AN:

Again (always) A BIG BIG HUGE BIG thank you everyone for reading/reviewing/fav and/or follow since the last update :3 It means a lot to me!

Also,

I figure that (maybe?) reviewing can be complicated (after all, everyone can see what you think and you can see whatever others have already commented thus far). Maybe some of you are too shy (or else) to leave a review at all. So, once again, I promise… I don't bite and will always be pleased by any sort of reaction from you all! :)

If you prefer, you can also review by private message on my ffnet profile or on twitter ( bebec_rebecca).

Back to the chap now, this chap I had to re-write three times ^^" But I'm good! I'm goooooooooood! Deckerstar is worth such efforts. So do you, readers ;)

Warning - Chloe has already been hit by a newspaper while OkamiShadou98 was busy checking my spelling, so be kind with her folks. Our Detective is not at her best right now. (Thank you so much Shadou for the corrections and all the talk we had about this chap)

Music

Lose Control | MEDUZA, Becky Hill, Goodboys

Bring me down | B3LLA, xChenda (end of chap)


A LIST

16


Noises are pleasant silence.

To be 'pleasant', silence is usually - inherently - noise free. Yet, Chloe - although keen on the usual silence that welcomed her every night after putting Trixie to bed - enjoys redefining it tonight.

She usually liked to hear nothing more than her thoughts overlapping after each file read lazily in her bed or couch. But not tonight. Her thoughts, just thinking, are a deafening din. It had only led her to dead ends the last few days, to nothing but unsolved, swelling problems between her meager rational thoughts, all full of idiotic hopes.

The music is loud enough to make her head spin, as much as the flowing alcohol between her lips. People's voices on the dance floor, in every breathable space left - how could a nightclub other than Lux get that full on a Monday, she has no clue - and the sounds of broken glasses, closer and closer as dawn is coming… here is the 'full' silence that prevents her from thinking.

It's these shadows, the beaming gold; both lapping skins, clothes, sweat-slicked hair and the ground beaten with stilettos, sneakers or colored booties.

It's a thick bubble of sounds that doesn't let any others get through.

Such a pleasant intermission.

Chloe turns her glass against her bottom lip, her giggling muffled by other people's joyful cries for new music, a 'pleasant' one given their reaction. Her finger catches drops of tequila dripping from her lips to her chin. Her gaze lingers on the rhythmic gestures in front of her, then on the bar assaulted as never before, just meters from their 'tribe area'.

Even though she feels more at ease than usual, she appreciates that Mazikeen has been able to find them a spot far enough away from the crowd and music to have fun without feeling overwhelmed. It looks like a backstage area, with the small staircase going up to the dance floor, footsteps and cries above her head and the softer atmosphere in that part of the club.

More intimate too.

For the dark dance floor, the bright and fluorescent lightings that pass and pass from one wiggled hips move to the next, everything looks softer here. Red carpet, dark booth seats and chairs, the ceiling low enough to touch it on tiptoe - for all those running, jumping, drawling footsteps on the other side - and the red lamps….

It's sweet, carnal.

A pleasant cocoon for her sweet, non-carnal drift.

Chloe can't recall the name of the place with precision. Not at all, in fact. But it might have a lot to do with her not wanting to think about anything. Or thinking of nothing too complicated until she couldn't think at all.

She still manages to count the empty glasses gathered on the table in front of her and those she needs to reach this goal; so it must mean that her goal is still far away. Not as far as the bar.

She cranes her neck, ignoring the tumbling glasses at her feet, eyes brushing the bar from one occupied end to the other. Her drift stops, right on the vertical lines along the entire length of the bar, underneath, behind thirsty customers' legs. It's not the same color than-

No.

No thoughts like that.

Why is she thinking about that?

Chloe shakes her head and looks up.

Wrong move.

She can't look away from that man's broad shoulders, at the corner of the bar, standing between two women who were chatting while waiting for their order. His suit jacket is not as well cut, but it's the same color.

