Ella in fact arrived nearly two full hours later, sporting her kit from the department, a Monster drink, and a black shirt with the words PREPARE FOR STARBURST splayed across the front over what looked like a demented multi-armed blue manta ray. Lucifer didn't ask because he didn't want to know.
Despite the hour, and despite the surprise call, she managed to be chipper as ever, though perhaps a bit shaky. She set the canned beverage down on the bar next to his who-knows-what-number pour of whiskey and dropped the kit to the ground at her feet. A yawn escaped her mouth with such force that both of them startled.
"Don't judge," she said. "I'm doing the best I can at crazy o'clock in the morning."
Lucifer raised both hands at the wrists, a miniature surrender. "Far be it from me," he said. "I'm grateful you've come."
"Yeah, well, you know I don't do it for free," she said. She dipped into her sack and pulled out two fresh pale blue gloves, snapping them into place on each hand. "Ash Wednesday is coming your way."
He huffed. "I hardly see how allowing some sex-repressed wanker smudge a burned plant on me is a good use of my time."
Ella removed a notepad and pen from her kit and worked on sketching a rough diagram of the room.
"I won't make you go up," she said. She bargained even as she began the work itself, knowing he would give in. Lucifer sighed a dramatic, haughty breath. Ella smiled behind her pen. She sweetened the deal anyway because what were friends for?
"I'll even let you make fun of my ashes," she said. Lucifer flicked a finger upward and nodded.
"Deal," he said. They understood each other well.
"Ok, so, two spent bullets on the ground. They definitely made impact. What did they hit?" Ella turned in a slow circle, trying to find some indication of what happened here. "You hiding a giant metal sheet or something? Kevlar suit?"
"I assure you, Miss Lopez, my suit is quite permeable to bullets." He popped a finger through the hole in his suit jacket. He tried not to show his disdain for the damage while Ella stepped forward and poked her gloved finger through.
"Uh…" She blinked and pulled open the jacket to find another matching hole in the shirt itself. In a sudden panic, she grabbed a handful of the shirt and jerked up to force the fabric free of his belted pants. Lucifer raised both hands, unsure if she intended to remove the entire ensemble as evidence. Ella stared at his unmarked chest in open confusion, then dropped the shirt. The fabric bunched awkwardly along his waist.
"So…where's the vest?" Ella went back to scribbling notes.
"Vest, Miss Lopez?"
"Yeah, you know," Ella waved her pen in a circle, gesturing generally around the penthouse. "Bulletproof vest, whatever you were wearing. Where is it?"
"I…" Lucifer glanced around to follow her non-specific circle.
"I need to see it, it's part of the crime scene," she said.
"I don't have a vest," Lucifer said. Ella sighed.
"You could at least not compromise your own crime scene," she mourned. "Alright, walk me through it."
Lucifer tucked in the unruly sliver of fabric still sitting braced against his waist, then straightened his jacket and tugged at the ends of his sleeves. Finished preening, he took Miss Lopez's shoulders and walked her backwards to the lift, standing her inside where Mariana had been.
"She was there, and I…I was here." He adjusted his footing and placement just so, angling himself appropriately. He was faced away from the lift for the moment, hands hovering around his hips, gauging distance for accuracy.
"I turned and began to ask her what she desired," he turned as he narrated, mimicking his motions from a few hours before, "and she rudely interrupted. Two shots, right away!"
Ella looked at the two bullets on the ground. She noted their locations on her sketch, fighting a significant surge of confusion. Next came the camera. She began walking around the scene in between watching Lucifer's reenactment, from the elevator to the bullets themselves.
"I fell here," Lucifer said. He was engrossed in his story, gesturing with both hands over a long invisible outline. "Quite unconscious at this point, but I can assume she pressed the down button. When I woke up, she was gone."
