Chapter 5
Chloe blinks herself awake, immediately focusing on the bright morning light dappling over Lucifer's bandaged form across the room. He still hasn't made a sound or moved so much as a muscle, and that terrifies her.
Of course, they're keeping him heavily drugged. Her mind wanders to yesterday, when she'd seen his burns exposed in the glaring harshness of the fluorescent lights. The deeply charred fissures crossing the planes of his back and shoulders, the enormous blisters covering his arms and the nauseating, melted wax-like appearance of the skin stretched thinly over his skull.
His stillness is unnatural, unnerving. He's never still. That ever-present energy is as much a part of him as his devil persona and irreverent humor. With all of them conspicuously absent, it's as though he's already gone from her, beyond her reach. As though he's…
He's not dead, she reminds herself stubbornly. He's not dead, he's right there. Only a few feet away.
The steady rhythm of the heart monitor attached to him soothes her fears enough that she can finally look away.
She startles a little when she notices her mother slumped in the rigid chair by her bedside. A clump of auburn hair clings to the corner of her mouth, the tail of it fluttering gently in her even breaths. Faint shadows cling to the hollows under her eyes, hints of exhaustion manifesting even at rest.
"Mom?" She croaks, and Penelope stirs, looking around in confusion. "Why are you still here? You should have gone home and gotten some rest."
"Don't be ridiculous, I wasn't going to leave you alone here," Penelope argues weakly.
"Mom…"
"And with the trial starting this afternoon, I… wasn't keen on being alone either. At least here I could watch over you and Lucifer, and…"
Penelope's voice trails off as her eyes skate past Chloe and land on the burned husk of the man in the bed across the room. The reason her daughter is still here with her today. She studies the bandages, noting the lack of yellowish staining that had been present on yesterday's topmost layers. That's a good thing, right?
Chloe glances up at the clock. 7:30. She carefully bends her left elbow and scratches her nose with her thumbnail, feeling the sting that tells her another blister has popped as the skin stretches with the movement.
Yesterday had been a long and miserable day, but the doctor had been able to determine that while Chloe's arms did have some areas of shallow second degree burns, her hands had been far less severely affected, and so he had agreed that she would likely be discharged today in time for the trial.
Penelope had called Dan on speaker and Chloe had been able to speak with him about the leads on the case for Boris that led to the Alhambra Triads. Dan was having trouble getting any information from them, as apparently no one there spoke English and their single Chinese speaking officer was out on maternity leave. Chloe had a tearful video call with Trixie after that, because Trixie had needed the assurance that her Mom wasn't downplaying her injuries. Trixie had wanted to talk to Lucifer as well, to thank him for saving her mom again, but Chloe had managed to distract her with questions about her day at school and Dan's neighbor's new puppy. Next time, she's not likely to be so lucky.
She blinks herself back to the present, Penelope stretching stiffly beside her.
"You should go home, get a shower and change before the trial. They'll be in to do our bandages soon, and by the time you make it back they'll be done and I should be ready to go to the courthouse." Her mother stands up slowly, straightening her clothing and gathering her purse before crossing over to the other bed.
"Lucifer…" she rests a delicate hand on the edge of the thin mattress, terrified to touch any part of him for fear of causing him pain. As though he senses someone nearby a few feeble twitches tremble along his lean, cotton-swathed frame and he emits a muffled whine. Penelope rests a feather-light hand on his heel and he settles back into unnatural stillness. Mother and daughter exchange a look, unsure if faint twitching and whining is an improvement over stillness.
"He'll be okay, Mom," Chloe murmurs, blinking back tears as her gaze lingers on her partner. "He's not going to be alone during his recovery, I'll make sure of that."
He flickers in and out of consciousness, yo-yoing between blissful floating darkness and the achingly familiar excruciating pain of his nerve endings regenerating under the sloughing burnt tissue coating his scorched body. The bandages are stifling, but the combination of the massive amounts of drugs they're using to keep him sedated and his own exhaustion from the energy drain of healing keep him immobile and barely conscious.
He overhears the phone call with the Douche and makes a weary mental note of the involvement of the Alhambra Triad with wry humor. Maze is going to enjoy this. He drifts off again during the Detective's emotional conversation with her offspring, feeling a surge of remorse that if not for him, the child would never have needed such reassurances. Would never have suffered such fear for the safety of her mother. Anger burns dully in the back of his mind as unconsciousness trickles in and gently drowns him in darkness again.
His dreams are restless, though his body remains still aside from autonomic twitches.
A swirling mass of golden light makes impatient, impossible demands of him and steel-grey feathers flash in the periphery of his dream vision, taunting him with flickers of flame licking his body. One moment he's in Hell, then lying on the pavement next to Chloe's flaming car. Plummeting from Heaven with broken wings, then kneeling on a beach as they're severed from his body.