Anthracite.

Fingernails soon scratch her chin, supported by her palm until now. Her throat tightens around the alcohol, which no longer flows as fast.

The man is smaller.

Chloe chuckles against her palm, almost a fist beneath her chin, against her lips.

Everyone is smaller next to him.

She gulps.

Not thinking. Not thinking about Lu-

But to think of not thinking, isn't it thinking of him anyway? How did she come to not be able to help herself? She was just looking around her, as she had been since she had settled into that small spot of noises, not 'up for crazy dancing' like Linda and Ella.

Then what?

She then notices how the music has changed, how the bodies are no longer 'jumping-dancing' but are coming closer to one another. Slow, shared, desired.

Chloe sighs and takes one of the 'too many' last filled glasses in this void of noises.

These empty lyrics don't sound like her, not by a long shot.

She's not losing control, nor needs to call him.

Not. By. A. Long. Shot.

With her emptied glass, her gaze - out of control - goes instinctively back to both women not so much interested by the man's awkward flirt, that man she thought close enough to-

To the uncontrollable.

Her eyes get stuck on the closest woman to the man. Her miniskirt is more 'mini' than skirt, her hair long. Long and dark.

That's where her eyes act as a driving force for her thoughts, for the one that makes her open her mouth for something other than alcohol or the light chuckles of forthcoming sozzled state.

"Your mother, Lilith... what does she look like?"

Before she even hears her answer, the last syllable of her question, Chloe's head turns to Mazikeen who shrugs. "Like a raging bitch, why?"

Chloe stares at the demon. She thinks too much of her answer, which answers nothing. She thinks of Mazikeen who thinks too much to question her back. Why bother with her reasons? She hadn't seemed so interested in them when Chloe had drunk shot after shot without saying the slightest word.

Not that the demon had been as talkative.

Reasons aren't something Mazikeen needs to drink, to keep quiet or rule over a nightclub that was neither hers, nor her former boss's.

Dammit.

Chloe's thinking too much, too fast.

Thinking that the demon looks to be in her element, almost a queen with her legs crossed and her arms lying on the back of the booth seat, that's not thinking too much. Might be an answer too.

Demon. Mother of demons.

What's the line? Like mother, like daughter? It could fit demons.

Chloe insists, not that she knows why, "I meant 'physically', Maze."

"Like a raging bitch, why?"

Chloe shakes her head, placing the half-drunk glass on the cushion to her right. The glass rolls back, alcohol lost in bright lights and the indescribable shadow, towards the void between iron and fabric.

"For nothing."

It is. Nothing good had come to such thoughts so far, about the First Woman being the mother of an entire race, the one whose Lucifer trust w-

"Lucifer what?"

Chloe turns around, squinting as she notices Maze's mocking expression, "Thought aloud, didn't I?"

Maze's smile widens.

She sighs. "Great."

She hears the demon sit up on the booth seat and soon a shot filled to the brim is slightly shaken in front of her crinkled nose. Chloe meets her friend's stare, less mocking although still smiling more than she had been herself since….

For days, actually.

Is she painting a gloomy picture again?

It's not that gloomy.

She smiles. Possibly anthracite.

The picture hadn't always been so glum, however. It wasn't, until she knew that nothing could hold back an angel, and hardly a mortal. What could she do against God's will, against the Devil's care that he claimed to be unlimited for many things?

A lot of things if it wasn't for her.

Gloomy picture?

She paints it as it is.

Well... despite her foolish hopes.

Alcohol drips from the glass before her tears, shadowy eyelashes chasing them away with a blink and a tense smile.

Maze refrains from commenting while she drinks. She even waits for the next shot, its contents more full-bodied for Chloe's thickening throat. She keeps staring at her, though. Not blinking once. Attentive, too pensive.

"What's this bitch got to do with your chronic disability to get laid?" she asks once Chloe has placed the glass on the table and accepted another without hesitation.

