Note- Even though the show has been around since 2016, I never got into it until recently when I was hanging out with a friend of mine and decided to start a binge. I've been hooked ever since and just finished it today. I absolutely loved every second of it! I think I became hooked on Deckerstar from the first episode. They have amazing chemistry. I'm sure I was the same as everyone else when they finally hooked up.

The few times Lucifer literally died to save Chloe's life got me thinking of the one time of the one-time her guilt could have cost her so much.

Based on 4x5- Everything felt like a blur from the moment Marco walked in but she would always remember the gun—and she'd never forget the sound of a gunshot for a lifetime… nor how her world buckled in on itself as the blood pooled from Lucifer's body…

…

Ch. One – Vulnerability
written by: CelticPixie

…

"There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you're useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose."
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

…

Chloe Decker was many things; down-to-earth, intelligent, by-the-books, composed, strong-willed, and at times awkward. One thing she didn't admit to was jealousy. She wasn't jealous—so she claimed, yet her gut swelled with this demon threatening to consume her on every level. Everything she'd known of logic and reasoning no longer existed.

Here stood a woman Chloe had never seen before. She was perfect. Her brown eyes, the coal black curls framing her angelic skin—so flawless—and those ruby red lips. Everything Chloe wasn't. It was difficult not to laugh bitterly when Lucifer introduced them.

Swatting away her demon, she figured staring long enough was too awkward; "So, this is your ex-girlfriend, from, like, the beginning of time…" This whole concept of demons, and angels, and devils was still something she was trying to wrap her head around. She never paid much attention to Biblical history either.

Lucifer's mouth scarcely moved when he said, "…pretty much."

A voice interrupted them. "Detective Decker!" Of all those moments she mentally coached herself to be prepared for anything, this was not at all it. "Everybody be cool!" He waved the gun around and the crowd immediately thinned.

Marco Franklin, just released from prison after a nine-year stint for armed robbery. He committed the robbery with a pair of cohorts – Sid Kruge and Derek Lee – but he was the only one arrested for it. He later killed these same two people.

The detective immediately reached for her gun. "Don't try it!" He warned, and she very gently removed her right hand from her service weapon, holding her left up in surrender. "Detective Decker—I need you to listen to me carefully…"

Lucifer side-stepped in front of Eve and partially obstructed Chloe. "Much as I appreciate the well-time interruption, you can't just walk into my club—"

Chloe has been a cop for many years now. She knew what a gunshot sounded like. Something so close was usually so loud that it essentially rang quiet. For just a split second, it is the brassiest sound imaginable, but, just like a crackle of lightning—everything goes still.

There was a riotous, percussive thudding, and Lucifer's body is jerking forwards. His face was a mixture of shock, and fear—his mouth agape as though he intended to cry out and his vocal cords rendered him mute. The bullet tore all through his abdomen like tissue paper.

He suddenly felt like he had been overcome by a crippling nausea. The intensely mind-numbing ache started just above his spleen and then flourished through his ribcage.

Chloe gasped, studying as the darkest red blood spider-webbed beneath Lucifer's pale blue maison margiela faux pocket button-up, and didn't think about why she bothered remembering the graphic designer brand of the shirt he wore.

Finding her voice, she screamed; "Lucifer!"

His knees buckled first, and then his balance was lost, and soon the ground was rising up before he could latch onto something.

Chloe was at his side in only seconds, employing what first-aid she knew to staunch the blood flow. Despite the pressure she applied, the red stain was spreading rather quickly. Lucifer's breathing was drifting in at unsteady spirts. He tried lifting his head but it felt more like dead weight to him. So he didn't try it again. He instead tried to focus on his breathing—in, then out, then in again. His chest rattled every time.

Of course she couldn't show her fear; she had to keep her focus.

Together with Eve's assistance, Chloe managed to get Lucifer dragged to somewhere nearby where she could get him propped up against something.

Everyone else in the building had started running towards the exists.

Marco snapped; "Everyone sit down!" Several people stopped cold mid-sprint. "There's a bomb in this building. So if anyone thinks they can escape through the crowd, or if anyone tries to rush me—BACK UP!" One person he dared him… and he was quickly met with the barrel of Marco's 9mm. "… everyone dies. Detective Decker—" Gripping the bomb trigger in his left hand, his gun swerved around to aim at Chloe. "—put your gun on the ground… an-and your phone. Now."

