife and her ageless, eternally infuriating celestial boyfriend. Because there's something — one thing — more absurd than any of that, and it's what's just left Chloe's lips.

"No way," Dan says, pointing to Lucifer with a blunted index finger. "Bullshit, man. You're God?"

—

"I am," Lucifer insists, correcting himself off a narrowed glance from Chloe. "More or less."

He frowns. The urgency of their arrival seems lost on Dan — though, time has certainly become an unwanted luxury for him in a way Lucifer understands all too well.

"Well, don't act so surprised," Lucifer drawls. "I can assure you, I'm the Devil for the job."

When Dan only stares at him, he sighs in muted exasperation. "Right, look, I'll be sure to email you my resume the second we've rescued you from eternal pain and suffering. For now, though, we are in a bit of a hurry, so can we just—" he cocks his head to the door, and Dan snaps from the reverie that had surrounded Lucifer's godly revelation.

"That's it?" Dan asks, glancing between him and Chloe. "I just…walk through the door? What's the catch?"

"No catch," Lucifer hums nervously, eyes flitting to the door in mounting anxiety. Chloe follows his fleeting stare, and her pulse hitches as the seconds tick idly by. "Straight on through, you'll be in Heaven before you know it."

Dan whips around at the mention of Heaven, his eyes like saucers. He seems to sense the urgency in Lucifer's strained tone, though, and so he paces forward with a slight, anxious kink knotting his step.

"Okay," he mutters, half to himself. Chloe watches in blinking silence, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. "Just walk through the door. Cool. Just go to Heaven. Cool, cool, cool. Walking on through."

He reaches for the handle — the same handle he'd grasped for an eternity, now, as he'd allowed Malcom's cronies entry time and time again. The metal is freezing: so cold that it burns his palm as he makes to wrench it open. He stumbles back with a searing hiss, cradling his hand against his chest. His stomach churns with the motion, roiling with a white-hot, fevered anxiety.

"Someone else open it," he says absently, staring at his hand as he motions to the door. He turns on his heels when silence meets his request.

"We can't," Lucifer says, softly. "It has to be you, Daniel."

"What?" He laughs. "You guys came in through there. You just said you're God, it —that's probably why you could open it. Just try it again, man."

"That's not how it works," Lucifer murmurs. "You made this room. Made yourself a prisoner here. You can't open the door because you won't let yourself. If I open it, now, you — you won't be able to follow."

Dan is shaking his head, hanging it in limp refutation. "That makes no sense. Why would I keep myself here? You just told me I could leave, I—"

Lucifer looks stricken; that same, wounded helplessness that had followed Dan's casket into the damp earth. For all his billions of years, there's still so much he doesn't know how to say, how to solve — but the Detective at his side now summons the words that evade him.

"Dan," Chloe says, gently. She lays a hand against his forearm and closes her eyes, focusing with singular intent on the staff and allowing the familiar, molten heat to flood her at the conjured thought. Dan recoils slightly as her touch heats the exposed skin of his arm, but he doesn't pull away — doesn't wince the way Eve had done when she'd put a tentative hand to Chloe's forehead. The heat had overwhelmed Chloe, then — spun her into a white-hot spiral and sent her crashing into swirling blackness. Now, though, she wills the light to Dan with careful precision, dwelling on the staff of her own volition for the first time. It takes everything in her not to break her focus and turn to Lucifer with a broadening grin, if only to demonstrate to him her newfound control — but she can feel him smiling behind her, and she registers vaguely from beyond the veil of her focus that he's fully and completely aware.

Dan relaxes at the thrumming, golden heat that pulses from her to him, and the hand he cradles to his chest unwinds as the frigid burn thaws in the wake of her touch.

"You have to forgive yourself," she says, softly. The words are familiar — painfully so — and she can hear Lucifer rake in a ragged breath as she begs of Dan what she'd begged of him so long ago.

"I know why we're here," Chloe continues, tears jumping to her eyes. "Palmetto Street. Why you keep punishing yourself for this. But, Dan— you have to let this go. You have to forgive yourself for this. For all of it. This—" she motions around the room; to the exposed light fixtures hanging like decrepit chandeliers and the foamy insulation that's peeking from the cracks in gray walls. "You made a mistake. But I'm safe. Trixie is safe. Malcolm is gone. You owned up and took a demotion. And I know that doesn't take away the guilt — I know you put more on yourself than we ever put on you — but what happened here is not the Dan I know. Not anymore."