Chloe snorts. The burning sensation in her throat is nothing compared to the one around her eyes. Squinted, almost closed to the snorted sadness against the-

She can hardly count how many shots that have gone from hand to throat.

Is she close to the number of non-return?

"There's no limits to the Devil's care, darling."

No. Not close enough.

She should seriously consider keeping her mouth shut. Or dancing. Either wouldn't cleanse her as quickly of the amount of alcohol she has used against her thoughts as the words coming out of her mouth.

"Nothing." She gulps, her throat not burned enough to silence her next words - vivid holes in her drift bubble. "Nothing, really. Everything. I-"

Mazikeen's stare is burning her now. Another signal to shut up. It's Mazikeen; a demon mostly clueless about human emotions. She doesn't care, at best.

This is Maze.

She'd better talk to one of these women - too beautiful, too close to those dreamed of the night before. To this man too little close to Lucifer.

But talking is the last thing she wants to do tonight, isn't it?

"Have you ever felt…" Mazikeen instantly arches an eyebrow. No signal had any influence on her anymore, however. She's serving her thoughts, the most deplorable ones. "...ever felt powerless? You know... with Eve. Your relationship?"

Mazikeen's disdainful snort was expected. "I'm a demon," she says after she has stuck out her chest.

"A demon left by the wayside, by the first person she ever loved. Like me, by the first devil I ever l-" Chloe stops - finally! -, her glass suspended between her alcohol-soaked knees and her pinched lips. She frowns. "Well, he left you too, didn't he? Without saying anything, on top of that!"

She smiles, gaze up to the lightings of the ceiling. Smiling feels so wrong. But, all of a sudden, she's no longer left alone by the wayside. It's a more pleasant thought than she'd have first thought. Having someone to compare with.

"I've been warned... I shouldn't even complain!" she chuckles with a shrug too high, too fast to falter.

Mazikeen's ensuing silence is quite unpleasant to hear.

Why does she suddenly have nothing to say about human emotions? Not even a tiny insult?

Then, finally….

"Fuck off. And You're a lot more tolerable sober and hopeful, Decker."

Chloe laughs softly, then louder, almost folded in half on the bench. If Maze prefers her sober….

She sits up and takes a deep breath through her nose, nodding. "Riiiight? It's just that I'm... I'm-"

Maze arches an eyebrow. "Powerless?"

Chloe smiles. "Pretty much. You're sure you wanna chat about feelings with me?" she asks.

She herself isn't so sure she wants to continue, even less so about 'no thinking'. And no more shots to avoid the question. Chloe is stuck, but not Maze. She's a demon. Not powerless, just indifferent to her fate.

She gives a half-shrug at that, her arm barely moving on the leather. "It's that or dancing with Ellen and Linda."

Chloe's laugh sounds more cheerful. She and Mazikeen smile instead of drinking to the quite unique choreography of the two other members of the tribe. People around have moved away from Ella's vivid arm movements to form a perfect circle around her.

"Cautious strategy, for a demon."

"I only fight to win."

Nobody could win against Ella, the champion of wiggled hip moves.

"But you keep losing with Eve, don't you?"

Mazikeen's expression isn't especially threatening, but it's not friendly. Chloe looks away.

"Sorry, it's just that-... I feel like you can understand what I'm going through. You know Lucifer, you know that feeling of powerlessness when they leave you behind and you, you can just… stand there and watch, right?" She chews on her lip. "This is no feeling. It's fact. He's gonna leave, just as he came back. And I'll stand there and watch, as powerless."

"It'll only be a fact if you give up."

Chloe lets out a bitter exclamation. She looks away to the dance floor, towards wherever her tears wouldn't flow. Her fingernails stick into her jeans so that she wouldn't wipe anything from her cheeks that isn't yet there.

"I can't hide behind foolish hopes either, Maze," she replies. "Lucifer will leave someday and there's nothing I can do about it." She sighs heavily, closing her eyes. "We've both already talked about this. If he says it's impossible, then it must be. I don't even get why I keep trying to-"

"Maybe because you don't believe in what he's saying?" the demon implies.

