Chloe had to admit, she was still a little rattled after Lucifer's display of strength at the church. Somehow she knew he wouldn't hurt her, even so, catching a glimpse of his red eyes had bothered Chloe more than she wanted to admit. It wasn't like she hadn't already known he was the Devil, but in this case, seeing was different from believing. Chloe couldn't imagine what it would be like to see his actual devil face. She'd seen enough to know the effect that face usually had on humans, and a part of her was glad he'd never shown it to her.
Even so, she'd meant everything she'd said to him. Chloe Decker was friends with the Devil.
If she wasn't very much mistaken, it was the Devil who needed a friend more than anyone else she'd ever known. If being close to her made him a better man, like he thought it did, then Chloe could do that, red eyes and all, because for some reason it just fit. The bigger mystery here was why the Devil wanted to solve crimes in the first place. Midlife crisis? Feeling new things phase? Chloe suspected she'd never get an answer to that one.
What she knew she could solve was this next case. A chef has been poisoned and everyone at his restaurant was a suspect. Lucifer was far more concerned with never getting to eat the man's cooking again than he was about the murder, even if he seemed very determined to punish the person responsible. Chloe felt sure that determination came from Lucifer's disappointment at never getting to taste Javier's perfect tamales again.
Lucifer's daddy issues came up again once he found out the staff looked up to the victim as a father figure. Lucifer mentioned something about patricide and started reminiscing about it being a tale as old as time.
"I know after what happened to Father Frank you're mad at your dad," Chloe said, pulling Lucifer aside and lowering her voice. "But that has nothing to do with his case."
"Well, of course it does," Lucifer said grinning. "I understand what it's like to want to escape from the clutches of a difficult father."
"Not everything is about your parents," Chloe told him.
"Once again I think you forgot who you are talking about, Detective," Lucifer reminded her.
"Do you see your father here now?" Chloe asked. She would have said God but really didn't want to be overheard talking like that in front of suspects. "Is he making you do anything right now?"
"Well how am I supposed to know?" Lucifer replied. "Omnipotent, remember."
Chloe gave up. Lucifer's daddy issues ran deep and she really wasn't going to get anywhere this way. Perhaps Dr. Linda would have more luck, but then again she still believed Lucifer was a troubled human who spoke in metaphors.
Just then, one of her officers came over to tell Chloe her sister was here. Chloe, being an only child, had no idea what this could be about until her mother walked into the room and Chloe found herself witnessing the Devil being star struck.
"Sorry, I'm a bit speechless," Lucifer said with a hand over his heart. "Penelope Decker, as I live and breathe."
Chloe wasn't liking this situation at all. Lucifer kept complimenting her mother, which she knew would go to Penelope's head. Her attempts to get her mother to leave only lead to a family dinner which her mother invited Lucifer to as well. She tried in vain to turn everything down but somehow found herself beaten and forced to have dinner tonight with her mother and the Devil. Just great.
And to top it all off she had hours of interviews to do with every member of the victims staff. This was gonna be a long day.
Lucifer's daddy issues came up again when they interviewed the victim's actual son, rather than just the staff who thought of him like a father. He did make himself useful though by pulling the son's desire from his mind. Chloe didn't understand how she'd watched him do this before and not questioned how he could. It was like the person Lucifer looked at when he asked the question didn't have a choice but to answer with complete honesty. It's a subtle, but powerful skill.
With the son not inheriting the restaurant, Chloe's next course of action was to find out who did. After speaking to the victim's estate attorney and doing some more old-fashioned investigating while the Devil himself literally hung over her shoulder and compared every aspect of the case to his own daddy issues, Chloe found out who was inheriting the restaurant: his sous chef, Anne. Interviewing her, however, turned out to be a bit of a dead end when she threw up blood all over Lucifer's white shift.
Chloe instruced an ambulance to be called and made sure to lay Anne on her side in the meantime so she didn't choke. Then Chloe called over one of the staff to sit with her while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
"I don't suppose there are replacement shirts around?" she heard Lucifer ask one of the staff.
Looking over to him, Chloe saw one of the staff hand Lucifer a bright green shirt. The Devil took one look at it and hesitated.
"Oh come on Lucifer," Chloe lectured him as she moved closer. "It's better than blood."
"I'm actually not so sure it is, Detective," Lucifer said. "This suit is vintage."
"As he won't say it," Chloe addressed the staff who'd provided the shirt. "I will. Thank you." And she reached forward to accept the shirt.
Then she turned to Lucifer and said, "Put it on."
"But Detective," Lucifer whined.
"You are not getting in my car like that," Chloe told him, gesturing to the blood all over his front.
"Very well," Lucifer sighed as he reached up to take off his jacket.
Chloe foolishly assumed he'd find some privacy to remove his shirt, but she turned out to be very wrong about that. The Devil now stood half naked in the middle of the room with his hand held out to take the bright green restaurant logo t-shirt. Chloe couldn't help but stare a little.