Ella took a deep breath before taking photos of his ruined jacket and dress shirt. She was fighting through caffeine, exhaustion, and curiosity to focus on the whole picture. Instead of asking any of her current questions, she leaned close to the elevator button and noted its curved shape. She took a picture for her records, then walked to her kit and pulled out her fingerprint powder and AccuTrans gun to begin the process of dusting and lifting the prints she found.
"Ok, so, you brought lady killer up for a good time –"
"Miss Lopez!" Lucifer sounded offended. She looked at him in between carefully applying the AccuTrans to the curved surface of the elevator button, eyebrows up.
"She said she needed help," Lucifer said with a scoff. "She asked to speak in private – well, upstairs, which I took to mean private –"
"You brought her up, she popped two off, and then down she went," Ella finished. She glanced around the carriage, particularly in the corners.
"Do you have any cameras in LUX?" she asked. Lucifer managed to look even more offended.
"Certainly not," he said. "My clientele know their proclivities are private."
"But people do take videos," Ella said. "I follow some users on Wobble. There's one lady, SukiSue, she posts almost every night."
Ella finished waiting for the AccuTrans to set and carefully peeled the silicone from the button. A clean but demoralizing litter of bundled prints was preserved. Maybe she could get a partial.
"Ok, so, did you go back downstairs? Hit this button at least once after she left?"
Lucifer nodded and shoved his hands into his pockets. Ella grinned, amused that his body seemed to know what was coming. She stored the silicone first, then removed alcohol swabs, black ink, and an FD-258 to collect every kind of fingerprint she could. Lucifer watched with growing unease, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He had seen this process enough times in the precinct to know her ultimate goal. When she set the ink pad and form on the bar top, he scowled.
"You can't expect me to dirty my hands," he said.
"Out with them," Ella said. She held her own out, one holding an alcohol swab, and gestured with her fingers. Lucifer scowled as strongly as he could manage. Ella was unimpressed.
"Come on, out!"
"I want my protests noted," Lucifer said with a sigh. He presented his long fingers for her scrutiny. Ella wiped both hands down carefully, then pointed at the ink pad. He shot her a sad stare in a final attempt to plead mercy. She quirked her mouth to the side and winked.
Lucifer fussed and huffed through the entire process, and she handed him a full Clorox wipe when it was all over.
"Didn't I do this already?" he complained. "These should already be on file!"
"Considering how much you touch all the time, everywhere, yeah." Ella didn't bother disguising her own amusement at his expense. "I want a fresh set."
"Liar," he said. "You wanted to watch me squirm."
Ella pulled her long tweezers and two evidence bags from her kit. She pulled out a ruler as well, which she laid next to each bullet before taking a picture. She plucked both bullets from the ground with the tweezers, then dropped them each into their own evidence bags. She labeled each with a Sharpie for later processing.
"Alright, you're packing a bag and coming with me," Ella said, keeping her eyes down as she wrote out the labels. Lucifer jerked his head, startled by the order.
"But Miss Lopez, I don't need protecting," he said.
"A rando comes in and tries to kill you in your unlocked penthouse? You can't stay here."
"But –"
"Come on," Ella said. She grinned way, way up at him, excited at the prospect. "We'll have a sleepover, it'll be awesome."
She pulled out her phone and waggled it at him before he could sputter another protest.
"I need your help looking through the videos for her," she said. Lucifer glanced at the phone and began to look resigned. Ella pushed her luck. "Most of them are of your performances."
Lucifer immediately brightened, preening at the realization of some level of stardom.
"Are they?" he crowed, clapping his hands together. "Well then!"
"Bag first," Ella said, waggling the phone again. "At least three days to start, OK? I don't think you should come back here unless you need to."
"Why ever would I avoid my own home?" Lucifer's honest bafflement at her request made her shake her head.
"Because it's dangerous," she said.
"I assure you, Miss Lopez. I am the most dangerous thing here."
Ella shook the two evidence bags at him. The bullets clinked dully together within the plastic barriers.
