The sun is barely breaking over the clouds when they return to the penthouse. It's as if no time has passed: the balcony they land on is still bathed in the beginnings of orange light that had saluted their departure.
Time works differently in Hell, Michael had told her once — but she hadn't expected to be met with the same sunrise that had predated the chaos of a darkened eternity.
Lucifer is reluctant to loose her from his grasp, depositing her with a lingering hand on the edge of the sofa. She nestles into the cushions with a soft mumble, her eyes half-open and heavy with the dregs of exhaustion. He takes a ginger seat beside her and urges her head into his lap, the same way she'd held him what seems like a lifetime ago. But his touch is gentle, and easy — free of all the desperate, searching fever that her hands had traced across his face. He brushes a strand of hair from her cheek and she stirs, looking up at him with a drawn blink.
"You can put those away, you know," she mutters, flashing a tired, teasing smile. His wings, still splayed around her in all their glittering resplendence, shudder in indignation. She tucks her face into his jacket as she wriggles closer. "Show off."
"Always," he purrs. He's reaching for his right wing as he parries her jab, curving it toward himself and plucking a pristine feather from the freshly-restored multitude. He puffs out a taut grimace as it comes away with a slight tear and Chloe stirs at the sound, tipping her head from his chest.
"Lucifer." The sleep slips from her voice and she makes to rise from his lap. "What are you doing?"
He lays a gentle hand across her breast, urging her back down with a feline smile. "Showing off," he murmurs.
He takes her wrist in his hand with ghostlike delicacy, drawing a slight wince as he extricates it from its snug position at her side. She makes no move to pull her hand away, even as the throbbing ache resurges with the sudden motion. The hand that doesn't hold hers lowers the feather to her wrist, brushing over bruised skin with a gold-flecked touch.
There's a low, thrumming hum as it meets her wrist. He watches his work with a furrowed brow, seized by a concentration entirely disproportionate to the current task. The purple hue that had clutched her wrist recedes, yanked away by the ivory feather skimming the length of her hand — and the desperate throbbing that had shot from her forearm to her fingers dissipates with its weightless touch.
She watches with wide eyes, her gaze slipping from her wrist and latching onto his ridged expression, instead. It's getting harder and harder to surprise Chloe Decker with displays of angelic prowess, and the prospect of her broken wrist being healed by a celestial feather is low on the list of this week's notable events. But the look that accompanies his handiwork — the raw, childlike concern scrawled across his dark stare — is a million times more enthralling than the divinity gripping her hand.
He leaves it pressed against her long after the swelling has subsided, and long after the ache has receded into nothingness, as if he's afraid to extricate her fully from the piece of his wing still folded over her. When her hand stirs beneath him and her fingers graze the underside of his palm he relents, lifting the feather to skate over her temple as he pushes her hair back. The blackened ash that smudges the side of her face — left over from her altercation with the staff — fades with the touch just as the mottled purple had dissipated from her wrist, erasing the last vestiges of Hell with a single swipe.
She sits up slightly in his lap when his fingers toy with the hem of her sweater, coated in dust and splattered with blood. His blood. He glances down at her, begging permission with a soft blink as his hands hesitate by her waist. Her fingers find his and thread beneath them, answering his silent question with a gentle nudge as she guides his hand beneath the smudged hem.
She draws away when he pushes the bottom of her sweater up, exposing the smooth skin of her stomach and the jagged seam of the scar she'd been so reticent to let him see only a week ago. Now, though, she only watches as he slides her sweater past her ribs, bunching blood and ash in a forgotten heap as he trails mild fingers along the faded wound.
His wings fold back into his shoulders, the movement almost an afterthought as his focus remains entirely fixed on his fingers at her core. The feather in his hand twitches, slightly — the same tentative movement that so often rippled through the entire set.
"Chloe," he says, hesitantly. The feather hovers over her scar, shimmering above taut skin. "I can…"
She shifts, bracing against the wrinkled silk of his pants and tilting her head to stare down at her chest.
"Oh." She glances at at her wrist, straight and smooth now where it had lain crooked and riddled with darkening cuts — and looks back to her stomach, to the trembling feather dangling over her. She meets his flickering gaze and shakes her head.
"Leave it," she says, softly.
He doesn't ask her if she's sure: doesn't question the request that varies so distinctly from their night in the penthouse just days ago, when she'd stopped him from unraveling her bandage with a shaky hand and a nervous breath. But she answers for him, anyway.
Her scar doesn't sear with untapped reserves of Heavenly light. Not anymore. The ragged seams aren't glowing with soft, incessant heat, and there's no fire bubbling just under the scored surface. There's nothing — just a long, tattered tear where divinity had slipped in and seeped out again.
Lucifer's soft assurance echoes in the silence — those words he'd spoken as he had unwound her bandage and led her hands across the crescent-shaped scars between his own shoulders.
These are just memories, he had said, as he'd knelt and bared the marks to her.
If he had asked her that night, she would have accepted his offer of divine intervention in a heartbeat. She would have gladly watched the jagged edges of her own scar fade away: would have done anything to help the memory of its conception melt into nothingness. But now, as it rests mute against her stomach where it had thrummed so constantly with light — with life — she understands what he had tried so valiantly to impart.