"Lucifer doesn't lie, Maze."

That too is a fact.

Mazikeen bursts out laughing, head thrown back, mouth wide open on her terrifying teeth in the shadowy club. Had she ever used these same teeth to kill other demons down there? Because… demons kill each other. Don't they?

Her laughter having run out, Maze shakes her head. There's still some parts left of her hilarity in her unconcerned smirk.

Chloe squints, annoyed. "What? You're the one who told me he couldn't nor wanted to lie!"

"Of course he doesn't want to. Doesn't mean he'd be able to see the truth if it was right before his dickhead," the demon points out confidently.

Chloe stares at her, hope burning within her chest. "You mean there's a way?"

Mazikeen frowns. "None that I know of."

"Wow," Chloe exclaims listlessly, hopelessly. "Great. Makes me feel a lot better. Talking with you is… really great, Maze, but I think it's enough talk for tonight!"

No. Impossible. None that a demon - a creature from Hell - nor even the Devil know of, of their truth and damn perception. None that anyone knows and really wanted to know.

What Chloe wants to know now is how her bedsheets will feel against her cries of rage. Nothing more until the next morning. She gets up and pushes two of the three cushions on the bench to finally find her jacket under the demon's feet. Chloe runs a hand through her hair while the other is a helpful support on the edge of the bench. Just the time for her to… see straight. "I'd better go home."

Maze nods, putting the boot in her chest. "So you don't have to face the truth?"

She gets it now, the reason why demons aren't fond of feelings, or of talking about those with others. Not their strong point at all. More a point of no return for Chloe's thoughts.

Not facing the truth? She's faced it every day since he left, since he came back!

She was fighting alone. She alone seeks solutions, all met with refusals. She alone deplores her failures, doesn't sleep nor live the day because of this. She alone had tried to take control of the time he had decided to give them - so little time on Earth to… take the plunge.

Then nothing for eight months here, as she'd imagine his eons down there.

Imagining alone.

Alone. Again.

"Wow, I can't feel my feet!" Linda whimpers at Chloe's back. She collapses next to Mazikeen with a sigh and takes off her heels before her gaze stops on Chloe and her jacket. "Leaving already?"

He's leaving.

Without warning, without thinking of anything else but this truth, Chloe bursts into tears. These flow so quickly that she can only imagine the surprise on Linda's face and the disdain on Mazikeen's. Or is it pity?

Her things dropped to the ground, Her hands cover her face, these become pretty quickly unable... powerless to stop the flow of human emotions. She wants to curl up on the carpet, forcing that bubble to wrap her tightly.

So tight that it'd become harder to breathe.

She wants his arms around her. She wants time, so much more time. She wants a choice. She wants-

She wants-

She wants to have time to think about them, about how to become a 'them'. How to stay so. To no longer feel alone on the side of the road, whether he's on that plane or not. Why does she already feel so alone?

Why does she keep struggling alone into this messy alternative?

She's doing everything she'd tried not to.

But Lucifer… always having answers for everything, his self-confidence….

Chloe, led to the bench by one of the only three people who wouldn't leave her alone for once, lets tears and pitiful groans choke in the napkins they give her. Certainly not Mazikeen. Her stare is piercing her temple. Much more painful than any punch from some pathetic human killer on the run.

Yeah, human emotions really suck.

Yes, she is weak.

A demon, the Devil... could none of them understand, once and for all, that she is human?

"Ella...an't breathe," she moans against her strong, hugger arms.

Chloe didn't even see her coming back from the dance floor. She hadn't heard much since that thought too many, Linda's poor choice of words and her own sobs. Judging by how empty and heavy she feels, how her skin almost burns under her half-closed eyelids... this emotional blindness could have lasted for hours.

But the dance floor hasn't emptied since, the first sunrays haven't yet pierced the big windows at the other end of the club either.