"Oh, like what you see, Detective?" Lucifer asked in his usually purring voice.
"Shut up," Chloe said, turning away to focus on her job again.
The ambulance arrived then and they took Anne away on a stretcher. Chloe quite enjoyed how uncomfortable Lucifer looked in his polyester t-shirt. What she didn't enjoy was being literally in the middle of Lucifer and Dan's pissing contest moment. She had a feeling those two would never get along. Before Dan left she invited him to join her and her mom for dinner tonight. With the way they interacted this morning, Chloe felt sure she was gonna need more of a buffer with her mother than just the Devil.
She was tempted to make Lucifer wear that shirt for the rest of the day, but she gave in and stopped off on the way to interview an ex-employee of the restaurant.
It was kinda nice, while also very frustrating, to have Lucifer acting like his normal self again and by that she meant breaking into an apartment when no one answered the doorbell. As usual his shenanigans found something useful and Chloe found herself joining in the illegal search.
"Can you hear that?" Lucifer asked, pointing to the wall on the other side of which two people were very obviously having quite vigorous sex.
"Since when has that bothered you?" Chloe asked, surprised. It was then that the woman cried out 'oh god' and Lucifer looked even more annoyed.
"Dear old Dad strikes again," Lucifer grumbled. "He's popping up everywhere and spoiling my favourite things!"
"Because you choose to see him everywhere," Chloe reminded him. "You don't actually know what he is or isn't involved in."
"That's the problem Detective," Lucifer said. "He could be involved in everything or nothing and we'd never know."
"Exactly," Chloe told him firmly.
"Huh?" Lucifer said.
"If you have no idea then you are wasting your energy thinking about it so much," Chloe told him.
"Oh what do you know, your mother is delightful," Lucifer said with a wave of his hand.
"Of course you think she is," Chloe sighed. And then she found herself telling him things she hardly ever told anyone. It was like with the Palmetto case. She'd told Lucifer about that when they'd hardly just met. It was strange, but somehow it felt right. Lucifer didn't judge people for their desires or their flaws, which made him strangely easy to confide in.
They found the drugs at about the same time as the ex-employee got home. Chloe interviewed her. She had an alibi though Chloe would still need to check it. Her testimony turned the suspect to the victim's son and Chloe put out an APB.
"Glad you are finally on the same page," Lucifer smiled.
"But I am following the evidence," Chloe reminded him. "While you are just projecting your daddy issues onto someone else."
"I just wonder what it would feel like to get out from under His shadow," Lucifer said. "The way the victim's son Junior did with his father."
Chloe sighed. She was saved from having to answer by her phone going off. When she saw the caller ID was Trixie's babysitter, Chloe answered at once.
"I'm not sure I'm supposed to call you about this, but your mom came by and said I could leave early," her babysit said.
"No you did the right thing," Chloe told her. "I'm on my way."
Then she hung up the phone, got in her car, and drove off, leaving the Devil to fend for himself.
When Chloe arrived home she parked hastily and ran to open the front door. Trixie was standing on a box looking all decked out and bedazzled like a barbie doll. Chloe couldn't help but be mad at her mother. She was using Trixie as a prop! Her mother bringing up Chloe's living in her place rent free, just made Chloe even madder. Penelope had wanted her to stay here!
But then Chloe turned her head and the fight no longer mattered. Trixie was gone.
The next half hour was nothing but Chloe calling everyone she knew in a panic. When a charge showed up on her uber account, Chloe realized the one person she hadn't called.
"Trixie went to Lux," Chloe said in shock.
Then she ran out the door and got into her car. There was a demon at Lux and Lucifer wasn't there because she'd abandoned him on the side of a road. Driving probably too fast, Chloe got to Lux in record time.
Chloe ran into the building. She found her daughter sitting at a bar stool with a drink in her hand across from a demon.
"Are you okay?" Chloe asked. "Did she hurt you?"
"No mom, don't be silly," Trixe smiled. "We're friends." Trixie turned to the demon and asked, "What's your name?"
"Mazikeen," she said. "But you can call me Maze." The demon was smiling at Trixie and Chloe wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Don't ever run away like that ever again okay!" Chloe said, wrapping both her arms around her daughter.
"I'm sorry mom," Trixie said. "I hate it when people fight over me."
"I'm sorry too," Chloe said. "But why would you come here?"
"Lucifer cheers me up," Trixe said.
Chloe had no idea what to say to that. She couldn't help but chuckle a little. The Devil improved her daughter's mood, and apparently she'd made friends with a demon. And her day wasn't even over yet. She still had to survive dinner with her mother.
"Let's go home," Chloe told her daughter. Trixie jumped down from the bar stool and Chloe reached out to take her daughter's hand as they headed to the car.
When they got home, Chloe was too tired to hear her mother's excuses or whatever it was going to be. She just wanted to have dinner and get this day over with.
But as it turned out Lucifer was already here and he'd bought their prime suspect with him. A guy who Lucifer believed poisoned his own father was now cooking for her family. How could he not see anything wrong with this picture?
