The tenth circle of hell, Chloe decides, must be high-rise renovation.
"No, no, Detective," Lucifer says in passing, flipping through twenty nearly identical deep purple paint swatches on his way to survey the work in Trixie's new bedroom. "Tax collectors, would you believe? Wall to wall accountants. So boring we don't even bother with the torture—we just let them talk amongst themselves."
Well, she thinks, he would know. But still, if she'd had any idea what Lucifer would be like when it came to interior design, she would have nipped this homemaking notion in the bud weeks ago.
It started with moving a few walls around. Which was fine! It even made sense, in a way. With Trixie living with them half the time, she really could use her own space, and if they also managed to enclose theirs to give them a little privacy of an evening, well, it would be a win, win situation.
But she should have known that Lucifer would never do anything by halves. He'd decided that what was required was a complete gut and redesign from the ground up, which meant that everything from the couch to the ancient temple walls to the weird-ass, mossy chandelier had to go.
And okay, the chandelier was—different. She couldn't imagine how their cleaning service managed to dust it. But still, it was his. His chandelier, his couch, his taste before she entered his life and turned it upside down.
"I'm worried you're not keeping the things you like," she'd told him last night in bed at her old apartment where they were staying until the new place was complete, but he'd just laughed.
"I like you, Detective. Love you, actually. What does it matter if I lose a couch?"
"But I like that couch."
"You'll love the new one then." And then he'd kissed her, and she remembered why she'd agreed to the new walls in the first place, grateful as ever that Trixie was two walls and a whole lot of insulation away when the night took it's rather inevitable course. It had been delightful.
But now here she was in the cold light of day, looking at the shell of the apartment she had come to love almost as much as the angel living inside of it. Sure, there had been bad nights here. The night she nearly betrayed the man she loved—the night he left her to spend millennia babysitting Hell—the night Dan shot him and he fell and Chloe's entire world had shattered for a moment because she was there and that meant Lucifer might die.
And the realization, moments later, that Lucifer was invulnerable again. That maybe he didn't love her anymore. Not the way he used to.
Chloe shook off the thought. There were good nights here, too. Nights when he looked at her like she was more beautiful than Heaven and more important than Hell. Nights when she could see him, in all his damaged glory. His missing wings. His devil face. His angelic beauty. Nights when he was wholly and unreservedly hers—petting her hair while she dozed on his lap on the couch, and he muttered about Katherine Hepburn and how she would have loved you, darling, truly.
Chloe's going to miss some of the old charms of this place. The artifacts from his many, many lifetimes spent vacationing on Earth. Sometimes she thinks about the millennia that stretch from the garden of Eden to here. The thousands and thousands of years he's spent visiting humanity since Lilith left the garden and Eve went looking for a similar escape. And Eve aside, sometimes it blows her mind that in all that time and in all those places, she's the only woman he's ever been able to be himself with. His whole self. His true self. The angel and the devil and the man—all together—all at once.
And maybe it's silly, but she worries. She worries that the new apartment won't be a place that feels like home to him. She worries that he's trying to hide who he is again behind homey, human decor and quite possibly ordinary chandeliers. She worries that after all this time and work to find himself, he's going to lose it all again for her. And she appreciates the effort—really, she does—but she can't bear it. Not if she loses him, too.
Lucifer is in Trixie's new room when she finds him. Her little monkey has talked him into a full on deep space fantasy in here. It hadn't taken much effort, honestly. Lucifer's eyes had lit up at the thought, and then he was off, hunting high and low for the perfect shades of black, purple and white to appropriately capture the twinkle of stars in the far corner of a distant galaxy that he'd once built. "One of my best," he'd told her with a wink, and even in the preliminary sketches and mood boards, Chloe could see that he's right.
Today though, he's met his match in Trixie Espinoza.
"Rhinestones?" Trixie asks, a look of withering skepticism crossing her face. She's growing up so fast. "You want the stars to be rhinestones?"
"Don't be silly, child. Swarovski crystal—nothing but the best, of course."
"I want glow-in-the-dark stars and maybe some glitter."
Lucifer sighs heavily. "You Decker women are all alike," he says. "Try to give you the best that money can buy, and you just want cheap tat."
"I'm an Espinoza," Trixie says, completely unphased by the aspersions cast on her taste. "And I love you, Lucifer, but I want glow-in-the-dark stars and glitter. And I want twinkle lights and maybe a pony."
Lucifer pauses, mouth half open already to continue the crystal argument, when he's caught off guard by this new potential avenue towards buying her daughter's affection. "Really? A pony?"
Chloe can already picture it. There'll be a miniature pony on the balcony by lunchtime, and then she'll have to learn how to take care of a freaking pony, and dear—father-in-law?—how is she going to cope with that.
"Don't be silly," Trixie says, looking up at Lucifer in fond exasperation. "What would we do with a pony?"
Lucifer's mouth is just hanging open now in awestruck confusion, and Trixie takes the opportunity to hug him around the middle while he's defenseless.