He feels the heat of flames again as he sets them afire and his brother—his warden—pins him to the sand and slams his fist into his face again and again, and again. He sobs in his mother's arms as she holds him close and murmurs reassuringly in his ear. Her fingers gently coursing through his hair before turning into talons and carving deep gouges into his scalp.
"I need my Lightbringer if I'm going to return home!" she shrieks, a razor-sharp claw spiking painfully into his eye. He pulls away, her human form morphing into that of a harpy, enormous ragged wings beating at him with steel feathers that flay the skin from his bones.
He's unable to move, unable to even resist as he whimpers pitifully in her iron grip until abruptly, the dream sequence explodes into wisps of pale smoke. He drifts, relieved, suspended in soothing darkness.
When Lucifer wakes next, he feels much improved and his mind is finally clear. He listens carefully and notes the lack of movement in the room. An invisible smile touches the stiffened skin of his burned cheek under the layers of bandages.
Ahhh, the Detective's will has prevailed, no surprise there. A quick inventory reveals that he can finally move, though he still can't see. He clumsily moves his hand toward his face, and feels the soft scrape of gauze upon gauze. All wrapped up, that explains it. Well. Nothing for it but to start the process.
Ignoring the pain from the movement—he's been through worse, after all—he starts roughly pawing at the bandages until there's a thin strip where cool air brushes the burnt skin of his eyelids. He hisses in discomfort at the uncomfortable peeling sensation of his sticky eyelids parting for the first time in… how long has he been here? Relief washes over him in a cooling wave as his bandaged hand comes into view. With a monumental effort he rolls onto his side, ignoring the discomfort as he continues onto his back. He starts fumbling at the wraps on his hands until enough fingers are free to start clumsily unwrapping them.
He grits his teeth against the pain as he peels them away, the raw pink flesh sticking to the padding as he ruthlessly pulls the bandages away, dropping them onto the bed. When he finally has his hands bare, he locks his jaw to keep from screaming and forces himself into a sitting position as he unwraps his head before turning to find the hospital room phone. His coordination hasn't fully recovered yet, so he takes exaggerated care with grabbing the phone and dialing the familiar number.
Within an hour, an orderly brings him a garment bag and he's charmed the rest of the staff into letting him discharge himself to an 'unspecified burn treatment specialty center', possibly in Las Vegas. He's also managed to wrangle information on the Detective's condition and recovery from the day nurse. She had been very enthralled with his charms, but he'd also detected a bit of hero worship. Apparently, the Detective had made it very clear that he'd shielded her from the worst of the blast.
His tender skin tingles from the light pressure of the fine cotton of his shirt and the plush wool of his trousers. He'd been too sore to tolerate a waistcoat or jacket, but he manages to make it out to the curb where Maze awaits in her silver Audi before the burned flesh weeps enough to start showing wet spots on the shirt. He slips into the passenger seat, only just getting the door closed before the demon peels away and into traffic, heading for Lux.
"What the Hell happened to you?" Maze wonders curiously, taking in his charred appearance appreciatively. "Clearly Decker was nearby. She okay?"
"Someone rigged her car to explode, Mazikeen," he hedges, unwilling to set her after his mother just yet. "But she'll be safely under guard until they find out who was responsible for that. For now, we have another mission. Someone is trying to make sure that Perry Smith is going to escape justice for having the Detective's father killed." He fills her in on the trial starting today, and the overheard conversation with Daniel. "We need to find out who, and to complicate things, I can't be seen by anyone that knows me while we're working on it. Daniel is apparently on the case after the head of the key witness for the prosecution turned up bleeding in a box on his desk."
"Oookay…" Maze says doubtfully, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "Any idea how long we're gonna be walking around with you looking like you're wearing your other face?"
"Don't be so dramatic, Mazikeen, it's already healing quite nicely," He flips down the visor and glances at himself in the mirror with a grimace. The loss of his hair hits him harder than his current resemblance to his Devil Face—that will take some time to regrow, and the mottled skin of his scalp is disturbing, no matter how quickly the tone will even out. "At this rate, so long as I maintain my distance from the Detective, I should be healed up enough to pass in society without a second glance within a few hours. I'll just need to wear a cap of some sort. Pity that top hats are no longer in fashion."
"So you're thinking I drop you at Lux and go stake out Dan and see if I can get a lead on what's going on with Perry." Maze's grin reveals far too many teeth. "And once you're healed up enough, we head over to the Chinese Cultural Center? Oh man, this is gonna be a fun day."
"I thought you would enjoy that bit. Do try to be discreet, and not frighten the Douche too badly," Lucifer's answering grin would be chilling to anyone other than his right-hand demon, showing white in his burned and craggy face. "The Urchin is rather fond of him, after all."