"Safe, huh?" She waited him out, not responding to any more of his excuses until he finally grumped and disappeared into his room to pack what was needed. While he grumbled through the process, she repacked her bag, careful with the camera and AccuTrans gun. She figured he would take a while, prissy as he was, and took another look around for any evidence of what exactly he'd used to keep himself safe from two shots fired only a few feet away.
There was nothing obvious, but this was Lucifer – nothing would be obvious. For all she knew this was part of the eternally baffling devil role he practiced every second of every day. She hoped Lucifer hadn't brought her out here on one of his more detailed delusions. Chloe's patience with him was legendary in the precinct, but Ella was who he went to when he had a weird creepy grave or an ex-wife's supposed murder to investigate. He trusted her to keep this under wraps, and she would, but third time was the charm on her willingness to help without much backstory.
When Lucifer strolled from his bedroom with a suitcase and a glower, she beamed at him and gave him two solid thumbs up.
"Sleep tonight, interview witnesses tomorrow," she said. LUX had closed over an hour ago at this point, which meant that the staff who might have seen Lucifer's mysterious would-be murderer had gone home for the night. It would have been better to go down and interview them as soon as possible, but she needed to prioritize processing the scene before Lucifer's ignorance ruined any evidence left.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming," Lucifer said grumpily. "And not in the fun way," he added when she looked surprised.
"There he is," she said. Ella grinned and hefted her kit onto her shoulder, pushing the down button with a gloved finger out of old habit.
Chloe Decker wasn't the kind of woman to scare easily. She'd been held at gunpoint and knife-point enough times that either option barely caused a flinch; she'd been poisoned and nearly shot to death. She'd stared down her own daughter's kidnapper and lost her father at an early age. Her first husband had left her in a barren wasteland of isolation from her peers, knowing all along that she'd been right and deserved to be treated that way.
She'd suffered through many of her worst fears already, the paralyzing terror and grief haunting her late into dark nights and informing her daylight passion for justice. Her father's memory followed her wherever she went. She often wondered what he'd think of her life, her choices – she wondered what his face would say when she told him about Dan, and always longed to hear his advice.
To hear Lucifer tell it, she would see him again one day in Heaven. She wouldn't admit this out loud, but she was quietly touched by her partner's absolute certainty that should Heaven exist, her father was clearly there, and Chloe would one day join him, and they would spend the rest of eternity together.
So no, fear wasn't a bedfellow of hers. If anything, those jolts of panic pushed her toward dangerous decisions. In life, in roommates, in romance.
Marcus, then, was an obvious step up. He was predictable; he was reliable. He followed the rules and made an effort.
And maybe when I stop lying to myself, I'll feel better about this.
Ok, well, he wasn't exactly predictable or reliable. He'd refused her initially, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again, and then proposed. A lot of the efforts he'd made to win her hand were fixing his own mistakes. He ran hot or cold depending on mood swings she couldn't read on his impassive face; he'd bowled her over when he told her it's just not worth it and stormed out of her apartment – one moment smiling, the next a blank slate, and finally pushing her out of the way to tear out of her life.
And then, the next day, shoving back in.
Still, he hadn't vanished and returned with a wife. No, his solution was to try and make her his wife. He'd filled her car with roses, he'd apologized for his mistakes. He baked lemon bars and came to her with a ring she had no say in, a ring that he must have purchased that very day because a man who intended to propose wouldn't leave when the woman he wanted nearly confessed her love, would he?
Maybe only if it's me.
She'd told Ella it had happened before. It was a pattern, really. Men liked to be near her, liked how she made them feel, but they didn't commit to her. They didn't prioritize her or think of how their actions might devastate her. They enjoyed her body, and they appreciated her brain, but they didn't take care of her heart. They didn't throw her a private prom she hadn't asked for because they knew it would make her happy; they didn't give her a necklace bearing an extremely personal story between just the two of them. They certainly didn't tell her that her father would be proud of her, even when their own relationship with their own father seemed like a Shakespearean-level tragedy.