Ella's arms stay around her neck, although less suffocating after her request. Chloe can even turn her head. As she does so, she can see the consequences of her loss of control on each of her friends' faces.

First Ella, her doe eyes painted with spangled blue are so wide open, so sad for her. She's gonna get all kinds of considerate gestures the very next day. Today, isn't it? She doesn't wanna think about the details.

Linda sits on the other side of the booth seat, her fingers clutching more napkins in her lap. Her lips are set in a way too serious, hard line as she adjusts her glasses on her nose. These are signs of a forthcoming emergency therapeutic-friendly talk.

And last but not least, Mazikeen, sat bolt upright behind Ella. Mazikeen who, contrary to what she had promised at the precinct, still hasn't opened her mouth to mock her 'heartbreak'. She looks ready to blow the table, bench and nightclub into dust for any next tear that would dare to run on her cheeks. The noise is loud enough so that nobody but her friends would hear her sobs. Less chances for the demon to slit the throat of anyone who'd look her wrong, at least.

Slitting the Devil's throat for far more mistakes than any weak, emotional human could ever make is a safer bet, though.

It's both terrifying and comforting.

Ella moves away from her, yet keeps one arm around her shoulders. "Whoopsy! Dios mio, my poor Chloe, what's wrong? The tribe can hear everything!"

Before Chloe's able to pronounce any syllable, Ella's firm hug is back at shoulder lever.

"Wait! It's Lucifer, isn't it? Something happened to him?!"

"Ella…" Linda presses thumb and fingers together.

Her eyes widen slightly. "He goosed you?!"

Chloe chuckles, her laugh sounding less like a pitiful sob through her lips. It is comforting; not to be the most drunk at this stage, to see that Ella's intense dancing performance had only encouraged the alcohol to rush into her bloodstream. Perhaps dancing is what she should have done from the start to avoid thinking.

Mazikeen rolls her eyes when Linda's smile is the forgiving type. "Looks like our drinks are running low here. Right, Maze?"

"Oh, I'd kill for Pina Colada!" Ella turns to Chloe. "What poison would cheer you up?"

Chloe shrugs, wiping a teary trail from her cheek. "You choose for me, 'kay?"

"Challenge accepted! Gonna be plenty poisoned by my concoction, I swear!" the forensic says, her left arm already pulled by the demon while she's giving a slight squeeze to hers.

A minute later, human and demon are both storming the bar as Chloe feels the therapeutic talk storming towards her. That's why she avoids Linda's gaze and wipes more teary trails on her cheeks and chin. The napkin is scratchy, barely more bearable on her skin after it has drunk that much salty water.

Linda only speaks once Chloe has caught enough breath and folded the napkin into rectangles, then smaller and smaller figures on her lap. "What happened?"

"We talked." Chloe raises her chin. "Your advice, remember?" she continues sharply.

She feels bad for it almost instantly, even before Linda expresses hurt and guilt. She shouldn't.

Chloe shakes her head. "I'm sorry, it's-... It'd be easier if I could just... if I could just blame you, blame him."

"Do you?"

Linda's voice is so sweet, so sympathetic.

"I'm so happy he's back, Linda," Chloe says as she looks at her, her smile barely higher than its endless, linear defeat so far. "I really am. But- Sometimes, I… I come to regret that he is."

"Because he'll have to go back?"

She nods.

"Sooner than I thought. I'm-... he leaves Hell on autopilot for years and… all of a sudden, because he literally has a crush on me... his little kingdom can't live without him for more than four earthly months?!"

At first a whisper, Chloe's voice strengthens. Almost a cry of rage, almost noticeable at the end of her speech, and odd enough to hear by any other other people around. Immediately said, shouted; her distress wants to cry out again. Chloe takes a deep breath, her nails stuck in the napkin, in her palm after tearing it with a single pressure.

"Four months?" Linda repeats.

Chloe's head turns, surprised to see her express the same feeling, albeit with less intensity. The news seemed to upset her, however. So Lucifer hadn't told her anything since last week?