When Chloe and Penelope return to the hospital two hours after Lucifer makes his escape, they find an unguarded, empty room. With her heart in her throat, she pins down the first nurse she can find and ruthlessly channels her ire from the setbacks the trial is experiencing by interrogating the poor young man. When the only answer she gets is that Lucifer had transferred himself to a specialty burn center after he woke up and recklessly removed his bandages, she can only gape at the poor nurse in confusion.
"He's been unconscious for almost two days, and you just let him leave the moment he woke up?" She says hoarsely. Chloe herself is still incredibly sore and tender, and she barely took a tenth of the damage Lucifer did. How could he possibly have been coherent enough to get himself unbandaged, let alone discharged and transferred to another facility? She'd seen the condition he'd been in just yesterday!
A sinking feeling in her gut reminds her that she knows her partner well enough to be nearly certain that he wouldn't check himself into any specialty treatment facility. Lucifer has barely tolerated any kind of medical care, and then only at her insistence.
The nurse shrugs helplessly, his eyes flickering over her shoulder with relief as she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Chloe, honey, I don't think this young man is going to be able to give you any more information," Penelope says softly into her ear as the nurse makes a grateful escape. "Who can we call that will know where he got transferred?"
"Maze, maybe," Chloe says after a moment's hesitation. Where would he go? Home? To one of his other properties? "Or his brother."
She pulls her phone from her pocket—it had managed to avoid damage somehow, cushioned by both her and Lucifer's bodies from the blast and subsequent landing. She pulls up Maze's contact and presses the phone to her ear, willing her roommate to answer the damn phone, for once.
"Leave a message. Or not. I don't care." Of course, it goes to voicemail. She realizes at the beep that she's not entirely sure if her roommate had even been informed of the bomb and their conditions.
"Maze, it's me. Lucifer… um… I don't know if Dan or Ella or somebody told you, but we were caught in an explosion the night before last. The hospital says he's been transferred to a specialty burn unit, but I don't know where. If you do… or even if you don't, call me back, okay? I… I need to know how he is."
She disconnects the call and stares at the phone, debating on if it would be worth trying to call Amenadiel. He's never really been particularly helpful, and if he hadn't been cleared yet to visit their room, she didn't want to let him know that Lucifer was now somewhere else, potentially without police protection.
"No luck with Maze, then?" Penelope asks dejectedly, already knowing the answer but unsure what else to say.
"She'll call me back," Chloe says absently, before correcting herself, "Maybe. Or I'll get an answer when I see her at home."
"And there's going to be an officer stationed outside your place?" her mother prompts worriedly. Chloe grimaces. She isn't fond of the idea that she can't protect herself, but if she's really honest (as Lucifer would force her to be, if he were here, and conscious) she knows that she isn't up to a fight if something should arise. She just wishes she had more faith in her fellow officers to actually have her back… her trust is primarily placed in Lucifer and Ella—and sometimes Dan—who also apparently hasn't been cleared yet.
"Yeah, the lieutenant said they were keeping my security detail in place, and that it would be best if I stayed in one place as much as possible. I need to talk to Dan about taking Trixie, but he's been chasing down leads to tie Perry to Boris' murder…"
"How about I take Trix?" Penelope offers tentatively. "I promise not to take her to any auditions this time."
Chloe huffs a tired laugh and leans exhaustedly against the hospital hallway. "I'd really prefer to have her with me, but until we know which of us this bomber was targeting… I can't risk her. She'd love to stay with you for a little while, Mom, thanks. I really appreciate it. But I'm going to hold you to the 'no auditions' promise, okay?"
Penelope scoffs at her daughter's thanks. "Come on, I'll take you home."
"No," Chloe lifts a hand and pushes herself resolutely away from the wall. "I'll get a ride with my security detail. I just need to grab the overnight bag you packed for me from your car first."
Chloe firmly overrides Penelope's objections, stating that she is perfectly capable of getting herself settled in without help, though Penelope stubbornly insists on taking Chloe's overnight bag to the security detail's car herself. She helps her protesting daughter into the car and watches them pull away before returning to her own car to go pick up her granddaughter from the sitter.
She needs to know that Lucifer is okay. If he was awake and aware enough to get himself discharged despite the severity of his burns, Chloe just knows that he's not on his way to some specialty burn center in Las Vegas. She had Googled a little and while there are a couple there, neither were prestigious enough to draw Lucifer's attention, she's sure. She thinks about the bouncers at Lux's front door and the ever-present and watchful staff. Chloe waits until the parking lot is out of sight before turning to her security detail and making her request.
"Take me to Lux, please."
Lucifer itches. He sits stiffly at his piano in nothing but his boxer-briefs, gazing longingly at the keys while his gnarled fingers twitch helplessly in his lap. Not only is he itching physically—sloughing off burned skin and trying to ignore the tender growth underneath—he's itching mentally. His hands aren't ready to do anything dexterous—he can't even fumble open pill bottles to self-medicate right now. He can't handle a book, and his phone is presumably broken, because it was not with his personal items returned by the hospital.