"It's just a memory," she breathes, eyes fixed on him. He nods, and sets the feather down on the cushion beside him. His thumb traces lightly over her scar, guiding the rest of his hand along its seam and pausing with a feathered touch at her hip. "And I…" She draws in a sharp breath when he drags his hand down, further, trailing along the silver button of her jeans and coming to rest with lingering softness above her knee. He's coming dangerously close to inciting a whimper from her lips as his fingers drift up dark denim and graze the inside of her thigh. "I don't want to forget," she whispers, before she can lose herself to his touch.
It takes two days for Trixie and Penelope to return to LA, which just so happens to be the same amount of time it takes for news of Rory's banishment to spread through the Silver City with all the fervor of the second coming of Christ. Lucifer is surprised to find himself unbothered for a full forty-eight hours: keeping anything to herself for longer than a single, sleepless night is something of a record for Gabriel.
They had made no move to contact Amenadiel, or Maze — or anyone, for that matter, save for Trixie and Penelope — once they'd returned from Hell. It was selfish, as Chloe had been quick to point out, but her feigned resolve had come crumbling down as soon as his lips had quieted her own. And so they had waited for Gabriel's recounting to proliferate instead, relishing in the unbroken moment of peace that their selfish silence had produced.
Chloe had been the first to disentangle herself, pressing an idle palm to his chest as her phone had chimed with news of Trixie's arrival. He had groaned as she'd slipped from him, keening quietly against the leaden weight of her absence. But he'd made no move to drag her back down onto the mattress; to reach for her with a loose grasp and a wicked grin as he'd done so many times before. Not when Trixie was waiting for her.
The contented illusion of aloneness had shattered the moment Chloe disappeared from the penthouse. Either Gabriel's timing had been impeccable, or she'd been putting on a rare display of sisterly grace in allowing Lucifer a few precious hours of peace — regardless, it had seemed that news of their victory breached the celestial sphere as soon as the elevator doors clicked shut.
Lucifer had fielded the inevitable flurry of fevered questioning so that Chloe might remain undisturbed. The glaring truth of their victory over Rory had at first been largely overshadowed by a series of increasingly intense scoldings, of which Amenadiel was the first to dole out. He had appeared on the balcony and rushed to meet a lounging Lucifer in the center of the penthouse, flustered and panting beneath steely wings —
You went to Hell, Luci? With Chloe? What were you thinking? You could have asked me, you know I would have gone for you, brother — you could have died!
Well, funny you should mention that, actually —
— and was succeeded by the combined forces of Linda and Maze, to whom he had passed the baton of beratement:
You can't just take your girlfriend to Hell whenever you feel like it, Lucifer, Maze had hissed. I couldn't care less if your Dad is God, or you're God, or your whole fucking family is God, you don't just jet off to Hell with Chl—she'd paused here, somewhat sheepish as her scolding had verged dangerously near the realm of emphatic caring. Linda had picked up the slack she'd left behind, unloading on Lucifer with a demonic fervor that had sent even Maze's eyebrows lifting.
Eventually the fever of their concern had broken, and Lucifer no longer found himself in danger of a Nietzsche-style eradication at the hands of an incensed demon and an irate, five foot tall psychiatrist. Then — and only then — had the actual weight of his triumph over Rory begun to settle about the room and gnaw away at the edges of their pitched distress. It was also only then that Lucifer had been allowed to get a word in edgewise, if only to assure them of Chloe's wellbeing.
He'd asked them something, then: once he'd reassured them of the continued existence of the universe. Something that had almost — almost — sent Maze's lips curving in an uncharacteristically warm grin. Something that now delivers Lucifer to Chloe's doorstep, five days after their rather turbulent, yet altogether triumphant, return from Hell.
She's not expecting him. He hadn't alerted her to his imminent arrival with his usual string of unintelligible text messages, instead electing to frighten her out of a cozied, book-induced stupor with a phenomenally loud series of knocks.
She cracks the door and peers through the slit, puffing out an exasperated note when his dark eyes blink back. She steps back and draws the door open wider, allowing him entry as she sets her gun — snatched reflexively in response to the incessant pounding at her door — down on the countertop. He watches with peppered amusement. "Do you usually shoot your house guests, Detective?" He asks, trailing a finger along the granite counter as he leans toward her. "Or is that just ame thing?"
Her gaze narrows. "Just the ones that wake me up," she grumbles, suddenly very aware of the ratty pair of sweatpants she's sporting as he looms over her in a freshly-pressed suit. She lets her stare linger for a moment, blushing slightly as his shirt and his smile glint with the same, silken sheen. The annoyance at his brusque entry is quickly falling prey to the allure of his languid composure: she's fighting a losing battle against his boyish charm as the last dregs of irritation slip away.
"You look…nice," she says, vaguely suspicious. She glances down at her phone, resting on the counter beside her gun. 9:13 PM.
As often as she contended the nickname, granny-pants Decker did ring with a certain chime of truth: it's already thirteen minutes past her allocated bedtime. The last week spent in the clutches of Lucifer's penthouse had thrown her ritualized sleeping schedule to the wayside, but the past days with Trixie had restored some semblance of normalcy to her octogenarian nighttime routine.
It's evident she'd been moments from falling well and truly asleep: she's swallowing a yawn even as she fixes Lucifer with a determined stare, and her hair is mussed where she'd dozed off with a book in one hand and the other slumped against her head.