Right.
It was always about Lucifer, and she hated herself a little for it. Every decision she made with Marcus was tailor-made to convince herself that Lucifer was bad for her. She did honestly enjoy Marcus' company, and she had loved him right before he shut her down and ran away. And while she could convince herself that Lucifer had done exactly the same thing, he hadn't really. He'd sat by her sick bed and waited for her to chat before he ran, and when he came back (with a wife) he charmed his way back by making himself useful to the case.
Really, they were both terrible choices. One of them she couldn't trust because he focused on fixing mistakes of his own making, and the other she couldn't trust because he was a bonkers cartoonish nightmare.
Whom she had kissed.
Twice.
Ugh.
The ring on her finger protected her, she thought. Somehow. Some way. Maybe. Well…perhaps it was more the idea of protection, an invisible force field made of large biceps and sandy hair. Whatever the intention, it would work: Lucifer wouldn't try to talk her out of the engagement, as she expected (hoped) he would. He would accept her decision regardless of his own thoughts about it. He wouldn't fight with (for) her.
And that was good.
It was good that he wouldn't fight, and it was good that he would keep his jealousy contained, and it was good that he wouldn't storm into Marcus' house and attack him immediately, and it was good that he'd move on eventually and find ninety-two new sexual partners to console him through these dark, dark days.
Right.
All of these musings served her no comfort as she watched Lucifer and Ella get out of the same car. Her car. Which meant they had come from her place, together, in the early morning. Which meant they had spent at least part of the night together, and at some point Ella offered Lucifer a ride to work, and Lucifer accepted, and Lucifer climbed into the seat where he normally sat for Chloe, and they drove together and talked together and laughed together –
Chloe ran her thumb against her engagement ring. What she felt wasn't fear, it couldn't possibly be that. Lucifer had his chance. He brought her into his fancy penthouse, and sat her down at a fancy table, and then opened his mouth and ruined everything.
No, that wasn't right, was it? He didn't ruin anything; he opened the door for something better. Something with untrustworthy, unreliable Marcus Pierce, who knelt on her floor and insisted he would spend the rest of his life making up for his mistakes. And then probably make more mistakes and make up for them too. She could see the endless cycle ahead of her of Marcus eternally making mistakes and Chloe eternally having to forgive him, again and again, until a headache began pounding at her temples and she wanted to go home and crawl under her blanket and sleep until Trixie was in college because that was the right time for divorce according to horrible couples the world over. Stay together for the kids, divorce freshman year!
Chloe sat herself down at her desk and tried to convince herself that she wasn't afraid, and she wasn't disappointed, and she certainly wasn't having even a single second thought and why were Ella and Lucifer together in the forensics lab? Why were they huddled together, oblivious to her staring them down? Her blanket at home enticed her strongly. She looked up toward Marcus' office instead. That was where she should want to go for comfort, wasn't it? That was where she should go now, right this moment, to get away from the sight of Lucifer laughing at something Ella said and now he was touching her arm and –
Chloe stood up and forced herself to walk the trek up to Marcus' office. She kept her back straight and her ears closed. This was her second (third) office romance and would soon be her second office marriage, but Palmetto made her immune to the opinions of her peers. When she was right, she was right, and even if this didn't feel right, it had to be right.
She knocked on the side of his door-frame and stepped inside. Marcus flashed her a winning smile that crinkled his eyes. If he did that every day for the rest of his life, he might convince her she loved him.
"Detective Decker," he said, the smile bright. Triumphant, even. "How are you feeling today?"
Now wasn't that a terrible question. Chloe didn't want to talk about how she felt today.
"Excited, of course," she said, because Marcus wouldn't care if she lied. "And maybe a little overwhelmed? We've got a lot to plan."