He wonders how the trial is going, if they've managed to delay proceedings to try to find more evidence now that Boris is no longer able to testify. He smirks stiffly to himself as he remembers the days when cell phones were nothing more than a nuisance, rather than a connection to people he cares about and an easy source of information.
He hasn't even been able to take a shower yet, and the rank odor of scorched flesh and hair still hangs over him like a toxic cloud. His lips twist in disgust, but he knows he won't have to wait much longer. He's been away from the Detective for a matter of hours and the resultant healing progress is an enormous relief. Eventually, he gives up on staring morosely at his piano and turns on his classical opera playlist before moving toward the bedroom. If he can't entertain himself, he'll nap until Mazikeen returns to retrieve him to visit the Triad.
He collapses slowly onto his stomach on top of his silk sheets, not bothering to cover himself. Less layers mean less itching, he reasons. The arias playing softly from his sound system drift through his head, and the cool silk against his tender skin soothes like a balm. If it weren't for the healing discomfort and the lingering unpleasant odors, he could be quite content in this moment. He turns his face until he's looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows, absently watching the sun glinting off the city view until his eyes blink sleepily closed.
When he sleeps, he dreams of their dinner, their almost-date. Of the way the soft ivory sweater and candlelight somehow enhanced the muted blue-green of her eyes. Of the look of relief he'd seen spread over her face as he'd tentatively approached the table, nearly fifteen minutes late. Of the worry in her eyes when he'd told her that they needed to talk in private. Of the tantalizing view she'd hidden from him as she'd sat there smiling at him all evening— of that short skirt and those utterly divine legs of hers.
In his dream, the explosion doesn't happen. They get into his car, not hers, and he drives them to his beach. She kicks off her shoes and clasps her hands around his arm as they take a walk along the shoreline, the sea breeze tugging at their voices as he tells her the whole truth. She listens, eyes growing ever wider. She drops her hands from his arm and he feels cold, the breeze suddenly prickling against his wing scars.
"I'm the Devil," he pleads with her to believe him, "but I'm still me. I'm not evil, I'm not… what humanity thinks I am. What my… father thinks I am."
"Prove it," she demands, eyes and voice hard. "Show me what you are."
He takes a deep breath and closes his own eyes, willing his Devil Face forward. A long moment of silence and he opens his eyes. She's looking back at him, face pale, eyes wide. Her shallow, panting breaths can be heard over the low crashing of the waves.
"Detective?" he pleads quietly, not daring to say more. He remains unmoving before her, spreading his hands in supplication.
She takes a hesitant step forward, her fingers brushing the lapel of his jacket. He closes his eyes at the light touch, slowly letting out his breath in profound relief that she hasn't run. Her fingers fumble at his jacket, then sharp pain penetrates deeply into his chest.
His eyes fly open and find Chloe's, several feet away now with rage burning in her eyes. He looks down and sees the familiar hilt of Azrael's blade protruding from his chest. He tries to pull in a breath, but finds that he can't.
"How could you let me care about you?" She hisses venomously, "How could you let me invite you into my life, knowing what you are, what poisons you bring with you? You really do only care about yourself, don't you?"
"Detective, I'm sorry," he exhales with the little air remaining in his lungs, but her furious expression doesn't abate.
"Go to Hell, Lucifer. You don't belong here. You don't deserve me." She disappears. The ocean and starlit sky disappear, leaving nothing behind but murky blue depths.
The sand beneath his feet has turned to ash. He looks down again at the hilt jutting from his ribcage, and watches as his own body turns to ash, slowly fluttering down to join the rest of the coating on the floor. He faintly hears the soft chime of the blade falling from his disintegrating body.
A single teardrop lands in the pile of ash that had once been his form, creating a small divot on the peak. From the tear drop sprouts a briar, its tendrils wrapping tightly around the blade and drawing it deep within.
"Lucifer?" the voice is soft, tentative.
"Lucifer! Are you here?" Closer now, but he can't see anything, he no longer has eyes.
"Lucifer, oh my God!" his eyes pop open, and he nearly panics when he finds wide and fearful blue-green eyes looking down at him in his nest of ebony silk. He doesn't move. He can't move, he can only look up at her, frozen in utter terror. "It's… is it all true, then?"
Chapter 6
The elevator chimes quietly as the doors slide silently open, releasing Chloe into the penthouse level. She had introduced her security detail to Brian, the bouncer on duty, and explained the situation. Brian had immediately ushered her inside, assuring her he would let the rest of the staff know, and had set an extra bouncer on the elevator doors just to be on the safe side. Chloe already felt safer, even if she did feel a little cowardly for not simply counting on herself.