"So do you."
She rolls her eyes. "Yeah," she quips, gesturing to her baggy Backstreet Boys tee shirt. It slips from a single shoulder with the movement, and she yanks it back up with a sudden, overwhelming sense of shyness that flares under the heat of his stare.
"You look beautiful," he blinks. He means it. She knows he means it, standing across from her in a Tom Ford suit and clicking Louboutin shoes nervously against the floor and complimenting the same shitty, drooping tee shirt she's had since high school.
She swallows, suppressing the blush that's creeping from her cheeks and crowding her throat. Any vestiges of sleep that had possessed her when he'd knocked at the door have vanished like smoke in the wake of his arrival. "What, um — do you want to…stay?" She motions clumsily upstairs, to the darkened hall that leads to the bedroom. He follows her gaze, and for a brief moment his eyes blacken with a wolfish twinge at the suggestion. The purpose of his visit rattles weakly against the desire building in his chest, and he tears his focus back with strained effort.
He lifts his hand to the counter, producing a white bag he'd been harboring by his side. "I had something else in mind," he purrs.
She furrows a brow as he slides it across to her, watching intently as she peers inside. "Lucifer," she gasps. He shifts, struck by the same sheepish set of nerves that had possessed her as he'd held her in his stare.
"They didn't have any brown shoes, I'm afraid," he smiles, pushing past the kink that's worked its way into his tongue. "I had to settle for second best."
Chloe ignores the jest. She's too intent on the contents of the bag: the tissue paper crinkles and her mouth falls slack as she reaches inside and pulls out a dress, allowing it to unravel in the space between them as she slips the straps over her fingers.
"Oh, my god," she says, her breath catching. "It's beautiful."
An obvious shade of relief colors his face, and he releases the breath he'd been holding. She doesn't even want to think about how much this must have cost: it's a dark, deep emerald, cut above the knee with long-sleeves and a plunging neck. Every inch of it is shimmering; rippling like a forest draped in diamond dew.
She's well past asking him if he's sure, or instigating the classic It's too much, I can't accept this back-and-forth.
"Thank you," she breathes, eyes wide. He nods, somewhat abashed.
"What…" Her gaze snaps up to him as the dress dangles in her grasp. "I don't even know where I would wear this," she admits, laughing in shocked surprise. "I mean—" she gestures again to the baggy sweatpants; to the half-finished book she'd thrown to the ground in the startled jolt of his arrival.
"I've taken care of that, as well," he says, in an adorable show of scrunched earnest. "Or, Maze has. I think. She's yet to send me the address." He trails off, muttering to himself as Chloe's confusion mounts. "I suppose it'll be a surprise for the both of us," he chirps.
"What?" She glances around, half-expecting Maze to materialize out of thin air. "You want to go somewhere? Now?" She glances at her phone again — 9:16. She's not tired, anymore.
"I can't," she says, looking back to the dress in her hands with a distinct twinge of disappointment. It's a novel feeling — she never thought she'd see the day when the prospect of missing a night out would be anything other than thrilling. "I have Trixie, I —"
"Ah—" Lucifer raises an index finger to the empty air, summoning her silence, and cocks his head toward the door. As if on cue, a knock — much milder, this time — echoes through the dim apartment. He saunters to the door, turning to flash her a self-satisfied smile as he pulls it open to admit Trixie's hobbling, elderly babysitter. There's a rare smile in place of her usual grimace, and Chloe wonders if the unusual spurt of glee is attributed to the wad of cash Lucifer produces from his jacket, or to the warm kiss he plants on her cheek as he greets her in fluent Russian.
"Olga," Chloe manages, with some surprise. Olga takes no notice of her and continues to smile up at Lucifer, clasping his hands with weathered fingers.
"No need to worry, Detective," he says, disentangling himself from Olga's frighteningly powerful grip. "The urchin will be fine. Besides," he drawls, "She'd be disappointed if you refuse. She was vital to the planning process."
"Trixie helped you?"
"Yes," he blinks, as if the prospect of God recruiting her eleven year old to plan his surprise is simply a matter of routine occurrence. He relents against her bewildered glance. "Well, I had to make sure the measurements were right," he explains, glancing down at the dress. "I enlisted the urchin to rifle through your closet. Just to be sure. Everything but the cup size, obviously. I pride myself on my accuracy." He grins. She's not sure if she should whack him or drag him down into a kiss, hovering Olga be damned.
"Okay," she blurts. "I, um — I just need a few minutes."
Lucifer nods, a cheshire grin lighting his features as he takes a lazy seat at the counter. Olga stares at him, exchanging her token tight-lipped scowl for a flushed, slack-jawed smile. If he notices, he makes no move to acknowledge her: his gaze is entirely fixed on Chloe as she disappears up the steps with a slight glance over her shoulder.
—
When she reappears at the top of the stairs, hair curled about her shoulders and glittering like an emerald twilight, she takes his breath away.
He rises from his seat to meet her in the half-light, gazing down at her through hazy eyes like a mirage on the horizon. It's a different look than the one he'd affixed to her the night of their sting, when he'd practically dragged her into the coat closet and watched her red dress slink to the floor.