He swallows dryly, but she keeps on before he can even begin to shake his head.

"You're a good man. A good dad. Trixie adores you," Chloe chokes, stumbling past the words. "She loves you so much, Dan. She asks about you every single day, and you know what I do? I lie. I lied to our daughter. I told her—" she trembles against a sob, drawing it back in as Dan's head lifts slightly and sinks again with the weight of unshed tears. "I told her you were in Heaven. I promised her. Don't you dare make me break that promise. If you can't do it for yourself, Dan, I am begging you to do it for Trixie. You need to let yourself go."

The heat that pulses through her grip grows more pressing with the rising insistence of her words, and his head lifts as a sharp burn punctuates the end of her sentence.

"I blame myself," Dan whispers, the truth quiet even in the gaping silence of the room. "I blame myself for…for everything, I think. For this—" he motions about the room, "I'm the reason no one wanted to work with you, Chlo. I'm the reason Trixie almost grew up without a mother. I blame myself for— for Charlotte. For killing those guys, with Maze. For shooting you," he says, raising a hand to Lucifer, "For helping Michael. I did the wrong thing every time. I never — never — get it right. And it started here," he gestures hollowly to the rank walls that surround him, dragging the back of his hand along his cheeks to rid them of tears.

"I deserve to be here," he says, finally. He nods. "I deserve it."

He slumps away from Chloe's touch, and at the instant disconnect from the coursing warmth his body pales and surges with a biting chill.

"No," Chloe whispers. "That's not true. You made a mistake, years ago, and you've spent every day since then doing better. Being a friend to me. To Ella, to Maze, to Amenadiel. Being a dad to Trixie. Everything you've done since then, you've done for the right reasons, Dan. To help people other than yourself. To protect me, and Trixie, and everyone you care about."

"We need you to do the right thing one more time," she says, softly. "We need you to do this. For Trixie, for us, for—for everyone."

A flash of confusion glints in Dan's eyes. "For everyone?"

Lucifer interjects with a swift word. "More on that later," he chimes, nodding to the door. "The Detective and I are dealing with a slight existential threat to the universe. Nothing for you to concern yourself with, you've got enough to mull over in that…tiny mind already."

The quip shakes Dan from his pronounced stupor of thought long enough to offer Lucifer a signature scowl. If they hadn't been standing in the middle of Hell, pushing Dan with breakneck speed towards a universe-altering epiphany, the scene could have been plucked straight from their days together at the precinct.

When he turns back to Chloe, his face is marred by the quaking lines of tenuous composure. "I'll try," he says, quietly. "For Trixie."

She nods, the words on her lips drowned by the tears that slink past, and he pulls her into a tight hug. He presses a rough kiss to the side of her cheek and meets Lucifer's gaze when he steps back and faces the door once more.

"Keep an eye on him," Dan mutters, glancing back to Chloe as he offers Lucifer a reluctant smile. "If he really is God, he's gonna need some serious help."

Chloe smiles — she can't help it — and she can feel Lucifer's bemused huff tickle the back of her neck. The light she'd summoned for Dan still shivers against her and batters the dank air, golden and humming and so, so out of place in the desolate grayness that surrounds them. She hangs onto it as Dan reaches for the door, clinging to the tendrils of comforting heat that breathe life into the dead silence.

This time, when he reaches for the door handle, he doesn't yank his hand away with a scalding hiss. His palm folds around the metal, and he looks back to Lucifer and Chloe with a slack-jawed smile — the first in an eternity. Chloe allows the light within her to dim somewhat as Lucifer puffs out a long-held sigh of relief and her focus drifts back to him.

For a moment: a single, breathless moment, the fatal air around them seems to bow to the promise of life.

That's all it is, though. A moment. Just a moment, and then Dan's hand is soaring back to join the rest of his body in a haphazard stumble as the door clatters from its hinges before he can even attempt to pry it open.

Lucifer's sigh of relief dies on his lips like a fire robbed of air, and he's in front of Chloe faster than she can even register, guarding her with broad shoulders drawn and a hand splayed behind him as if to stop her in her tracks.