The penthouse appears mostly in order. There's an open bottle of an amber alcohol—probably a priceless whiskey—sitting on the bar. The lid sits next to it, but no glass. Chloe moves silently into the penthouse and the elevator doors close gently behind her.
"Lucifer?" she queries, her voice pitched just loudly enough to be heard over the soft music playing over his amazing sound system. Is that opera? Of course it's opera, this is Lucifer we're talking about. Moving into the room, she notices a smattering of flakes on the normally immaculate floor where the piano bench sits. She moves closer looking down at the scattering of... what is that? Had he been smoking while sitting here?
It's not dust, it's… chunkier than that. It looks… well, she hasn't seen anything like it. She recognizes the smell lingering here, though—it's the one that haunts her from their hospital room—the sickly sweet odor of burnt flesh and hair.
He's here.
"Lucifer!" She calls more loudly now as she stands from her examination, hissing as her inflexible skin protests the movement. She slowly approaches the bedroom, afraid of what she might find with the opera music swelling toward a dramatic crescendo as she nears the steps. "Are you here?"
The music crests and crashes to a stop when she reaches the top of the steps and freezes at the scene before her. As she looks on breathlessly, a soft, sad soprano starts to sing what sounds like a lament. She takes a soft step into the room, looking closely at the nearly-naked form sprawled on his stomach in the midnight-black sheets before her.
Brilliant afternoon light cascades over the cracked and ridged flesh she'd caught glimpses of yesterday, throwing deep shadows over the vastly improved, but still jagged fissures—shrapnel wounds?—of blood-red tissue. The charred surface of the skull that had been so evidently visible… they're nearly gone. Not healed, at least not all the way, not yet, but well on the path. These burns look as though they've had months of healing, based on the educational posters she'd seen on the walls of the treatment room they'd left her in for hours while she was waiting to be moved to her room at the hospital. Had she really seen what she'd thought she'd seen when they removed his bandages yesterday?
No. I know what I saw.
That image is engraved in her mind, stamped forever on the backs of her eyelids, she will never forget seeing what he had endured—what he had subjected himself to—to save her. She notices some of the same residue from around the piano bench sprinkled lightly on the sheets around him, and she can see now what it is—the deeply burnt tissue is crumbling away, leaving shiny pink, tender-looking skin underneath.
What the Hell?
She leans over the bed, looking at the back of his head where the burnt bone had been visible yesterday, a new patch of pale skin stretches across the area, a very short fuzz of hair working hard to catch up to the very slightly denser growth over the rest of his head. The hair is so short it's barely even visible, but as she leans closer she can see in the halo of afternoon light that the tiny dark strands are trying very hard to curl at the very tips.
He looks like a Chia pet. The sudden thought surprises a snort of laughter from her, and she claps her hand over her mouth and nose to stifle it. She slowly circles the bed, seeing the faint ghosts of the ridges and whorls she had observed on his arms yesterday. She takes in the condition of his hands and fingers, still looking thoroughly burnt, but with that same fine residue gathered around them on his sheets.
This isn't possible. She feels her breathing speeding up, coming nearly in pants. As she stands there gazing at him, at the sheer impossibility of this level of healing, he begins to twitch in his sleep, making small whimpering sounds, not unlike what she and her mother had heard that morning in the hospital room. She lets her eyes move slowly from his hand, up his raw, pink and flaky arm, along his upper back where the fissures in the tissue are nearly gone
Did the burnt tissue all crumble away, or has it filled in as it healed? The idle thought occurs to her as her stunned mind takes in every detail of this unlikely occurrence. Am I dreaming? Am I burned so badly that I'm actually still unconscious and dreaming all this?
"Detective," he whimpers, and the fear in his voice is so thick that her eyes snap to his face immediately. She draws in a sharp breath at the ravaged skin she finds there; cracked and melted lips, red craggy skin covered with a fine layer of peeling flakes, his ears burnt down to nubs and his usually aquiline nose and brow blunted by waxy flesh. She notices disconnectedly that the fine hairs she'd noticed earlier are no longer present, leaving behind a charred and cracked scalp that matches the face. The word he'd uttered isn't clear, and it's obvious that he's asleep, caught in a dream. An unpleasant one. "Detective, I'm sorry."
This… this doesn't look the same as the rest of his burns. This damage looks… ancient. And where did his hair go? She'd seen the dark fuzz of it coating his healing skin just a moment ago, from the other side of the bed… Her mind spins in circles and a small sob escapes her as she tries to find an explanation, a reasonable explanation… not the one that she already knows he'll give her.
That he's the Devil. The Devil. Son of God. King of Hell. Fallen angel. Father of sin.
"Not their sins, I have no power over people's sins."
She can't tear her eyes away from his face. The burns are horrific, almost organic. As though he'd been set on fire, blown out like a marshmallow on a stick then left to harden in the sun. He's Satan. How is it that he got hurt? Shouldn't he be, like, fireproof or something? He'd been shot during their first, infuriating case together, before he'd saved her.