This is utter reverence: desire, yes, but not that same, insatiable hunger that had consumed him at Lux. There's no urgency — only gentle, thrumming adoration, pitched forward into a shockwave when her hand brushes against his own. His eyes lift to meet hers, lingering at the hollow of her neck. She's wearing the necklace he'd given her so long ago, now, on the birthday she'd spent wishing for him to come home. It's hanging loose against her collar, the pressed bullet glinting gold atop exposed skin.
"How do I look?" She asks, blinking in the wake of his stupefied silence.
Trixie — who had been tucked contentedly away in her room with her iPad propped on her knees and headphones firmly affixed to her ears — slides her door open a single, creaking inch, and peeks a sliver of her face through.
"Incredible," he whispers.
Chloe smiles shyly and accepts the hand he offers her, allowing him to guide her out into the night. He holds the door for her, casting a look back into the apartment as she steps out in front of him. Trixie's grin is visible even from the minuscule vantage point she's provided herself, gleaming in the dim light. Lucifer locks eyes with her and she winks, sliding the door open ever so slightly to afford him a subtle thumbs-up.
He arches a brow and returns the gesture, tossing her a brief thumbs-up as the door clicks shut behind them.
Chloe badgers him the entire ride. He's driving with his phone clasped in one hand and the steering wheel in the other, peering down at Maze's confusing set of directions with the screen tilted from Chloe's view.
"Where are we going?"
"It's a surprise. Besides, I've told you, even I don't know. Maze picked out the location."
"Come on, you must have some idea."
"Patience is a virtue, Detective."
She huffs in a playful show of exasperation and he casts a sidelong glance to her, sitting with arms folded in his passenger seat. The dress has slipped up her leg as she's shifted in the leather seat, exposing her thigh to the cool air and drawing Lucifer's gaze repeatedly from the road. She motions with a hurried finger when the light they're speeding toward turns red, pitching forward with a muttered obscenity as he regains his focus in time to slam on the brakes.
"Really?"
He doesn't apologize, because he doesn't lie — and he's not sorry for the distraction currently throwing a wrench in his concentration. He looks at her as they shudder to a stop and stall at the light. She's shivering: even in the mild Los Angeles evening, the wind whipping through the convertible is pricking her skin and sending a chill to her lips. He sets his phone down and drapes a heavy hand over the stick shift, inches from her knee. They both stare down at his hand as the light lingers red, and Chloe's core curls with a heat that bites back the cold.
She shifts closer to him, until the fingers that sprawl over the stick shift are brushing against the smooth skin of her thigh.
The light turns green and she's grateful for the roar of the engine as it rumbles to life — and for the whistling wind that drowns the whine on her lips as his pinky drifts up her leg. He drags the shimmering fabric up further, trailing the rest of his fingers along the newly exposed skin and pausing when he grazes against black lace.
"Lucifer."
His name slips free and falls into the twinkling darkness. He catches it before it can fade fully from her lips and the sound spurs him on, summoning his palm to the crook of her thigh and pausing before his name sparks in the blackness again.
She arches against his hand, gripping the seatbelt across her chest with whitening knuckles. His gaze is pinned with frustrating conviction to the road — he doesn't look at her, even as she locks onto his curved expression with lidded eyes and a soft gasp.
The GPS on his phone chimes with a new direction, and as he turns down a lively West Hollywood street his index finger slips past the lace seam and curls against her. Her hand flies from the seatbelt to meet his own, shoving the fabric aside and urging him closer.
She doesn't register when they come to a stop. Her eyes are closed, pressed against a whimper, and the hand that had guided his own now puts forth only a weak, trembling attempt to chase the curve of his fingers. She bucks against the loss of him when he draws his hand away and straightens the ruffled cuff of his sleeve, finally turning to face her with a glinting stare as the car sighs into silence.
She opens her eyes, panting out a shallow breath as he nudges the hitched fabric of her dress back over her thigh. His gaze is pitch black, twinkling in the reflection of shimmering emerald. It takes a herculean force of will to remove himself from the car — his stare remains fixed to her even as he stalks around to the passenger side, tracing the dip in her collar, the curve of her breasts, the darkened, flushed blue of her eyes as they follow his every move.
His fingers find the handle and he pulls the door open, extending a hand as she sits breathless in his seat.
"Shall we?"
His voice is little more than a growl, hoarse and shadowed by desire.
"Unless you'd rather take another lap around the block, Detective."
She takes the offered hand before she can accept his second, far more tempting, proposal — and even then, as she threads her fingers between his own, she's of half a mind to drag him down into her seat rather than lift herself from it.
She stands shakily on the sidewalk and smoothes her dress. The finger that had drifted past her dress and teased her to the edge now strokes the inside of her wrist as he leads her forward — and she's so caught up in the fantasy provoked by his lingering touch that she doesn't even notice the sidewalk underfoot turning to…sand?
She looks up, and they're standing in the dimly-lit entrance of a bar.
"Oh, bloody hell," Lucifer groans. A layer of sand glues itself to the sides of his shoes, and he frowns in abject repulsion. He turns to her, perplexed, and makes to apologize for Maze's gross incompetence in the planning department, but Chloe interrupts him with a widening grin as her eyes adjust to the tropical, greenish light.
"It's the tiki bar," she laughs, nudging him and forcing his gaze from the grime that's settled on his shoe. He peers around, nose scrunched. "Remember? From that time you bribed Maze to get me out of the house?"