She had never been more terrified but she did as he asked, then slowly raised her hands up in surrender while taking a few steps backward. "Okay. Okay. Whatever you say. But, this man needs an ambulance right now and I will stay with you but everyone should go." She was bargaining—Lucifer's life, and everyone else's, for hers. As a cop, Chloe swore to protect the innocent.

"No! Shut up. Shut up. No. Now, n-nobody is leaving." Marco's voice was shaky, as if he were unsure of himself right then. "You—" shrugging off the back strap over his shoulder, he tossed it towards a frightened blond leaving against the bar counter, "—go around and collect people's phones. Now! Get up! Let's go!"

Chloe used the distraction to get back to Lucifer. "You okay?" It seemed kind of ridiculous to ask such a question to someone who was bleeding profusely from his gut but it was the only thing her frazzled brain could come up with.

He half-smiled, half-chuckled; "Bit of a stomach ache, detective…"

"He's the Devil," Eve stated, ostensibly more alarmed at this moment, yet internally not rationalizing the gravity of the situation as Chloe would have. "…he'll be okay… right?"

The detective nodded. "Yeah, he's gonna be fine."

It happened as if her own body had no control of her actions.

Lucifer is trotting off to have the music turned on and the next, there is a vial of poison in her hand—and then she's popping the lid open, and then she's reaching towards the glass of pinot noir. All she had to do was tip it, just a little, and watch as the liquid poured out, mixing with the red wine; Lucifer would never knew. Chloe thought about leaving just as he would take that sip. She didn't want to be around when he—when he…

That bad 90s music she was so found of blared from the speaker system. Shaken, Chloe's hand dropped the vial and it crashed into the wine glass, spilling the pinot noir all over the carpet as the glass shattered like a broken heart.

She gasped, sputtering apologies; "Lucifer! I, I, I'm sorry… I…" What she sorrier for though—breaking the wine glass or realizing she was about to kill him? Chloe has broken way more wine glasses in her life for her to be appalled by yet another one.

"…hm, sorry," he started trotting down the steps that lead to his bedroom, "can't believe I left it so loud. Oh I'll get it..." Seeing the spilled wine, the broken shards of glass, Lucifer sprang into action. He ran a night club. People broken wine and liquor glasses all the time; Chloe breaking one did nothing to him. "No, I've got it detective, don't worry—Ow!" In the midst of clean-up, one of the glass shards sliced at his palm. He swore, loudly, and instantly started sucking at the laceration.

Normal people bleed—Lucifer was not normal. "You're bleeding…" She's seen him bleed plenty of time before but this was prior to knowing he was the devil, and after seeing him survive an explosion—

"It's fine. I'm fine." He walked off in the direction of the bar, snatching up a towel to press against his palm, staunching the minor bit of bleeding.

Chloe repeated herself, "You're bleeding…"

Blinking, Lucifer assured her, again, "I'm fine.." He visually inspected his hand to make sure there were no tiny pieces of glass he would have to dig out with tiny pliers.

"You're bleeding—" This time, she was consciously climbing to her feet, and switching off the music at the same time, "—and no, it's n-not fine." She drew closer to him, aware now how her heartrate was changing, "I—you know what? Y-Yes, I do have a question for you…"

Lucifer abandoned the bloody towel. His undivided attention was on the detective. He did tell her to ask any question she wanted; he figured she probably would.

"…how is it that you walk away from a giant fiery explosion without a scratch but right now, you are bleeding. You were shot in the hand last week. You almost died when Malcolm shot you in the gut. I, I mean… I shot you! I shot you—and I felt horribly about that, by the way—but what is this? Is anything even real with you? Were you trying to manipulate me?" Her eyes felt wet, stinging with the tears she held back. "Were you trying to make me feel bad? Is this all to make me care about you more?"

He seemed taken aback but given everything, Lucifer can't say he couldn't blame Chloe in the slightest for the outburst. "No…" His voice carried a semi-heartbroken weight to it.

"Then what is this? How is it that sometimes you don't get hurt and other times you do?" A single tear did manage to escape but she just let it fall. "What is the difference?"

"You are, detective." His voice was soft; it was appeasing and gentle. "I don't fully understand myself but… I'm only vulnerable when I'm close to you."

Astonished, Chloe stood there as though he literally stole the very breath from her lungs.