Right.

Why even bother?

So that's why he had cancelled his session.

Linda would have forced him to tell a truth that he definitely didn't want to face like she did. Or, as he kept saying, it was all about details and perceptions - two things they interpret differently.

"He didn't tell you. Of course, he didn't," Chloe sighs.

She shakes her head, playing with the napkin - or rather its pieces - and slowly, then faster, crumbling it on her lap. There already are a few scratchy, white flakes on the red carpet when she allows her thoughts to speak aloud again.

No need for Linda's tricks this time.

All Chloe needs to do is think.

"How am I gonna announce this to Trixie, Linda? She thinks he's staying for good this time! And Ella, Dan... he doesn't trust me anymore, or almost. What's it gonna be like when Lucifer's gone? How am I supposed to-"

"...-to live without him again?" Linda finishes for her.

Chloe swallows, the knot in her throat right there. It wouldn't leave. Lips pinched, she keeps staring at her knees glued together, at these white dots on a blue background. "It's not me I'm worried about."

"You think he won't make it in Hell?"

Chloe snorts, shaking her head. "He's the Devil, Linda."

"Exactly. So what are you worried about? That he won't come back this time?" she insists.

"Well, that's assuming he'll want to come back," Chloe whispers.

She can see her friend's slight frown from the corner of her eye. She sits up on her part of the bench, far enough away from Linda so as not to be embraced like a fragile little thing, like she's precisely feeling right now. She runs a hand through her hair, locks and pieces of paper behind each ear, before tilting her head back.

The leather is cool against her sweaty neck. It makes her shiver.

"I'm just... Chloe, you know? God's little miracle, but human... whether he likes it or not. You know..." she turns her head towards Linda, cheek brushing leather, hair brushing the next words. "It takes two to make a couple work. For feelings to become... more? But he…"

Chloe's finger raises with a tense smile.

"He still managed to play this selfish! Because... it's not me, not my human feelings that brought him back here. It's his! Literally!" she exclaims, hands raised in the air, falling hard on her thighs the next second. "If it had been mine…." She snorts, shrugs. "If it'd been mine alone, he would've come back much faster."

Her giggles getting lost in different thoughts, fear and grief win her voice, broken.

"What if he doesn't feel the same by the time he comes back here, in eight months? That's so much more time in Hell... so much more time to change your mind."

"If feelings were a matter of logic, we'd know," Linda says.

"And Lucifer has no logic."

Linda tilts her head. "I wouldn't say that... just that he has his own logic."

Chloe sniffs, biting her lip.

"His own 'perception'?" She purses her lips, tasting her locks of hair before pulling them out with a finger. She watches the spiral stretch, compress around it and frowns shortly afterwards. "I hate that word."

"Why?"

"Because it only reminds me that I'm just... me, in the end. Far, far below his perception," Chloe confesses, more tears burning her eyes.

She stops turning finger and locks of hair together.

Why does she keep talking about this?

She looks down at the cushions, the comfortable leather on which she is releasing outpouring thoughts that she had been accumulating for weeks.

Eyes wide open on Linda's serene and overly professional expression, Chloe points her out. "Well doneeeeeeee! You're an ace, Linda!"

She feigns surprise, Chloe's other hand taps the leather as she smirks.

"You made me sit down so that I could spill the beans. 'Couch-strategy'... that's smart! Couldn't figure why I was talking that much! I do, now."

Linda smiles, neither confessing nor apologizing. "Maybe because you needed to spill a few beans?"

So smart.

Chloe shakes her head, pulling a bit on the locks tangled around her finger, rubbing the leather with her free hand. "Huh-huh. Couch trap... 'told you," she whispers, averting her gaze.

"Look…."

She hears Linda approaching. Oh, she doesn't need a hug. She really doesn't. But Linda refrains from acting so. Her fingers just come to the rescue of her hair tangled for good around her finger, which looks more miserable than accusatory now.