"Why aren't you… more dead?"
"You're having a very hard time with the immortal thing, aren't you?"
"Detective... if it's any consolation to your pride... it appears you make me vulnerable, too."
She gasps at the scraps of memories that float to the surface of her stalled mind, forcing down the panic that threatens to bubble up on their heels. He's been following her around for over a year now, into all manner of dangerous situations, despite admitting that she makes him vulnerable. Had he meant that literally?
What am I saying? This is Lucifer! The man literally spouts inconvenient truths all the time, of course he meant it literally. Does that mean he… he gets hurt when he's around me? Or just since he met me? Or…? Then why would he… She pulls in a deep breath as reality crashes over her.
My partner is the Devil. He's immortal, but he nearly got himself killed protecting me.
"I thought he killed you."
"Oh, he did. I got better."
"Lucifer, oh my God!" His eyelids fly open and he startles back before he stills, looking up at her with glowing crimson eyes. She stares back in fascination, watching the steady unearthly light in them slowly dim back to his normal deep brown, his pupils dilating until the brown is nearly swallowed by the black void of them. As she looks on, the ragged skin of his face melts away to a much milder, half-healed version. "It's… is it all really true, then?"
He doesn't answer, merely looks up at her with blank eyes. Her heart twists in her chest as she registers the gruesome alterations of his familiar features: His thick, dark eyelashes are burnt away, as are his eyebrows and carefully cultivated stubble, leaving nothing but a blank expanse of pink and melted skin stretched tightly across his carved features. The tiny fluffy hairs on his head had strangely reappeared with the disappearance of the more burned-looking façade. Tender new skin on his fingers cracks and starts to bleed as they tighten into fists in his sheets, holding himself still by sheer force of will. What could he have been dreaming about that could cause this kind of reaction?
"Lucifer," she whispers, kneeling slowly beside the bed and reaching toward him, telegraphing the motion carefully to help him in his panicked state. Her hand rests carefully over his, the heat of it bleeding into her tender palm as she gently squeezes his bloodied fingers, trying to get him to loosen his grip to stop the stress on the fragile new skin. "Be careful, you're making yourself bleed."
"I…" The sound is small, barely more than a breath emerging between his cracked and parched lips, but it draws her attention from the heat of the hand under hers. He's always radiated warmth, and she'd never really thought about it until now. Is that a Devil thing? A Lucifer thing? An… angel thing? "I…"
"Hey," she murmurs, and his mouth closes. He swallows heavily and watches her warily, as though she is the dangerous one in the room. If he gets hurt around me, that… may be true. Especially after what he did for her the other day… Right now, though, she needs to pull him out of his panic. "I've got a really important question for you."
He only stares wildly back at her, his nostrils flaring as he works to pull in enough breath to fuel his heaving lungs. His rasping breaths fill the silence, and she wonders idly what happened to the music that had been playing when she came in.
"Why does your head look like a 3-day old Chia pet, when a second ago you didn't have any hair?"
He blinks in surprise, and suddenly his eyes are clear. Her partner is back with her, and she grins irreverently at him as his half-burnt face twists into an affronted expression.
"Like a what?" he rasps, his voice grating like a rusty gate as he pushes himself up so quickly that he hisses in discomfort. Chloe flinches in sympathy, knowing from her own recent experience with her burns that the movement would have been painful. He swallows again, hard, but his voice still sounds tortured as he continues, "Detective, what…" He trails off and suddenly stops moving again, then starts to inch slowly backward away from her. "How, er, how are you feeling, darling?"
"Are you really going to try to deflect me by asking how I'm doing?" Chloe rolls her eyes, it's such a typical Lucifer response that it helps alleviate a little of the cold fear still crawling under her skin from the new information swirling in her brain. "For the record, I'm actually pretty good, largely because you put yourself between me and the bomb. There's an LAPD security detail downstairs, and I've told your staff about the bomb attempt, so they've increased security amongst themselves, too."
"You won't need to worry," he assures her earnestly, still slowly inching away from her across the bed, "I'm intending to take care of the security issue just as soon as I can be seen in public without causing a riot. You should… you should go home and rest."
"I'm not leaving you alone here, Lucifer," she sets her chin mulishly, glaring at him with narrowed eyes. "It's easier for the LAPD to guard one residence than two, and I think we're overdue for a conversation. And frankly, you look like you could use someone to look after you."
"Detective, I'm always happy to answer any questions you have," he says placatingly as he reaches the opposite side of the mattress, "but right now I need to heal so I can speak to someone about a car bombing and track down the Alhambra Triad leadership to have a little chat about a certain human lie detector's head."
"And yet I found you here, asleep," Chloe points out dryly, working to keep her voice from trembling, "and far more healed than you should be, judging by what I saw when they changed your dressings last night."
