Chapter 9

All may go well

Dear friend,
I pray that you may enjoy good health
and that all may go well with you,
even as your soul is getting along well.
(3 John 1:2, NIV)

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"Yes, he's the Devil. The fallen angel. The Morningstar. But he is also just... Lucifer", Linda continued, in her therapist voice. "You know? The man who's constantly adjusting his cufflinks. Most powerful being on Earth and he's fussing about his suits! Except when he's not, because it matters and then he couldn't care less."

"Yeah, but he always complains afterwards", Chloe interjected. "Loudly. Until something shiny distracts him; usually a woman's naked skin. Or a guy's. Or until someone hands him a drink."

Linda laughed and said: "Like an alcoholic magpie."

They both snorted into their drinks, Linda having opened a bottle of red wine as soon as Chloe had told her the reason for her visit.

"Did you know he's scared of grasshoppers?", she asked Chloe.

"What? No", said Chloe. "You can't be serious! Can you?" She squinted at the smirking Linda, trying to discern if the therapist was making fun of her.

"I'm serious!", insisted Linda, then leaned forward and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Scared of grasshoppers. And locusts and cicadas and everything else in this family."

Chloe raised her eyebrows disbelievingly over the rim of her wineglass.

"It's the hopping. They're unpredictable and it completely unnerves him", explained Linda.

"You're messing with me!", said Chloe, chuckling and shaking her head.

"I swear, I'm not making this up! The Devil is scared of grasshoppers. Wait" Linda rummaged through her purse searching for her phone. "I think I might have a picture somewhere" She moved over to sit next to Chloe on the couch and started to swipe through her gallery.

"Ha! Found it", she exclaimed and turned the phone, so Chloe could see the slightly blurred image. "There he is, Lucifer Morningstar, Satan, Beelzebub, owner of LA's most elite night club – standing half-naked on a chair in my living room and calling for help because there is a grasshopper sitting on the floor!" Chloe guffawed and only barely held herself back from spraying red wine everywhere, starting to cough instead.

Linda waited patiently until Chloe had put her glass on the table and gotten herself under control again.

"Show me again", she said teary-eyed. Linda held out the phone and Chloe broke into another hysterical fit. The expression on Lucifer's face was priceless.

"That's the grasshopper by the way", said Linda and zoomed in on a tiny dark smudge on the light wooden floor. "Lucifer almost stepped on the poor guy. When he saw what it was he panicked and jumped on a chair! And then he couldn't get down again because", Linda had to stop talking for a moment because the memory had her periodically breaking into fits of giggles "because the terrible, terrible grasshopper was between him and the door!", she finished and they both broke into another giggling fit.

"I have to have this picture", said Chloe after Linda had put the phone away and they had calmed down a bit.

"You already do", said Linda smugly. "I just posted it in the group."

"No! Tell me you didn't!", exclaimed Chloe. "Linda! Maze will never let him live this down!"

"Eh, he'll survive!", said Linda, waving her hand in a gesture of complete non-concern, and poured them both more wine.

For a while, the women remained silent. Then Linda settled back into her own chair, scrutinizing Chloe.

"How are you holding up?", she asked, cradling her wine glass.

Chloe's expression became somber again and she took her time to answer the question, resting her own glass against her lips without drinking.

"I think, I'm doing okay", she said at last. "It's just… how do you cope with that knowledge, Linda? How do you cope with… knowing it's all real?"

She looked desperately at Linda, who did not answer right away and looked out of her office window instead, contemplating the question like one might contemplate a difficult math equation. At last, she turned back to look at Chloe.

"Honestly?", she asked. "With difficulty."

Linda sighed and looked into her glass.

"I admit, I had a really hard time and I don't know if I would have gotten out of it, if Maze hadn't been so insistent. I'm glad she was, but it did take a while." She took a sip from her wine. "It took me weeks to get over the initial shock and even longer until things were more or less back to normal. Whatever the new normal is." She swished the red liquid around. "But it gets better. Sometimes it still hits me. I mean, God? The Devil? I thought it was all poppycock" The therapist laughed nervously. "At first that was all I could think of – I only saw Lucifer and Maze as what they were, but over time…" Linda searched for the right words. "Over time I came to realize that it wasn't the same as who they were. Are. They are people with both good and bad qualities, people who have… flaws and quirks like the rest of us and who I have gotten to know and care about. Does that help?", she asked.

Chloe nodded slowly.

"Yeah. Yeah, it… does, actually. I mean it's kinda hard to be scared of someone who steals gummy bears from your 8-year-old." Linda guffawed, causing Chloe to blush and cross her arms. "It's not like he couldn't buy his own!", she complained.

"I know the problem", said Linda, who was clearly highly amused by this. "Once I made the mistake of buying a two-pound bag and leaving it somewhere where Lucifer could find it. He made it through the whole bag during two episodes of 'House'!"

"Wait, you were watching TV with Lucifer?", asked Chloe and chortled.

"Occasionally. After we... you know", admitted Linda and blushed. "It was mostly to entertain him while he was giving me foot rubs, because I was too tired for conversation" She looked fondly into the distance and drank from her wine. "Those were amazing foot rubs." Chloe smiled wanly and took a rather large swig from her glass. All of a sudden, she remembered something.