She pauses. "I thought we were banned from here," she muses, as the hazy, tequila-infused memory of their girl's night bar fight surfaces.
"We were."
Maze sidles up to her shoulder, a wicked grin curving her features. She looks to Chloe expectantly, and when her head tilts to the side Chloe can see the rest of her friends: Ella, Linda, Eve — even Amenadiel — huddled in an excited cluster at the bar. They don't notice her, yet. Maze shrugs. "I bribed the bouncer."
Lucifer purses his lips — he's still processing the abject horror of being compelled to escort Chloe Decker to a bar with sand on the floors. "Oh, did you? With what money, exactly?"
"Yours," Maze snaps. "Don't get your panties in a twist. It didn't work. I had to threaten him instead." There's a glint of steel at her waist, tucked in the band of tight-fitting leather pants, and Lucifer looses a long sigh.
"This was your idea?" He hisses, gesturing to the suspiciously sticky counter, and to the attempt at evocative lighting that's drenching the entire bar in a semi-nauseating green hue. "You insisted on handling the location. This is a post-apocalyptic Sandals Resort."
"It's sentimental, you asshole," Maze growls, teeth flashing as she steps closer to him. Chloe interrupts their incensed bickering — she hasn't heard a word they've said, standing instead in the entryway with an unabashed grin lighting up her face. She turns to Maze, quelling the annoyance brewing between she and Lucifer as she speaks with earnest assurance.
"I love it," she says. Lucifer blinks, standing helpless in a state of utter bewilderment. Her grin falters slightly as she leans into Maze, affecting a low whisper so as not to draw attention from the group that awaits her. "But, um, why…why are we all here, though?" She looks somewhat nonplussed, but she smiles nonetheless. "And why am I dressed like this at a… tiki bar?"
"Yes," Lucifer drawls, narrowing his gaze at Maze. "Why indeed?"
Maze ignores him. "He was in charge of clothes," she says, gesturing absently to Lucifer. "He wanted something to do. We thought it would keep him busy. Besides. You look hot."
"We?" Chloe stares.
"Yeah." She cocks her head back to the bar, where Linda and Ella are tossing back identical shots. "We…ruined your last bachelorette party," she says gruffly, "And Lucifer told us you guys were..." she clears her throat, and points to the milky ring glittering on Chloe's ring finger. "So we figured we could make it up to you this time around."
"He told you?" Chloe whips around to face Lucifer, and the unquenched desire falters under his gaze, fading in favor of blooming adoration. He looks at her shyly, a far cry from the lupine stare that had glittered with such confidence only moments ago in his corvette. "This was your idea?" She asks, softly.
He hadn't even known how to propose properly, bowing before her with both knees pressed to the floor and his lips grazing her fingers. It's no small wonder, then, that he's watching her with coy expectancy, waiting for her reaction to the celebration he'd entrusted to the better judgement of the gathered women. It's with a twinge she realizes he's trying to give her the normalcy she'd been so severely lacking in the wake of otherworldly chaos; he's trying to embrace humanity — domesticity — the way she'd thrown herself into the celestial.
"Yes," he says, blinking with drawn softness.
Lucifer Morningstar is attempting to throw her an engagement party. He wants to celebrate her. To celebrate them.
It's so…Lucifer: the dress, the surprise, the hand that had trailed up her skirt on the ride over — and so not Lucifer, all the same. The man she'd met five years ago would have balked at the thought of organizing a night for a woman involving anything other than raucous, marathon sex — though she's not opposed to tacking that Lucifer's agenda onto the end of the night. The man she'd met five years ago hadn't known how to love himself, much less someone else — and he certainly wouldn't have gone above and beyond to parade the fact that the Devil is well and truly smitten. But he's not that Lucifer, anymore. There's a tinge of him still, in the drifting fingers that graze her open back; in the lips that bend to the shell of her ear with wicked softness. But even that's different, now: reserved only and desperately for her.
She wants to drag him down into a kiss; to whisper that she loves him with the words hot against his mouth, but he's staring at her with a nervous, jittery sort of apprehension. And so she grabs his hand, instead, drawing a satisfied smirk from Maze as she leads him to the waiting party.
—
Ella is the first to raise an excited screech at the sight of Chloe walking towards them; Linda and Eve follow soon after, greeting her with all the commotion of a pack of half-starved coyotes. Amenadiel neglects to add his voice to the mix, but he offers her a warm smile and a kind wave as she nears. Lucifer follows close behind, allowing a smile to shade the corners of his mouth at Chloe's infectious giggle.
"Congratulations!" Ella shrieks, tackling her in a suffocating hug. She's breathless as she pulls away and takes Chloe's hand in her own, yanking her ring finger up for closer inspection. She looks past Chloe to fix Lucifer with an approving nod. "It's about time. You guys are, like, the biggest teases ever. I mean, I had to live through so much back and forth. Every. Day. Lucifer this and Chloe that. Ugh, and the eyes! You are not slick. I could see you checking her out from a mile away. Constant. Never-ending. I'm talking twenty-four seven. It was torture. But, hey, whatever. We made it."
Lucifer and Chloe exchange a light glance at the semi-slurred admonishment, and his cheeks redden ever so slightly. It's evident the group hasn't waited for Chloe's arrival to kick off the festivities — there's a row of half-drunk, neon-colored slushies lining the bar behind Ella, and the tiny pink umbrellas that droop over the drinks have been pillaged by Linda and Eve. They approach Chloe now with tropical toothpicks protruding from their hair and pull her into an excitable embrace.