Rory stands in the rattled ashes of the doorframe, smirking in unqualified derision as she leans against the staff, now warped and jet-black, with a scarred hand. Behind her, lurking in the flurried blackness of the corridor beyond, several darkened silhouettes shuffle and laugh amongst themselves like a pack of shadowed hyenas.

She sneers at Dan, cocking her head as her gaze slips to Lucifer, and Chloe stolen away behind him.

"Come on," she laughs, "You weren't gonna leave without saying goodbye, were you?"

Rory moves faster than any of them can react, turning her pierced nose up at Lucifer in a mocking show of defiance as she nods to the gaggle of demons beside her. They surge forward with preternatural speed, grabbing Dan before he can make for the open doorway and shoving him back with laughing, guttural growls.

Lucifer stares his sister down with a low snarl. The look in his eyes is feral, flaring crimson in unrestrained fury as he watches them drag Dan from the door and hold him roughly in place. He makes no move to go to him, despite the reddening anger that flows from the sight of several demon blades hooked against Dan's throat: Chloe is still tucked behind his back, and it would take a divine miracle to force him away from her.

"Careful," he seethes, instead. There's a dull ache radiating from Chloe's scar as she catches a glimpse of the staff, blackened to a gnarled crisp.

Rory grins, rolling her neck to one side in a lazy, apathetic motion as her wings unfurl with a rushing hum. Chloe bites back a sharp inhale at the sight. They're smaller than Lucifer's, and Amenadiel's, but it's the shade that steals her breath: they're red, blood red, the same, grisly shade as her brother's flashing eyes.

Lucifer responds in kind, flexing his shoulders with a tilted growl and draping the room in brilliant light as his white wings settle against the darkness. For a brief, transitory second the grin that hangs loosely on Rory's face sags at the full display of angelic prowess before her — but if she did indeed suffer a cursory slip in her mask of casual aloofness she regains her footing with equal speed.

"Careful?" She laughs, reaching a bangled hand to run a cool hand through her hair. She nudges her head toward Dan, prevented from calling out by the pieces of curved steel pressed against him. "Are you seriously threatening me? I think that ship sailed. I mean…look at you." She simpers, her slack grin lifting to an arched sneer. "Some God. Can't even manage to save a single soul. Guess it was good luck after all you never took me up on my offer." She shrugs, twirling the staff with an absent hand. "Thanks for coming to me, though. Actually, it's lucky we caught you. We probably wouldn't have, but, uh, Miss Decker here—" she points the staff aimlessly toward Chloe, and scorching heat erupts along her navel. "She's been lighting this place up like a flare gun. Something tells me she doesn't belong here, Lucifer. And I think they would agree."

She tosses a look to the demons beside her, still shadowed in the penetrating blackness of the mock Palmetto Street and the darkness of the corridor beyond. Even from her limited vantage point behind Lucifer, Chloe could swear one of the demons runs a red tongue over pointed, yellowing teeth as Rory motions to her.

"At first I thought it was just cause she was still alive. But my new friend Dromos—" she motions toward one of the demons, and Lucifer's wings rumble with barely-contained rage at the name. Dromos.

Chloe remembers the name, all too well. Once a traitor, always a traitor.

"He said someone down here reeked of Heaven. Of Dad. Imagine that. So, you know, I got curious. I figured you'd go after Dan, so, while you wasted your time doing that I outsourced for a little info."

Chloe swallows back the uneasy heat licking at her throat as Rory stalls in her unhurried speech. The demons at her back edge closer to the light, and the shapes of their sunken faces take on a more grotesque form without the cover of darkness. They're staring at her, hungrily, and shifting impatiently in their stations. Rory's gaze flickers to them, and the staff flinches in her hands as if willing them back, but whatever tenuous control she seems to lord over them is clearly slipping as they lay starving, hollow eyes on Chloe.

Rory snaps the staff against the ground with nervous insistence, and they slink reluctantly back — but Chloe's stomach churns with the lingering glances they leave her as they recede into the shadows.

Rory clears her throat, smoothing over the momentary disturbance, and wills her sneer to return. "Turns out, Gabriel is pretty willing to talk. Doesn't matter who to. Especially if you have one of these on hand." She grins, and raps the staff against the cement floor again. There's a terrible crackling sound, like a gas stovetop clicking relentlessly to life without hope of a flame.