"We do," Marcus said. He began listing wedding necessities – DJ, minister, bar considerations, caterer, flowers – she sat across from him and tried not to look as anxious as she felt. So many stories of wedding planning involved the bride, her mother, and lots of drama; so few involved the groom. Marcus had thoughts, though. He had opinions and lists and a preference for an open bar.
"I need to get a dress," she said with a grimace. Marcus raised both eyebrows; the smile didn't falter.
"I could help with that if you want," he offered.
"Isn't that against tradition?" Chloe didn't get weddings but even she knew the groom wasn't supposed to see the bride in her gown before the ceremony. Marcus, however, shrugged.
"We make our own traditions, Chloe," he said. Her heart fluttered the smallest bit, a slight surge of the love she'd felt for him before he shut her down. Maybe this could work. Maybe they could make their own traditions. Would Marcus want to ignore other traditions too? She suddenly imagined him crawling across the dance floor to some awful, horny music, reaching up against her thigh and pulling down her garter in front of friends and family. The image was awkward, and awful, and suddenly Lucifer was crawling instead, and it wasn't awful, and people would scream they needed a room because the heat between them was too much for a crowd, and Maze would salute them from the corner with a twinkle in her eye.
"Good idea," she said through a smile. "This is 2021; our wedding is what we want, yeah?"
Marcus leaned forward onto his elbows, beaming at her easy agreement. In her mind's eye, Lucifer wasn't using his hands for the garter at all – he was using his teeth, his face so close to the juncture of her thighs, sliding down past her knee and calf and ankle and tickling against the bottom of her toes –
"I know this is a lot in a short time," Marcus was saying. "Lucky for us, someone has weeks of unused leave."
Chloe laughed and shrugged her shoulders in a show of modesty. She thought that was what Marcus expected, and he didn't disappoint.
"Take a few days and focus on planning," he said. "I'll help when I get off work."
"Perfect," she said. She meant it. With days off, she could curl under her blanket and pull up wedding websites on her laptop and pretend she was incredibly invested in the color arrangements of linens. Maybe she could take one of the precinct's white boards home and create her own wedding murder board. Lucifer would get a kick out of that.
I have to invite him to the wedding.
She felt like cold bucket of ice water suddenly washed over every inch of her skin. He was her partner and her friend. They had worked together for years; he'd been the only partner on offer for months. She couldn't possibly exclude him.
Her thoughts spun with the implications. Her, walking down the aisle to Marcus, given away by no one, seeing Lucifer standing to the side in a three piece and blank mask, armor fully intact –
Lucifer bringing a date, maybe Ella as a (not) friend, dancing and throwing all his considerable energy and attention into another woman while she sat next to Marcus and sipped champagne or wine –
Their first dance as husband and wife. Marcus' hand pressed into the small of her back, pulling her flush to him, while Lucifer watched from the side and shut down entirely. All masks and walls back in place, a cigarette dangling from his mouth which his date, maybe Ella, pulled from his mouth with a light scold. Chloe swaying with her husband as her heart hardened too, forcing herself to accept the man in front of her and put Lucifer behind her with Dan and Jed and all the rest.
It was all too much. It was all too hard. And it wasn't even real yet.
"Have you thought about the guest list?" she blurted out at the tail end of her thoughts. She met Marcus' eyes after she said it, watching him take on a pinched, dissatisfied air. He knew why she was asking.
"We'll invite anyone you want, Chloe," he said, neatly skirting the elephant standing on his chest and trumpeting into his ear. "Think about a list and we'll figure out the seating arrangements together."
There it was, his concession: he would accept Lucifer's presence, so long as he could sit him as far away from Chloe as whatever venue they chose allowed.
Chloe stood with a smile, gave him a hug and a kiss, and left his office. She paused just outside and pulled her cell phone from her back pocket. She typed out a text to Linda begging to meet for lunch. And then she slipped out of the precinct entirely, avoiding everyone and heading straight for her car.