Lucifer drew in sharp gulps of air, augmented by jagged gasps; his lungs shuttering as agonizing spasms pummeled his ribcage. They were wobbly and excruciating, each one feeling like shards of glass grating the layers of his trachea. After ruling Hell for eons, disseminating innumerable methods of punishment—somehow, this gut wound of his seemed far worse.

She wanted to maintain focus on Lucifer—he was the injured one here—but her inherent nature of being a LAPD detective had her eyes constantly wandering back and forth in fear Marco would gun down another hostage. Perhaps the second time she looked away from Lucifer gave her the distraction she needed to contain the intensifying anxiety.

Chloe wasn't the praying sort; she didn't even believe in biblical history of God and his angels, or of Heaven and Hell, but she'd give anything to make all this misery stop.

She only peaked back at him when she detected a slight tug on the cuff of her jacket; "Lucifer, I'm so sorry I got you into this…" It was his hand that was pulling at her; she didn't even think nor care about the warm blood coating his pale fingers.

"Oh nonsense," he grated, ragged breaths passing in and out of his mouth in irregular intervals, "you needed my Aston to get in and no one drives it but me.."

"I could have found another way, it's just that—" He interrupted.

"No," shaking his head was just as painful as breathing, yet he did it, "It's not your fault, and I needed the closure," again, he sought smirking, teasing off his agony like it wasn't something to him, "I just didn't expect it to be quite… so closed… " What he needed was to get away from her, far away, not in a repulsive manner but in order to heal. No telling the damage already done to his insides.

Lucifer tried laughing. That was excruciatingly painful. He'd rather not do that again.

From the furthest corner of her left eye, Chloe noticed Eve scurrying back to them with a bottle of whiskey. She wouldn't ordinarily be so receptive to a drink but it might be good for Lucifer right now.

Eve had worse luck keeping her panic contained; "This is all they had at the bar," she remarked, gesturing to the half-empty bottle of Bushmills Black Bush Whiskey, then reached for an—empty glass?—just off to her left-hand side. "Is there anything else I can get him?"

"No, we gotta get him to a hospital…" Chloe reached for his outstretched right hand.

Lucifer protested. "I'm fine, detective. You just get me within an inch of that… tosser… and I'll tear his arms off like a turkey leg…" He mouthed a thank you to Eve just prior to taking a sip of whiskey—neat, no rocks, just the way he typically enjoyed it.

Fine. Right. So he says… she was thinking. With how she clutched his hand, her index and middle fingers rested over his wrist. His pulse was thready, scarcely perceptible, and rapid, what felt akin to a fine mobile thread barely thumping beneath the skin.

Chloe mentally chided herself. Focus, Decker, focus. Lucifer was out of commission. That left exactly the two of them—her and Eve.

Focus. "Eve, Eve! Do you have any super powers or anything…?" There was still much she didn't know about this other world. Angels, demons; for all she knew, Eve could have something, something useful.

"No," she answered, almost tragically, "just me."

Sigh. "Right. So we got nothing." She wasn't meaning for that to come across as insulting; she'd have to remind herself to apologize to the woman later.

If Eve ever felt insulted, she didn't say so. "What? No. Chloe, we have you. Listen to me, from what Lucifer has told me, you are the smartest, most capable, most resourceful person he's ever known. So come on, detective, what's the plan?"

Chloe, for a very brief moment, felt a swell of pride. Right, a plan. Okay. "Eve, I need you to tend to Lucifer. Keep pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding… " I'm gonna have to find where they hid this bomb… and when I do—Ella! "Ella!" She snapped her fingers in the woman's face to draw attention, "can you defuse it?"

She may be drunk, and she may not be aware her nails were grating Lucifer's neck, but she was listening well enough. "Sure. Yeah. I read the files… and the bomb Marco's unit built—pfft! Easy as pie!" Ella was giggling, probably because she couldn't contain herself.

Oh, wonderful. "Lucifer, you have a job to do as well. How do we sober up Ella?"

"…right… s-sober… " His voice wavered; he was beginning to lose his focus. From his left coat pocket, he produced a tiny bag of what looked like cocaine. "Focus—best way to… lose your roll, detective…" Lucifer tried chuckling at her expense but it just dissipated into wet coughs.

Chloe couldn't say she was surprised.