"I cannot believe he proposed," Linda whispers, her glasses tipping over the bridge of her nose. She draws in a long, centering breath and stumbles closer to Chloe. "No. Nope. You know what?" She lifts her drink from the bar beside her and takes a sip, hissing as the overwhelming flavor of bottom-shelf rum floods her throat. "I can," she declares. "I can believe it. Because he—" she gestures toward Lucifer with a sloppy hand and he perks up at the motion, eyeing her from his peripheral as she continues to whisper-shout at Chloe. "Is in love." She pauses for a moment, as if absorbing the news for the first time herself, then turns on Chloe with renewed verve. "With you! I mean — " she chuckles, "Not like that's a newsflash. Only took five years of therapy to pry it out of him. Wait—" she leans in even further, grabbing Chloe's hand with an iron grip as she fixes her with fierce insistence. "He did tell you. Right?"
Chloe laughs, and Lucifer's concern heightens from his place behind her — despite Linda's atrocious attempt at a whisper, the 90's music blaring from the loudspeakers still leaves him in the dark as to the nature of their conversation. He stares at them both with mounting suspicion: his therapist and girlfriend — no, fiancée — pointing and giggling like schoolgirls is arguably a more frightening sight than the demonic hellscape from which he's just escaped.
He'd released his hand reluctantly from the small of Chloe's back as she'd been swarmed by the rabble, and now he watches in caged amusement as she's fawned over to the tune of several adoring, drunken squeals. He'd suffered a brief flash of unease at the prospect of Eve joining them, but whatever concern he'd faced is quickly assuaged — she envelops Chloe in a tight hug and oohs over the ring on her finger with doe-eyed sincerity. She glances back to Lucifer, too, smiling at him without a trace of the wistful longing that had so often accompanied each look.
He smiles back.
Amenadiel wanders up to him, handing him a lethal-looking green drink that matches the one in his own hand. Lucifer accepts it with a low groan and promptly deposits it onto the bar behind him, wiping his hands on the front of his pants to rid himself of any vestige of tropical toxicity.
"No," he says, warding off Amenadiel's resigned sigh. "I'd rather be sober than drink that swill. "
Lucifer is considering a barbed comment — something along the lines of the much more elegant party he could have thrown, at Lux, had he known this would be the venue they had chosen — but a single look past his brother to Chloe shuts him up before he can speak. She's grinning from ear to ear, loosened into playful action by the twin shots Ella has coaxed into her hands and the throbbing baseline of the Backstreet Boys. It's a curious choice of song for a tiki bar, but a single glance to Maze confirms Lucifer's sneaking suspicion that she's done more to ensure Chloe's enjoyment than simply guarantee their entry.
Chloe looks relaxed. Happy. Properly happy, and laughing in a way the past few weeks have disavowed. But it's not until she turns to him that she looks well and truly content — not until her eyes find his and hold steady amidst the raucous chatter that her smile lights with a ringing warmth.
"I'm proud of you, Luci."
Amenadiel edges back into Lucifer's frame of view, tearing him away from the mystified stare he's fastened to Chloe. He blinks as his focus shifts reluctantly to his brother.
"We all are," Amenadiel continues, with heartfelt sincerity. Lucifer huffs, already warming in the face of such direct praise. It's evident Amenadiel hasn't been left immune to the effects of the cancerous-looking drinks the girls have been plying him with: his words are thick and slightly blurred at the seams, but ringing with genuine earnest all the same. "Gabriel can't stop singing your praises," he says, with a slight chuckle. "And you know how rare that is."
Lucifer puffs out an abashed chuckle, gearing up for a characteristically smug remark if only to counter the blossoming warmth in his chest. He's saved the effort, however, as Amenadiel continues with a nudge and a narrowed glance. "And Chloe?"
Lucifer shrugs, suppressing the smile that rises at the mention of her name. "What about the Detective, brother?" Coy coolness ensnares the words.
"Your ring, Luci." Amenadiel's smile widens, and he clasps Lucifer's arm. "That's a big step."
Lucifer's gaze has slipped back to Chloe. It's evident the tequila Ella has thrust upon her with has taken effect — the shot glasses that she'd been double fisting are nowhere to be seen, now, and her hair is mussed about her shoulders as she dances between Eve and Linda. Even in the green light — beneath low ceilings and sandy floors and wedged beside a tacky bar — she's drawing his gaze like the North Star, glittering with an incessant glow.
His brother's words barely register. "Yes," he muses in passive agreement. "Well. She wears it better than I ever could."
His distracted smile turns wicked as Linda breaks free from the sweaty huddle tearing up the makeshift dance floor. If she'd been tipsy before, she's plastered now — stumbling toward Amenadiel with glasses half-cocked and clinging to her face with sheer force of will. She careens into his side with the force of a small truck, sliding a hand up his chest and drawing an arched brow from Lucifer as she leans to whisper sloppily against his ear. Amenadiel reddens and clears his throat, staring determinedly at the ground as Linda rakes a hand along his forearm. When she stalks back to the dance floor, Lucifer turns on Amenadiel with a predatory smirk.