"You know she hears everything? I mean, everything. I've never been one for gossip, but…she had some interesting things to share. About you—" she points accusatorially to her brother, "Not quite being God. And you—" she motions to the dip in Lucifer's wings, where Chloe's head is peeking out from behind him. "She had a lot to say about you. I was wondering what happened that night we first met." She tosses the staff to her other hand and unfolds her scarred palm, holding it splayed in front of her. She shrugs. "Makes sense, now. Gabriel gave me the abridged version."

She pauses, wrapping her scarred palm back around the staff like a coiled snake. "I know you'd never say it to him," she whispers, leaning closer to Lucifer and trying to catch Chloe's eye. "But you can admit it. You're glad I took care of Michael. After all, I mean…isn't he the reason I can do this?"

She slams the point of the staff into the ground, sending blackened sparks skittering into the air. Chloe's scar rips with the motion, torn along the seams by a blast of molten heat. She cries out, and her hand rakes along the back of Lucifer's wing as she stumbles forward. Up until this very moment the heat has always contained itself within her, swirling along the edges of her scar and working its way through the rest of her body. Now, though, as Rory digs the sharpened, warped point into the ground and allows blackened chips of Heavenly wood to litter the floor, a steady stream of dark blood stains Chloe's white sweater as the searing heat tears her scar open and leaks into the ashen air.

The demons surge forward at the sight, mouths hanging slack as the light seeps uncontrollably within her and beyond her.

"Not yet," Rory hisses, turning on them with all the nervous authority of a trapped dog. They pause in their motions, but don't step back.

She grins at Lucifer. He doesn't dare turn to face Chloe and risk turning his back on his sister, but his eyes have lost their flaming tinge at the sound of her cry and are shining a wet, oily black.

Dromos steps forward to whisper something in Rory's ear, and she turns on him with a flimsily tyrannical snarl. "We have a deal," she whispers, but it sounds more like a plaintive plea than it does an affirmed warning. "You'll get your freedom. Blank slate, remember? After I get what I want."

He grunts and stands down reluctantly, tilting his head as if to drink in Chloe's scent as he sidles back to Rory's side. Lucifer's wings tremble in a show of thinly restrained rage: the right one is streaked with blood where Chloe's hand had migrated from her scar to his wing as she'd grappled for support.

"See, I was gonna use Dan to lure you here," she shrugs, "But you beat me to him. And you brought Chloe! Which…really, saved me a ton of time. So. Thanks, Luci." She glances to Dan, wrapped in the blistered arms of two demons. "See? I don't even need him anymore."

She flicks a hand in his direction, and a red-tipped wing follows the motion. There's a heated sigh from the demons as they drop him gracelessly to the ground, frowning as they sheathe their hooked daggers.

"A gesture of good faith," Rory smirks. "Since you were nice enough to bring me exactly what I need."

Chloe's eyes dart to the door, ripped from its hinges and leading into looming darkness, and back to Dan — sputtering as he clambers to his feet.

"Dan," she gasps, the words flying free in a strangled shout. Lucifer turns reflexively at the sound of her voice, taking in the sight of her bent and squeezing at her scar for the first time. She tilts her head to the door, and Dan's gaze follows her own with dawning understanding.

"Go."

—

Dan doesn't hesitate, despite the shellshock that's settled around his shoulders. He staggers the rest of the way to his feet and surges toward the door, hell-bent on his path to Heaven. For a split second, Lucifer's guarded stare leaves Chloe as he watches Dan rush past.

As it turns out, a split second of inattention is all it takes. The demons who had held Dan now reach for Chloe in the space of Lucifer's momentary distraction, wrenching her from the safety of his bloodstained wings and dragging her across the room. When he whips around with a wounded yell, one of them taps the curved point of their blade against Chloe's chest, raking along the exposed skin just above her heart. A warning. Lucifer stops in his tracks, frozen just as Rory sweeps the base of the staff across the ground and catches Dan's legs as he stumbles toward the door. He trips with a clattered yell and skates across the concrete, crashing against the nearest wall in a ragged heap.