Miserable.

That she is. It's perceptible, in every way.

"You're you. Doesn't mean you never had your say in all this. You have more power over Lucifer than you think."

"Make him vulnerable, got that part… Screw that."

"Not only physically."

Chloe stares at Linda, who delicately spreads another lock that falls back into her disheveled hair.

"I know. Lucifer told me how his physical responses change according to his emotions."

"That's not what I meant. It's simpler than that, more complicated too... It's Lucifer we're talking about, right? A pig-headed, immortal ass who'd refuse to walk through the door if it'd ever look like a trap to him," Linda mutters, rolling her eyes.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means that Lucifer is the most immature and suspicious person I've ever met. Self-centered as he is, he'd suspect his own reflection of being in cahoots with his Father for some curly hair!" Linda takes a deep breath, focusing too long on the hair she's touching. "Anyway... what I mean here is that if Lucifer has come to make a deal with his Dad for you; this is proof that you have unique power over him. Because... nobody can force such an ass to act so. Nobody, except for you."

"But I... I'm not worthy of…of all this, Linda."

Chloe looks at the ceiling, refusing to blink. A new wave of tears would come if she does. Her loose hair, a golden crown for the Queen, waits for their upcoming touch.

"Everything he's done, everything he's endured for me…. And all I have is three months to return the favour? How am I supposed to do that?"

"Who's playing solo now, mh?" Linda implies.

Chloe sighs, eyes shut on her second tearful defeat. "I know. 'Practice what you preach', is that it?" Her voice breaks on weak giggles. "But it's Lucifer. You saw him, Linda. He's-"

"... him?"

"Too much sometimes," Chloe adds once her eyes open. "And there are moments, we don't have a lot of them, when he's just-" She raises her hands. "... acting like nothing happened."

"What would you like him to do?"

"I don't know, I-"

"That's because you think too much, Decker. And he, not enough."

Mazikeen, sneaky by nature and straight by default, places a tray of bottles and filled glasses on the table. "Wanna know what you need?"

Chloe rolls her eyes. "Please, don't say it…."

"A good fuck."

"And she does," Chloe sighs.

"Who wants a Pina Coladaaaaaaa?" Ella sings, a cocktail in each hand.

Chloe takes the glass and drinks long - very long - mouthfuls before glaring at the demon, "For the last time, sex is not the problem."

No sooner has she said the words that silence mutes those of her friends. Although Mazikeen's arched eyebrow is wording plenty enough. She glances at Linda, much too discreet after such long talk.

Chloe's lips release the straw with a groan. "Oh, come on…. Tell her, Linda!"

"Well…" she starts, squirming on her seat.

"Still no trip on the Devil's toy?" Ella exclaims, already busy with her second cocktail.

Chloe's mouth twitches. "That's not the point, I-"

Mazikeen snorts. Loud. "Try again, Decker."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Ella, you don't know everything-"

"I know - we all do here - that the guy is hella crazy about you and so are you! Here's all you need to know. On top of what's hidden under that suit!" Ella adds with a very suggestive raised eyebrow. She shakes her head. "No wonder he's so anxious about the date!"

Chloe's eyebrows raise. "He is?"

"Must need lots of lube in the meantime!" Mazikeen laughs.

"Disgusting…" Chloe mutters around her glass. "And you know he didn't."

"Banging, Decker. And I know him better than you do for this. Orgies were a non-stop for far less time in Hell in the last century."

"It must be hell for a guy as sexually active as he is... hella long," Ella says, her gaze lost somewhere on the dance floor.

Chloe sighs heavily. "Thank you, Ella."

Linda shakes her head, taking one last sip before cutting off the debate. "Mmh... Chloe's right in this instance. It's been complete abstinence since…" She looks hesitantly towards Ella. "...since a while."

"Sounds like another thing in common between you two, hm?" Mazikeen implies.

"See? Poor dude!" Ella tilts her head to the side. "But he goosed you, so…."