Cocaine was a highly addictive drug that ups the level of alertness, attention, and energy. The drug worked by sending high levels of dopamine, a natural chemical messenger in the body, into the parts of the human brain that controlled pleasure. That buildup caused intense feelings naturally referred to as a high.

It was an extremely prohibited substance but Chloe supposed she may possibly pretend she didn't know Lucifer had it on him. If it got Ella focused enough, she'd be willing to give anything a shot.

She might have been dreaming it. She thought she was dreaming it. But no; Lucifer had indeed twisted his right hand to a point where his thumb grazed the back of her hand. Once she realized what was happening, Chloe smiled. It was a sorrowful smile accompanied by a formidable backdraft of culpability. Their eyes met.

She was despising herself now more than ever.

The ride up in the elevator was lonely and silent. Perfect chance for Chloe to have a moment. Her pain was suffocating, heavily settling on her chest because she knew exactly what she'd be walking into. She knew Lucifer suspected something; she'd be kidding herself if she acted otherwise. Perhaps that's why the elevator to his penthouse felt more like a fateful walk towards her death.

The guilt she felt was an incessant throb in her heart. Knowing she should be coming up with some kind of apology yet knowing nothing she said would make it better. Her guilt was her shame, screaming how much of a horrible person she was being and how much she didn't deserve this man. It reminded her of all those times in her life she had failed—including now. It made her cry and wish she could have changed things and hope that she could do better next time. If there was a next time.

The elevator ding distracted Chloe. But she wasn't ready. She knew on the other side of that elevator would be the man who's heart she had broken. Why did she even care this much?

As the doors open, and she took her first step into the penthouse, Chloe braced; "Hi…" it was the first word that passed her lips… oh the way they trembled. She drew closer, and she saw how Lucifer's attention was drawn towards her. Looking into those broken eyes felt like heartbreak. "I, um, arrested Father Kinley… so, you won't have to worry about him coming after you anymore."

Lucifer wasn't quite sure how to react; "I don't care that he was trying to hurt me," he stated, his voice scary low yet his tone evened and controlled. The way he looked at her—his heart was breaking again, "I care that you were."

Her exhaled felt dramatic. "Lucifer, you have to understand… after I saw you—saw your face—I had to get away…to process things and…somehow…I ended up in Rome. Kinley found me and obviously I shouldn't have confided in him but—" she creased her lips then drew in breath, "—at the time, it felt like he understood what I was going through…"

"He said you found him," Lucifer interjected.

Chloe immediately snapped back with, "He's lying!"

Settling himself, Lucifer placed his glass of Glen Moray single malt scotch on the coaster and stood up, probably too abruptly, and the way his eyes burrowed into Chloe was so accusatory. "Well there seems to be a lot of that going around…"

"Yes!" She elicited a succinct breath. "I-I did lie to you. An-and for a moment, I was trying to help him send you back to hell…" The revelation lifted from her shoulders should have, in theory, made her feel better but nother about her admission of guilt sought to ease her subconscious.

Lucifer was shell-shocked; his heart breaking. "How could you do that to me? To me?!" Tears choked him. He didn't dare let them escape despite the fact they were threating to.

"Because I'm terrified!" Chloe exclaimed, those tears finally surfacing. "You are the actual devil—I mean.." She tossed her hands up, trying to grasp for words. "…every story of good and bad from throughout history, throughout time… says that you are the embodiment of evil. And how am I, Chloe Decker, a nobody, supposed to deal with that?"

When Chloe first met Lucifer, she initially believed he was delusional and regularly dismissed such claims he put forth of being the Devil. There was always that air of abnormality surrounding him, which she accepted in strides, and eventually chalked it up to being somewhat idiosyncratic with delusions of grandeur. She just assumed this nonsense talk of referring to himself as The Devil was some kind of metaphor.

Yet following the realization that he was – is – in fact, the actual Devil, she understandably freaked and for that moment seriously considered whether or not this man she alleged to love was merely putting on some kind of play-act.

She shouldn't have allowed herself to be manipulated by Father Kinley. He took advantage of her emotional vulnerability and briefly convinced her that Lucifer was evil incarnate. Even then, she knew better. She should have said no. Should have told him to pound sand. Yet that rationally thinking side of her refused to surface so she unwittingly took that vial of poison.

There was a lot of things Chloe wished she could take back. A lot of issues she in no way could. She didn't want her guilty conscience to be the only thing to deal with pushing forwards. She feared it might be.