"Nice try," Rory says, but there's a glimmer of anxiety clouding her gaze as her eyes land on Chloe, and the blade aimed precariously at her heart. She shakes her head as if to remind the demons of their allied purpose, but each attempted reclamation of authority seems to be met with more insolence than the last. "No leaves until I'm finished."

She holds the staff out point-first as she approaches Chloe, wielding it in front of Lucifer as if warding off a coiled cobra. His wings are quivering furiously against the thick air, matching the cadence of his tattered panting.

"Let her go," he begs, and Chloe's heart rips at the sound of his keening plea.

Don't say it, she wills him. If he hears her like he had this morning on the balcony, he ignores her.

"Please," he murmurs.

"I need her to do something for me, first." Rory sighs, and turns the point of the staff to Chloe, touching it — for the first time since the Coliseum — to the space just above her scar. The contact burns like a brand, searing into the fabric of her sweater and the skin beneath like a red-hot iron, and she cries out as the light within her recoils at the blackened touch. When she looks up, tears are cutting across Lucifer's face in response to the whine she struggles to keep buried between her lips.

"You've got something that belongs to me," Rory says, returning the staff to the ground and leaving Chloe gasping. "I need the piece of the staff you have. And it seems like killing you won't do the trick, since Michael already tried that…and I can't risk losing it with the rest of you."

Chloe lifts her eyes to meet Rory's, still fighting for breath as the demons on her either side hoist her up beneath her arms. The upside of the searing, scorching burn that Rory has just inflicted on her is that it seems to have inadvertently cauterized her previous wound: the blood that had gushed from her torn scar is no longer leaking through the white threads of her sweater.

"Take me," Lucifer says, his voice pitched. "Please. You need me. Can't have God standing in your way." His wings hang limp, robbed of their majesty. "You don't need her. Let her go, Rory, and take me." His plea echoes off the dim walls and draws a stifled cry from Chloe.

"Lucifer, stop," she grunts, wrestling against the two demons on her either side. He doesn't look at her.

"Please," he says, again.

"It's sweet," Rory simpers, "But actually, I need you both. This—" she nudges her chin toward the staff, "Doesn't work, unless every part of it is working the way I need it to. And as long as there's a piece still kicking Dad's light around in her—" she changes the trajectory of her head to tilt toward Chloe, "I can't get anything done. So we're gonna change that. And then we'll deal with the God thing."

Lucifer hangs his head, but when Rory steps away from him and moves closer to Chloe he abandons his last-ditch attempt to barter for her soul. He goes rigid instead, taking an instinctive step toward Chloe before a blade shoots to the hollow of her neck and directs him into furious stillness once more.

"I don't know how much my brother told you about Hell," Rory says, switching the staff between hands. The scar on her palm, red and webbed, is dusted black like a charcoal spiderweb from its hold on the inky wood. "I'm guessing not too much, since you're down here with him."

Chloe returns her smirk, despite the knotted pain where the point of the staff had sunk against her sweater. "Or maybe he told me everything," she returns, her voice gravelly. "And I chose to come with him anyway. Which is a feeling you've clearly never experienced. I feel bad for you, Rory. I know what it's like to grow up without parents. But you're not the first kid to get dealt a shitty hand. My eleven year old has a better grip than you. So grow the hell up," she croaks, "And get over yourself."

Rory stares at her for a solitary moment, before the grin slackens on her lips and a shocked laugh slips free.

"Whatever," she mutters, eyes dark. Her gaze darts nervously to the gathered demons, as if willing them to ignore the barbed remark — her tepid handle on the situation seems slippery even without the added weight of the jab.

"You know, I sort of felt bad for you," Rory spits, back on the offensive as she dusts off the momentary lapse. "Always caught in the crossfire of whatever stupid plan Lucifer cooks up. But I think I'll enjoy this part, now."

She steps back from Chloe and motions around the room. "Since you know so much about Hell, this shouldn't come as a shock to you. You know you people punish yourselves. I mean, look at poor Dan. Trapped forever in this…shitty room." She casts a simpering smile toward Dan, curled against the wall with eyes barely open. "But did you know—" she laughs, now, shrugging her shoulders as the velvet choker around her neck ripples with the movement. "Did you know you don't actually have to be dead to feel guilty? I mean — who am I kidding. Of course you knew that. Everyone knows that."