Chloe turns to Linda, annoyed. "Aren't therapists supposed to keep these kinds of details to themselves?"

Linda's answer takes far too long to come. She blinks slowly, mouth slightly open. She blinks a lot.

"Maybe."

Mazikeen throws her head backwards with a particularly exasperating sigh. She grabs a bottle, opening it with her teeth, then spits the cap on the table.

"It's no secret that you both need to get laid."

"He's got sweet cheeks with that."

Chloe's mouth closes on upcoming harsh replies. Ella answers her question even before she stops staring at her.

"Even sweeter than Dan's."

The lips of the forensic close on her fluo straw. She drinks fruit juice and white rum eagerly for a few seconds until her eyes widen slightly. Until she meets the three other women's stares once more.

Mazikeen's tongue passes over her grinning bottom lip. "Ellen!"

"Dan?" Chloe repeats, surprise overstepping annoyance.

"I'm thirsty," Linda whispers, taking a blue cocktail with a slice of lime on its edge.

Ella shakes her head sharply, gulping.

"It wasn't planned at all, Clo. I swear! It was just- just like that, one time! Great one, but you know that... He did want to do it again, in the file room the next day, but I refused. You know me!" With these words, Ella's fist raises to her chest, half of her drink spilled on her heels. "Loyalty tribe! I've never been with him again and I can tell you that I've been tempted manyyyyy times!"

"It's okay," Chloe tries to reassure her.

Honestly, she couldn't care less with whom might Dan spend his free time. Their next talk looks less tense from here now, though.

Dan and Ella, mh?

"-really, Clo! I could make you a list of the times I've seen him lean forwards with my thoughts-"

Linda sits up, straw almost out of her glass and close to spray cocktail on Chloe's face and Maze's hair.

"A list!" Linda exclaims.

Chloe stares at her, confused.

"A list," her friend repeats. "Why don't you make a list of your expectations of Lucifer and vice versa? That's as good way as any to define what you both expect from each other, isn't it? If 'talking' leads nowhere."

Linda tilts her head to the side.

"Never leads far with him, but that's because he always takes the wrong message from every conversation." She smiles at her with a knowing glance. "And no, that's not a medical secret."

The corner of Chloe's mouth quirks up.

True.

A list?

That's a thought.

"Could make a list of every moment when you squeezed your legs shut instead of opening them. Such a waste of time…" Maze raises her bottle to cheer such listed fatality. "And papers."

To think deeper. Later.

Ella nods. "That's a great idea, Linda. I make lists all the time!"

"For when Dan's butt hit on you, hm?" Chloe teases her.

"At least one who's tempted, Decker," Mazikeen teases her in turn, to whom she's tempted to stick her tongue out.

Chloe takes big mouthfuls of her drink instead. Soon, her throat, cheeks and belly burst into flames. Perked up by this fire splashed with alcohol, she stands up. "What's tempting me now is to move mine! Ella?"

Ella doesn't need to be told twice, up even faster. "Butts dance, it is!"

As soon as she reaches the last step leading to the dance floor, Chloe breathes more freely. Noises and movements overwhelm her. Uncontrollable, insatiable; her thoughts slip onto her skin. Breathed in, out; they pile up within her, only leaving her once they have been touched by lights, jostled by shadows.

She was wrong.

Getting overwhelmed was the only thing to do.

She is human.

If a human could foil Hell's or God's will, we'd know. Foiling every hopeful thought, every futile list of details that makes her think over and over again, Chloe welcomes silence in noise.

Just enough time to feel like herself.

Just her.

Touched by the Devil.

Jostled by Hell.

Never enough.


AN:

Hope u like it (tell me in the reviews or ffnet/twitter PM) :3

Guess whose POV it'll be for the next chaaaaaaaaaap? X)

No precise date for this one, I haven't started translating it yet. But I will soon, I promise. Better do, otherwise I'll be hit with newspaper as well XDDDD

See u later, folks!