It feels like his heart has been punctured a million times over by tiny pins. Sure, it stung, at first, but now he just felt disoriented—not painful, just numb. Perhaps he didn't notice it at first. It started at the pit of his stomach and slowly sprouted, splintering throughout the rest of his body.

Lucifer felt like running. But, well, that wouldn't do him any good. So, instead, he turned his back to her and was content to staring out the window with his hands buried in the pockets of his Atelier Munro pants.

Exhaling rather slowly, Chloe added, "But then—" she combed a strand of hair behind her ear, "—then I came back and… and I saw you. I really saw you. And I remembered how you made me feel. And I realized, Lucifer, that you're not that guy."

"Well—what if I am that guy?"

"Y-You don't have to be," she answered, "You can change."

"But what if I can't?" With yet another, shuttering breath, Lucifer finally turned around. But the face she saw was not that she memorized with every detail. It was him, as he was—Lucifer Morningstar, ruler of Hell. The way Chloe visibly flinched at the sight of his true face said a lot. "Could you accept me like this?"

Chloe struggled to find words, but eventually succeeded, "I—well.. you—you have no idea how much I want to. I, I'm trying…" She really wanted to; she did. Even a small part of her, no matter how deeply buried, knew that she could accept him for what he was.

"…how could you?" This entire concept of heartbreak was new to him. He didn't know how to describe it but he knew it was grossly painful.

Her cheeks were wet. "I… I don't know…."

"Then I have my answer."

Chloe was searching. Not physically. Visually. She knew where the exits were—the main entrance past the staircase, a back exist towards the left side of the stage. And then she was looking at Marco.

When a person is nervous, they usually shift around subconsciously. He kept pacing this way and that, fidgeting with the trigger in his left hand and the gun in the other. He occasionally glanced around the room but he wasn't making any sort of visual contact with anyone. Perhaps he knew the exits as Chloe did. As he would pass by the bar, Marco would tap his fingers against the rim or one of the bar stools.

She saw this all before. He was nervous. He was realizing he had gotten himself into something way over his head and now he was trying to work something out. An exit strategy of sorts. But she knew the only place he was going was county jail.

Chloe had been too focused on the situation to notice when Eve took a seat beside her. It wasn't until that brief shift in weight on the cushion that she glanced over. That demon of jealousy was back again but she seemed to be able to control it better this time. Still, she found a spot on the floor to focus on when the black-haired woman from the dawn of time started looking at her.

But then—she spoke of Lucifer's condition; "The bleeding slowed down a little," Eve divulged. "I gave him another drink. That seemed to help…"

"Well I've seen Lucifer survive worse than this, so…" Chloe still didn't make eye contact with the woman sitting next to her but she was looking to where Lucifer was sitting. He seemed much calmer than before. Despite her assurance to Eve, Chloe still worried. "…I'm sure he'll pull through." She couldn't really tell if she was saying this to make herself feel better or not because if she didn't get him out of there, he wasn't going to pull through.

"He has to." Eve sighed. It was such a scared, sad sigh. "I can't lose him. Not after we just found each other again."

Chloe curiously asked, "So… you've seen his devil face?" She kind of assumed so already.

Eve nodded and sipped her whiskey.

"Does it scare you?"

Lowering her glass, Eve looked at Chloe. "Why would it?" Her eyes were soft and oddly comforting. From the deduction she could pull out of the detective's question, it was easy enough to figure out the reasoning why such a question. "You know," instead, she shifted the conversation just a little, "I was literally created to be someone's wife. No one ever asked me if that's what I really wanted. Except for him…"

Chloe exhaled softly. Eve didn't seem all that bad so she couldn't really fathom why just her presence bothered her so much. She seemed to genuinely care about Lucifer so that should be all that mattered to her.

She couldn't afford to allow her jealously to take her over. Her main focus was on the man bleeding out from his abdomen. It physically nauseated her watching Lucifer struggle to breathe like that. His chest was still moving in and out. He was still conscious. This was a good thing.

Every time she looked away from Lucifer, she didn't know if he would still be fully conscious when she looked back but her eyes were once again drawn to other corners of the room—particularly the upper deck corner. She figured the bomb had to be there somewhere. She needed to get Ella up there. She needed a distraction—otherwise no one was getting out of here alive.