"Why are you still here?" He drawls, relishing in his brother's discomfort. "It would seem you're late for your doctor's appointment."
"Is it that obvious?" Amenadiel winces. "We were trying to be discreet, at least until we figure out what this is. You know what happened last time."
They both cast a glance to Maze, who doesn't look back. She's wedged at the bar between Eve and Linda: the former is trailing drunken kisses up her neck in a sloppy line, and the latter is attempting to tie the maraschino cherry stem she's rescued from her drink into a knot in what's quickly becoming a very intense public display.
"I think Maze might surprise you, this time around." Lucifer says. He pats his brother on the shoulder as he slips past, leaving Amenadiel to harrumph in muted agreement.
—
When he finally rejoins Chloe she's perched at the bar, peering over Ella's shoulder as she swipes through a series of increasingly unsavory photos of Craig and his infamous tattooed penis. Lucifer appears behind them and plucks the phone from Ella's grasp, zooming in on a particularly intense angle as Ella sputters in feigned annoyance.
Lucifer's eyebrow lifts as he inspects the object of their unadulterated intrigue.
"I think I know him," he announces, after a brief examination.
Ella snatches her phone back. She wags an admonishing finger at him as Eve arrives to drag her back to the sandy floor, leaving he and Chloe alone for a blissful, blaring moment.
"I missed you," she says, sobering slightly under his pointed stare. Her hand toys with the hem of his jacket, twisting the fabric between wandering fingers. He steps closer and brushes a thumb along the rut of her jaw, urging her gaze to him.
"Are you enjoying yourself, Mrs. G?"
She smiles at the nickname — it's cheesy as hell, and a far cry from the Lucifer who'd pulled her in and pushed her away so many times before.
"I am," she says, the words more flirtatious than she'd intended. The tequila has had more of an effect than she'd like to admit — that, combined with the fact that it's now more than three hours past her allocated bedtime. She sucks in a breath, centering herself for a final word before she loses herself entirely to the warm pull of the drink in her chest. She resists the temptation to pinch herself: this is the normal she'd longed so desperately to return to only a few nights past, when she'd prayed for the most compelling case of the week to revolve around Linda's lingering hand on Amenadiel's arm.
She looks to Lucifer instead, and asks with a hopeful smile what she'd begged through tears, before.
"It's real?" She whispers, tipping closer as his hand slips from her jaw to the back of her neck. He strokes a lazy thumb through her hair and tilts her head to him, hovering inches above her lips. Flecks of sand kick up from the dance floor and dust his shirt.
"Frighteningly so, it would seem."
"You didn't have to do this," she breathes. "Not that I'm discouraging this in the future," she amends, quickly, "But, Lucifer, I'd be just as happy spending a…normal, average night with you. As long as I'm with you."
She's not even sure what a normal night with Lucifer Morningstar looks like. She's not positive the prospect exists.
He scoffs lightly. "You wound me, Detective," he says, with affected offense. "I've never given a woman an average night in my life. I certainly don't intend to start now." There's a shaded smile hiding behind his tease, and his lips drop to graze against her own.
Everything fades the moment he kisses her. The tremendously late hour, the ache in her feet from heels crunching into sand, the clamor of her friends as they howl behind the bar — everything slips from her peripheral and fades to searing, molten black as soon as his tongue drags across the seam of her lip and his hand falls to the small of her back.
She stumbles slightly when he pulls away, threatening to crash against him at the hands of tequila and white-hot desire.
"Ready to go?" He practically growls the words, his mouth flush to her ear. Whatever resolve he'd mustered when he'd freed himself from his corvette is finally crumbling: his palm lays flat against her hip and tugs her forward. The motion garners the attention of one eagle-eyed forensic scientist, who pauses with a colorful straw hanging from her mouth.
"Aw," she crows, then furrows her brow as she clocks Lucifer's wolfish expression from across the bar. "Dude! Get a room if you're gonna look at her like that," she yells, voice hoarse.
"On it, Miss Lopez," he calls back, eyes glued to Chloe. His voice lowers. "If it's not past your bedtime, Detective."
His stare is burning a ruthless fire in the pit of her stomach. "I'm not tired," she murmurs.
She gasps when his hand slides from her waist and grabs her own, guiding her from the bar with gentle insistence. A devilish grin curves his lips. "Not tired yet," he amends.
If nothing else, Lucifer Morningstar is a man of his word.
She's crushingly, devastatingly exhausted by the time they finally make it to his bed. He'd driven like a maniac the entire ride home, grasping the steering wheel with an iron grip as she'd reciprocated the same wandering, teasing touch he'd inflicted upon her earlier.
Despite his ragged taunting at the bar, he waits for her make the first move as he tosses his keys to the valet and guides her to the elevator. He hasn't had nearly as much to drink as she has — it takes a concerted effort to get him tipsy, and the cancerous offerings at the aforementioned tiki bar were no great incentive. As tempting as the thought is — and as potent as the desire lapping at his core has become — he makes no move to shove her against the cramped wall and tear the dress from her shoulders. She ends up tilted against him, instead, gazing up at him with wide eyes and an inebriated grin as they approach the penthouse.
She seems to have hit that perfect sweet spot: drunk enough to forgo any semblance of shyness, but not yet past the point of no return.
"I want you," she announces.
That's new.