"Yes, well, if we hadn't had our little incendiary escapade, you would already be in the know and sensibly far, far away from me by now," he sighs, lowering his face carefully into his pillow with a groan. His voice is muffled as he continues, "I'm afraid I can't prove anything to you just now, Detective, so that little show-and-tell conversation will simply have to wait until I can deal with… these other issues. Mazikeen is out gathering intelligence on our projects while I'm healing, but I'll be able to make far faster progress if you would kindly put some distance between us."
"Because somehow, I make the devil vulnerable," Chloe posits, and Lucifer's head pops up from the pillow, his brow creased. "How do I make you vulnerable, Lucifer?"
"Apparently, you not only make me vulnerable, you slow my healing," he elaborates warily, watching her from the corner of his dark eyes as she slowly stands. "I… I don't know how, or why, but I'll admit that the delayed healing a rather inconvenient discovery to make when they had us sharing a hospital room, darling."
"You knew we were sharing a room?"
"Yes, of course," a deep sigh rattles in his chest, and she suddenly worries that he suffered internal burns as well. "They had me heavily medicated, but I was occasionally aware—how do you think I learned about the trouble the Douche is having getting information about dear Boris from the Alhambra Triads?" He hesitates, then adds quietly, "I remember someone humming, or singing… I don't know if it was you, but… I was exceedingly grateful for it. That little melody helped convince me that I wasn't back in Hell, after all."
"It was my mom," Chloe offers, remembering waking to Penelope humming yesterday morning, how she had commented that it had seemed to soothe her roommate. A lump forms in her throat at Lucifer's soft admission. "Lucifer, how much pain are you in? Your burns…"
"I am not yet completely comfortable, Detective, but I'll be back to my usual handsome self soon enough… provided I can convince you to leave me be."
She hesitates, feeling like she needs to address the Mephistopheles in the room, but also wanting to put off that inevitable moment of confrontation. "You said you were going to take care of the security issue. What did you mean?"
"I can't do that until I'm better healed, Detective, and I can't do that with you hovering like a broody mother hen." His voice is prickly now, and she starts to bristle back before she realizes he's trying to drive her away.
"You knew my car was about to blow, Lucifer. How?"
"I overheard two people arguing in the alley about a detonator. One sounded like he was trying to stop the other from pressing the switch, but he sounded like he was losing. That's when I bolted for you." He doesn't look at her, choosing instead to rest his cheek on the pillow beneath him and close his eyes. A flash of pink tongue flickers as he moistens his cracked lips in an anxious gesture, and Chloe's gaze again takes in the remnants of the damage that he'd taken to shield her.
"You saved my life," she whispers. A hot tear breaks from her control and slides silently down her cheek, leaving a stinging, rapidly cooling trail down the side of her nose. "You could have died."
"Not as easily as you could have," he argues sharply. "There's very few moments where I've been grateful to be the Devil, darling, but that night was certainly one of them."
"It really is true," she muses again, her heart thudding erratically against her ribs. His eyes slowly open, fixing sadly on her. She thinks she sees dark traces of fear roiling within their mahogany depths. A vivid recall of the glowing red irises and melted features he'd been wearing when he'd awakened flares to life behind her eyes and she releases a shuddering sigh. "You're… you're really the Devil."
Her partner. Her friend, her best friend is the literal, God-damned Devil. He breaks into the vending machine at work and leaves hundred-dollar bills in place of the snacks he takes because he refuses to carry 'chump change' and ruin the lines of his suit with rattling pockets. He can pick up 300-pound men with a single hand, and pull the strangest confessions from anyone… except her. He steals Dan's pudding, and begs snipers to shoot him. He's terrified of her eight-year-old daughter. He drinks far too much, and cares more than he lets on. He doesn't lie.
"Lucifer Morningstar. Is that a stage name, or something?"
"God-given, I'm afraid."
He doesn't lie.
"I've never told you anything differently, Detective," he unconsciously echoes her thoughts, his tone is so brokenly somber that she reaches out toward him instinctively. He flinches away from her, stiffening as a wave of pain rolls over him at the sudden, ill-considered movement. "I've never hidden my identity. Please. You believe me now. This is what I was going to tell you—show you— the other night after dinner. You… I… I would never harm you, Detective, but I understand that you'll need to… to get away."
"Lucifer, I'm right here," she growls, shaking her head and throwing up her hands in frustration and ignoring her protesting skin, "You saved my life, why would I… why would I think you would hurt me?"
He flinches back again at her sudden movement, and she suddenly feels bad for being irritated with him as an involuntary whine escapes him. A small line of blood appears along the crest of his shoulder where the fragile new skin splits over the ripple of his tense muscles. She sighs in resignation. She doesn't want to leave his side while he's healing, but clearly she's not doing him any good right now.