The moment Trixie saw Lucifer she called out his name and tried to run to him, but Dan stopped her. For once, Chloe was glad of it. She'd had quite enough of the celestial world mixing with her normal human life for one day.
Chloe pulled Lucifer aside the first chance she got and when she was done chewing him out for bringing a possible murderer over for dinner, she addressed the next issue.
"Is Maze dangerous?" Chloe asked.
"She's a demon," Lucifer chuckled. "Of course she is."
There was something in his tone that made her think he hadn't understood her question, so Chloe tried again. "My daughter went to find you today and ended up alone at Lux with Maze. You've told me Maze is a demon and I just want to know was Trixie safe? If I'd arrived later would-"
"Maze would never hurt your child, Detective, or any child for that matter," Lucifer assured her sincerely. "Maze has motivations and desires like humans do. Yes, get on her bad side and Mazikeen, child of Lilith, is the most dangerous thing you'll ever meet, but she's no more a monster than I am."
"Okay," Chloe said slowly. "Okay then." Chloe took a deep breath and tried to not panic. Endangering her own life was one thing, but her daughter's was another matter entirely.
"It really is alright, Detective," Lucifer said calmly. There was something in his voice that felt reassuring. "She may have blabed to my brother, but what you are thinking she isn't capable of."
"Thank you," Chloe said. She wasn't sure why, but somehow she believed him.
All the gratitude she felt towards the Devil rather evaporated about a half hour later when he aired out everyone's dirty laundry at dinner. Between Lucifer's casually mentioning that the cook he'd brought was a suspect in his father's murder to telling Penelope that Chloe thought her mother acted like a child, forcing Chloe to grow up too quickly, dinner was pretty much over before it began.
"You are way out of line, man," Dan said to Lucifer as he finished talking.
"There he goes leaping to her defense again and why?" Lucifer said. "It isn't like you're together anymore. The Detective is perfectly capable of defending herself as she's reminded me on numerous occasions."
"Because I'm an adult," Chloe snapped.
"Oh and I'm just a child is that it?" her mother shot back.
"If you don't like it, why don't you stop acting like one!" Chloe yelled at her mother.
Laughter interrupted the fight. Junior was chuckling at them. "You sound just like me and my dad," he said. He went on and really spoke from the heart about why he came home and how proud he was to be his father's son. He ended with stating that he didn't kill his father and she could either arrest him or let him go.
"We are gonna need you to come down and make a statement," Chloe told him. Dan instantly volunteered to go, happy to have an excuse to leave.
"I wanted one reason to stick up for you," Dan told Lucifer on his way out. Chloe had no clue what this was about, apart from their continued dislike for each other.
Her mother left the table and then it was just her, the Devil and five uneaten plates of food. She wasn't even surprised to learn that the Devil was disappointed with the evening, since Junior's answer didn't apply to him.
Exhausted, Chloe went to her desk to go over everything again. Even if Lucifer was spectacularly annoying he had helped her in an unexpected way. Though Chloe would never tell him, Lucifer's breaking the ice with her mother had felt quite liberating. To finally be able to say out loud to her mother all the things she'd been keeping in had been quite a lot more freeing than Chloe thought it would be.
Plus, the lab called and it turned out Lucifer was right about Junior being innocent. The only other person with motive got poisoned herself, which left Chloe back at square one. That is until she ran her ideas by the Devil and called the hospital. Anne had checked out against her doctor's recommendation.
Very soon chapters are going to start deviating more and more from the tv show. I'm working on chapter 18 now which is turning out quite differently! I have been really surprised though how much Dan and Chloe's almost getting back together before removed has changed things. In the show it was such a non-issue or so I thought when I watched it, but removed it has been quite interesting to see how the domino's fall.
And for all of those who know how this episode ended. No Chloe won't be throwing herself at Lucifer for two reasons: Dan never sent her a break up text and she knows he's the actual Devil which might alarm her more than a hot guy who thinks he's the Devil even if she was after meaningless sex like in the canon episode. This also means no Saint Lucifer since he never got the high from turning her down. ;) But you shall have to wait for the next few chapters to see how that all plays out.
Speak Peek Chapter 15
"Cover your face, Detective," Lucifer said.
"What? Why?" Chloe asked.
"Oh, just do it," he added, frustrated. This was gonna hurt.
With the Detective's face protected from the sparks of the fire, Lucifer scooped her into his arms. He quite enjoyed the startled sound she made as she was lifted into the air, but no time for that. Lucifer walked forward to the exit and through the flames, feeling the heat more intensely than he had, even in hell. Using his legs, Lucifer kicked the door down and they both escaped into the cool night air.
"Put me down!" Chloe called and Lucifer obliged her now that it was safe to do so.
"I'm sorry, Detective, but there really was no other way," Lucifer explained.
He turned to face her then, carefully studying it for any signs of fear. He didn't usually get so close to her. Even if it had been to save her life, Lucifer didn't want that to cost him her trust.