"Did he eat all of them? All of the gummy bears?", she asked.

"What do you mean?" Linda was confused. "Yes, the whole two-pound bag, like I said."

"He didn't leave the green ones?", asked Chloe, wanting to be absolutely clear on this front.

The therapist shook her head.

"No, he ate all of them", she confirmed. "I don't think he cared much about the color" Linda cocked her head and her eyes went to the ceiling as she tried to remember. "Hang on, I think he once said he preferred the yellow ones. Or was it the white ones?" She shrugged. "Anyway, why do you ask?"

Lindas' eyes widened, when she noticed the tears on her friend's face. These were not the tears of laughter from before.

"Chloe, what's wrong? Are you okay?", she asked cautiously and leaned forward, debating inwardly whether Chloe needed her friend right now or her therapist.

"Yeah, fine. I'm sorry. I just got a bit emotional", Chloe assured her, though her voice was wavering slightly.

"No need to apologize. That's what you're here for", said Linda emphatically. "What was it that upset you? Did I say something?"

"No. I mean yes. It's about the gummy bears", said Chloe. With a chuckle, she wiped the tears from her eyes and told Linda about the gummy bears.

"Can you believe it?", asked Chloe and couldn't help but grin. "The Devilis stealing all my daughters' gummy bears. Except for the ones he knows she likes best."

Linda looked into the distance for a moment.

"Actually, I can", she said and laughed.

"Lucifer is – fundamentally – a kind person", she continued and her expression turned more serious again. "He cares, even if he doesn't know how to show it or deal with any of the emotions. At all", she added wryly. "But he's trying. I know it's hard to accept, Chloe, but pretty much everything we have ever learned about the devil is wrong."

"Yes, well, the bible certainly never mentioned a fear of grasshoppers. Who knows what else they got wrong?", said Chloe and reached for her wine, a tiny smile playing around her lips. "Hey, wasn't an invasion of locusts one of the biblical plagues?", she asked, recalling some of the things she had read after Lucifer's revelation and two nights' worth of religious research. Her smile widened until it was almost a grin.

"It was!", said Linda and they amused themselves imagining Lucifer's reaction to a plague of locusts. "Do you think he was there? Maybe that's where this fear comes from", she pondered, resolving to find out at the earliest opportunity.

"We can ask him about it", said Chloe and then smirked. "But I bet you a hundred bucks he'll never admit it. It'll be", and here she lowered her voice and made a decent attempt at mimicking Lucifer's, " 'Preposterous! The Devil isn't afraid of grasshoppers, Detective! Now, I will admit that I happen to have a certain… aversion to this particular group of insects, but I most certainly do not fear them. That would be ridiculous.' "

After the ensuing laughing fit had ceased (it had taken a while), Chloe held up her glass.

"Cheers, Linda. And thank you."

"That's what friends are for", said Linda and clinked it. "Cheers."

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AUTHOR'S NOTE
WARNING - LENGTHY WING RAMBLING AHEAD AND NOTHING ELSE

Thank you all for the lovely comments! 3 I'm afraid I'm going to dissect the wing scene some more xD Someone pointed out that Lucifer would have no qualms about telling Chloe if sth was turning him on, but the wings always seemed like a special case to me, since he has such complicated & conflicted feelings about them. What I was going for is that while wing touching definitely *is* sexual, it's at the same time something extremely (emotionally) intimate as well. Lucifer isn't sure himself how to feel about this and hates the thought of his wings giving him pleasure in any way. And even though he longs for Chloe to keep going, he doesn't want to make her uncomfortable (especially after she just found out) with the knowledge that wing touching is in fact both a very close, intimate act and a highly sexual one. He would have needed to shut that thing down immediately, but now it's kinda too late (and his brain is turning into a happy puddle of goo) and it would be awkward, not to mention that he's a bit embarrassed about having such a strong reaction. He is supposed to make other people feel that way, dammit! So like always he just gets weird about stuff and hopes Chloe doesn't catch on...

I don't know if I was able to convey all that in half a chapter though. It's always easier in your own head! xD And of course everything is highly context dependent! When I wrote the scene on its own I definitely intended it to lean more towards sensual/sexual, but in this particular story, in light of everything that happened before, it makes much more sense to read it as the moment of emotional vulnerability, trust and closeness that it is and focus on this aspect rather than the physical one.

In any case I'm happy the scene apparently came across way better than I thought! It's nigh impossible to evaluate things objectively as the author. You're set on seeing things a certain way because this is how you've written them or because of additional background info you didn't end up using that the readers don't have or the things you haven't written yet influencing you, so yay for feedback!

TL; DR: It was always intended to have both a sexual implication *and* be a moment of intense emotional intimacy (hence why poor Luci doesn't know how to handle it), but it's absolutely up to your own interpretation which part weighs heavier :) Anyway, I'm super pleased y'all seemed to like it and thought it fit! (For the more wingporn-y inclined among you, there might be more to come... hehe)