She always wants him — there has yet to be a time she doesn't melt into his touch — but the blasé declaration is a first. She'd always let him take the lead, at least to start: she's not modest, nor is she typically seized by an abundance of nerves, but she'd always possessed a certain coyness against the looming heat of his stare. Now, though, whatever butterflies he's responsible for inducing are drowned by a font of tequila.
He's not opposed — he's whatever the polar, most frigid opposite of opposed is, but he still hesitates as the elevator slides open and she practically drags him inside the penthouse.
"Lucifer."
She's backed him against the bar top, hands dipping to the seam of his waistband. He moans softly. She looks up at him, eyes wide, and when she speaks the words are clear — if not slightly jumbled.
"What's wrong?" Her brows furrow. She's never known him to hold back for so long — if her somewhat hazy memory serves her correctly, she should be bent over the arm of his couch by now. "Do you not want this?"
"Of course I want this," he growls. His gaze flicks to the fingers that linger at his belt, and it takes a concerted effort not to roll his hips against her waiting palm. He grabs her hand, instead, pausing her motions and doubling her confusion. "I just…"
He'd turned her away all those years ago, when she'd appeared at his doorstep hammered and rambling and coming onto him in a drunken stupor. He hadn't wanted her then like he does now — wholly, completely — but he'd wanted her all the same. He'd always wanted her. But he won't take what's offered: not then, not now — not ever, unless she's sure.
It's not like it was, five years ago. She doesn't stumble toward him, desperate for an escape the way she'd been that night. He's not an escape, anymore. He's home: and when she reaches for him she finds herself.
"Chloe," he whispers, his voice tattered. His hand drops from hers and braces against the counter. She frees his shirt from his waistband and hooks a finger beneath his belt, grazing the band of his boxers. "Are you sure?"
The look that meets him is remarkably sober, glinting with deadly insistence in the low light.
"I'm sure," she says, softly. The metal band of her ring trails with agonizing coolness over the dip in his hips, and both of their gazes drop to the shimmering stone. She smiles. "Very sure," she teases, and the promise that rests on her ring finger twinkles with the emphasis of her declaration.
The hesitation shrugs from his shoulders with his jacket, and both lay forgotten as his lips nestle in the crook of her neck and his hands pull at her waist. When he hoists her into his arms she gasps, forgetting her struggle with his belt as he deposits her on top of the piano and tugs at the zipper on her dress. He nips at her shoulder as the fabric slips from her arms, leaving a blossoming mark just above her faded bullet wound. She's scrabbling for a hold on the slick surface as his mouth follows the path of wilting fabric, trailing heated kisses along the valley of her chest as the dress bunches and splays at her hips like an emerald sea.
Usually he takes his time. Usually, he teases her until she's begging him to take her over the edge with him. But his resolve had cracked the moment she'd appeared at the top of her stairs, draped in glittering green and offering a look she'd only ever fixed to him — and it had crumbled again countless times tonight, fracturing anew with each lingering touch. He would wait a thousand years for her: he has waited a thousand years for her, but now that she's here — now that she's begging him — he can't wait any longer.
He doesn't bother undressing. The shirt he wears — a deep, silken black — is already untucked and unbuttoned where her wandering hands had taken action, and he doesn't care to finish the job this time. He pulls her closer, sliding her across the piano and sending the dress at her waist rippling with the motion. And when he settles between her legs he doesn't bother with his pants, either: he loosens his belt and shrugs them just past his hips with a careless hand. He drapes over her, silk shirt tickling her bare skin as he threads his fingers through her upturned palm and pins her gently in place.
"I want you," she whispers, again; clearer this time in the panting silence. His lips are inches from hers, head bowed to her even as he looms above her. "Please."
She doesn't have to ask again.
When she stirs it's still pitch black outside, and Lucifer's unrelenting arm across her waist has made it impossible to satisfy her nightly re-adjustment quota. But his breaths are warm and even against her neck, and his heartbeat is drumming softly at her back, and there's a ghostly I love you painting his lips when she shifts against him and attracts his hazy attention.
So she stays put, curled in silk sheets and lulled to peaceful breaths by the comforting weight of him slumped into her. When she's seconds from slipping back to sleep his fingers drift over the hollow of her wrist, in time with the rasping hum of his voice against her hair.
The words are thick with sleep, mumbled half-drunk on the scent of her shampoo and tangled on the fringe of a fading dream. But he speaks them with all the sincerity that had colored the countless promises he'd sworn to her time and time again — with all the listless reverence that bucks against the clutches of sleep.
"Told you," he murmurs. "I told you I'd keep you safe."
She can feel his smile, soft and contented, when he drops a lazy kiss to the nape of her neck. "Not that you needed me much," he rumbles.
She rolls in his grasp, disrupting the trail of languid kisses he's leaving between her shoulders. He shifts to allow her closer and she lays her head on his breast, glancing up at him with heavy eyes. She knows he's teasing, but she says it anyway — she wants him to hear it, even in the darkest hours of the night. "I do need you, Lucifer," she breathes. "I always need you."
His thumb strokes the outline of her waist, nuzzled into his side and draped in black silk. "Partners, right?" She murmurs. "Forever."
When he speaks she's already asleep, lulled back to peaceful darkness by the gentle lilt of his voice and lost to his touch for the thousandth time that night. He says it anyway, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead as he chases the vow on his lips.
"Forever."