"Okay, look… how long do you need in order to heal, and how far away do I need to be for my… effect to, um, not be an issue?" He doesn't answer and she releases another long breath as she sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling one knee up so she can turn to face him properly. "I want to give you the time you need to heal, but you managed to slip your security detail. I'm not leaving you alone while you're in danger, Lucifer. How long? How far?"
"As I am still invulnerable when you aren't nearby, I'll actually be safer if you leave," an involuntary groan escapes him as he pulls himself into a sitting position, more tiny tears appearing and introducing subtle streaks of blood in random places as he moves. "I assure you, Detective, that I am in no immediate danger from our bomber, and the sooner I heal, the sooner I can make certain that you will no longer be in danger from them, either."
"How do you know that?" she presses doggedly, "and please stop moving, you're hurting yourself!"
"This is nothing," he scoffs, and her eyebrows lift incredulously as she pointedly stares at his fire-ravaged body. He sighs, acknowledging the look. "I understand your skepticism, but truly, I've managed to recover from far worse."
"You're avoiding the real questions," Chloe points out, "which means you don't want to give me the answer, which does not make me less worried, Lucifer. Tell me. Now."
He huffs a raspy breath, slowly slipping his legs over the side of the mattress and standing with a low groan. He paces to the far end of the room before turning to face her. "I don't know how far from you I need to be, I've never really tested… this." He spreads his hands and looks down at himself with a calculating gaze. "As to how long… probably another two, maybe three hours? How is my face?" He moves to touch the twisted and ridged surface of his face, but Chloe quickly crosses the room and gently catches his hand, stopping him before he can. His dark eyes find hers, and he gazes at her in puzzlement as he shuffles away from her proximity, gently working to extricate himself from her grasp.
"Don't touch it," she murmurs, resisting the urge to touch his cheek herself, "you might… it looks like it hurts."
The melted wax surface of his brow slowly wrinkles in confusion, and she considers how much harder he is to read this way, with no eyebrows or lashes to accentuate his facial expressions. She wonders irreverently if they'll grow in as quickly as he's healing. Her eyes dart up to his chia pet fuzz and she smothers a smile. Guess they will.
"Detective, have I broken you?" the low rumble of his newly gravelly voice stirs her back to the present, gently clutching the Devil's badly burnt hand and looking into his fire-twisted face from mere inches away. She should be terrified, finding herself in the Devil's personal space, but all she feels is the same encompassing warmth she always feels around him. Safe. Sheltered.
"I have so many questions for you," she admits quietly, "and… I still haven't thanked you."
"Thanked me?" he parrots, almost angrily. He yanks his hand from hers and paces away again, toward the bar this time. "If not for me, you wouldn't have been in danger in the first place!"
She watches him stalk stiltedly across the flat, noting the healing gashes along the backs of his muscular thighs and calves. A longer wound, half-healed, crosses the expanse of his lower back at an angle, and she wonders distantly what flying piece of the car caused it. Wild theories of angry mobsters or vengeful demons whirl in her mind. But why would they plant a bomb in her car, if they were after Lucifer? That's a stretch, even for demons. Probably.
Demons. Maze.
She pushes that thought aside for later, but the floor beneath her feet suddenly feels as though it's becoming a trampoline; still somewhat firm, but also not quite solid, as though it will try to trip her at the first opportunity. She carefully places one foot in front of the other and follows after him, watching him pour and empty two glasses as she approaches. "What does that mean, Lucifer?"
"It means my bloody Mum wants something from me, and she's decided she's not going to get it because…" his voice is clearer now, his charred throat probably soothed by the alcohol. His eyes burn into hers with an intensity that has nothing to do with the red fire she'd seen in them when he'd awakened, and everything to do with the answering warmth that blooms in her stomach as he cuts off whatever he was about to say. He swallows hard. "Well, I'm not exactly certain, but she seems to think that you're the reason I… don't want to go home."
Am I?
That's the question she desperately wants to ask. It's on the tip of her tongue and about to be released into the aching space between them when the rest of his words register and her detective brain grinds into gear, shoving everything else into a box to be dealt with at a later date.
"Your Mom?" Chloe sinks carefully onto a barstool across from her partner, resting her bandaged arms lightly on the bar in front of her. Lucifer's eyes quickly dart over the pristine white of them and his expression pinches dully. "Okay, details. Now."
He considers, then sighs. "Can we do this over the phone, Detective? I really do have places I need to be."
"I told you I'm not leaving you here alone," she reminds him stubbornly. His mahogany eyes light with humor, and a flutter comes to life in her stomach at the familiarity of it.
"Very well, darling," a slow smile stretches the tight skin of his face. Chloe doesn't look away, but her heart thumps painfully as she desperately hopes he's right about his healing. She doesn't want to think about his reaction if he's wrong. "An experiment, then. Miss Lopez would be thrilled."