She arches a threaded eyebrow to the ceiling, relishing in the languid revelation. "But what you and my brother might not know is that you don't have to be dead to punish yourself. It's just…no living human has ever been dumb enough to send themselves to Hell while they're still — well, alive. But then you came along! You've got great timing, Chloe. You're exactly where I needed you to be."

When Chloe hesitates Rory grins. "I need that piece of the staff gone. You're…screwing everything up. I can't cut it out of you—" she rolls her eyes as Lucifer's wings buffet at the words — "Relax. I just said I can't. I'm gonna draw it out, instead. Snuff it out."

"You can't," Lucifer hisses. "She doesn't belong down here. Not because she's alive, because—" his eyes flit to Chloe, hanging in the grasp of two leering demons. "Because she already went to Heaven. She's not guilty. You can't force her to punish herself."

"Are you sure?" Rory toys with a silver ring on her finger. "See, I don't know. I think everyone feels guilty, for something. Some people just…choose not to dwell." She turns her attention back to Chloe. "Maybe you weren't feeling so guilty that day Michael sent you to Heaven. Maybe you'd forgiven yourself. Maybe you'd just forgotten." She shrugs. "Maybe we'll never know. But I think, if I were to remind you — I think we could find something hiding up there." She tilts the staff toward Chloe with a curious look, holding it inches from her as she writhes against the demons' hold. She pushes the point to Chloe's temple with an agonizingly light touch, leaving a blackened smudge against the side of her face and drawing forth a heated scream.

"Stop," Lucifer shouts, his voice torn. "You're hurting her, you're —" he looks past Rory, searching Chloe with a quaking gaze. "Chloe," he whispers.

"Gabriel told me all about this connection," Rory says, closing her eyes as she holds the staff to Chloe. "Turns out, it goes both ways. Whatever you're trying to restore to this staff, I can just as easily take away from you. You're gonna show me everything you've been keeping from yourself, and we're gonna blow that Heavenly candle inside of you right out. Together. And then—" she casts a look to Lucifer. "We're finished."

She hums in muted satisfaction when the base of the staff crackles and groans, sealing a blackened route between herself and Chloe. "Got it," she grins, pulling it away as Chloe slumps to the ground. She's prevented from falling fully by the demons at her side, who drape her arms across their shoulders and yank her to her feet. The light within her is bouncing in a frenzied flurry, threatening to overtake her and send her into blackness as molten heat pelts against her insides.

Rory slams the staff against the ground and charcoal splinters tangle in the heavy air, coating Lucifer's ivory wings in a smudged, splattered blackness. The loose smile on her face dissolves into a blur — that same, blurred face she'd shown off that night in the hills. The same one Eve had seen all those days ago at Lux, before they'd even known her name.

This time, her features don't linger in their confused plane of obscurity. Even in her muddled state, Linda's observation rings in Chloe's ears — Maybe it's her own identity crisis, the doctor had surmised. She doesn't know who she is yet.

Now, though, it appears her powers have taken on a brand new facet of self-actualization. Where Rory had hovered before in the limbo of her own identity, the blur now consumes her entirely, sending her form into a shimmering cloud. When the fog settles, Chloe can't help the dryness that floods her throat and freezes the flurry of heat lingering there. Lucifer's rough breaths fumble on the edge of a rumbled growl.

Marcus Pierce — or, at least — the face, the body, the self-affirmed smirk of Marcus Pierce is standing inches from Chloe, where Rory had offered her a knowing wink only moments before. He fixes her with an easy smile with piercing blue eyes Dan's demons had failed so many times to replicate in Chloe. But Rory is no demon — and the single, red-tipped feather that had fluttered to the ground in her muddled transformation confirms as much.

Pierce steps forward, the staff tucked securely against a meaty palm. "Never would've guessed you'd be guilty about this," he — Rory — muses. "But, hey, there's no accounting for taste, right?" He laughs, and rolls his head in a half-circle to work the kinks from his neck.

"Alright," Pierce says, narrowing his gaze. His movements are frighteningly accurate — leagues ahead of the demonic recreations of Hell and its infinite loops — and any thoughts of Rory that Chloe so desperately attempts to cling to evaporate under the cool ice of his stare. "Let's get to it."