"I love you, Lucifer," Trixie says, and he pats her head while his wide eyes finally find Chloe's where she's leaning against the doorframe. She grins at him, and eventually his lips curl into a broad, if slightly nervous smile in return.
"Yes, yes," he says, hugging Trixie back now. "I love you, too, you wretch. Glow-in-the-dark stars it is."
"And glitter," Trixie says, narrowing her eyes at him again.
"And glitter," he concedes. "Go get your stuff packed, we'll go to the craft store after I've talked to your mother."
"Oh—Michael's?"
"No!" The look of horror on his face is palpable. "No, no. Anywhere but there. Have a google, would you. Find the most expensive one you can."
"Expensive craft stores?" Chloe asks while Trixie skips into the unfinished living room where she left her backpack.
"One can only hope," he says with a rueful smile. "I know the concept of luxury is rather foreign to you two, but I do have standards."
"In craft stores?"
Lucifer breathes in through his nose—a long suffering, strangled sound that makes her laugh.
"You're ridiculous," she says, not without affection. He's pouting so she does what she usually does to snap him out of it. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses his cheek. The pout melts away with a renewed interest in her lips that's entirely gratifying.
"We love you, you know," she says, and he's eyes rise from her lips to meet hers. His eyes are dark and unfathomable—like the darkness behind the stars—but they shine for her. "We love you, not the money, not the apartment, and not the decor. Trixie is going to love those glow-in-the-dark stars, but she's going to love hanging out in our home with you a lot more. As am I. And it is our home, Lucifer. Hers and mine and yours. I want to make sure that you feel at home here, too."
"Of course I do," Lucifer says, his brows pinch together in confusion. "You're here."
It's such a simple statement—free of any doubt or guile. He means it, she realizes. She is his home.
"As are you," she says, smiling up at his ridiculous, beautiful face. "I told you, Lucifer. Anyplace with you and Trixie—that's enough for me. Walls and a comfy couch and a chandelier that can be dusted—that's all just a bonus."
"You want a new chandelier?" He's desperate, she realizes. Desperate and scared and all but begging to keep her.
"No, Lucifer. I want us to both love the chandelier we pick out for our home in our apartment with our kid. I want you to realize that we're here now. That we're not going anywhere. That no matter how invulnerable you want to be, we're still going to love you and take care of you and live with you for the rest of our lives, if you'll have us."
He blinks, barely breathing. She thinks he might be about to cry, but she doesn't mention it. Just keeps holding him and loving him and—yes—praying for him to realize it's all true. She's not going anywhere.
"I'll have you." He has to swallow past emotion to get the words out, and she kisses him softly to ease the tension on his lips.
"Good," she says.
"The urchin will leave us though, won't she? For college and girls—or boys—and adulthood and all that rot."
"Yes," Chloe says, smiling despite the twinge she feels at the thought of her baby being all grown up. "Of course. But she'll come home sometimes and bring those boys or those girls, and our family will grow, and it will be incredible, Lucifer. Every single minute of it."
"Yes," he says, breathless, and she thinks that every time they have this conversation, he believes it a little more. He gets stronger.
"I don't want to be invulnerable, you know," he says, and Chloe starts a little in his arms. "It's not so much a choice as a reality these days."
"I know," Chloe says, swallowing now. She knows he's an angel. She knows he can't be vulnerable around her anymore—how often has she betrayed that trust? With priests and bullets and unreasonably human requests to stay and let Hell go to—well—hell. She knows she's lost the right to make him vulnerable, and that's okay. It is what it is. She'll love him anyway, and they'll survive.
"No you, don't know," he says. "I didn't know until just now. I'm not invulnerable because I don't want to be vulnerable with you, Chloe. I'm invulnerable because you love me. I'm invulnerable because nothing can hurt me, not while we love each other."
He's staring at her like she's a miracle again. Rapt, is the word. He's rapt when he looks at her. Much like when she looks at him, if she's honest. And she realizes then that the power here between them extends far beyond the scope of her little mortal imagination. This thing—this love of theirs reaches up to the stars and down to the molten core of the earth. It touches Heaven and sweeps through Hell. The power of love is the generative force of the universe, and in this one moment, Chloe feels it all in his gaze, locked with hers.
"Oh," she says, dizzy from catching a glimpse into the running of the universe from the love in his eyes. "Okay."
"Glitter?" Trixie asks from the doorway. "And stars?"
"Yes, yes," Lucifer says, straightening his immaculate suit jacket and taking Chloe's hand on the way out the door. "What would you say to a silk canopy above the bed, child?"
Trixie considers that carefully, staring up at him with narrowed eyes. "Are there going to be rhinestones on this canopy?"
"Swarovski," he says, resigned. "Quite possibly."
Trixie sighs and rolls her eyes. "Fine. But you're the one who has to convince Mom it'll be worth the dry cleaning bill."
Lucifer grins at Chloe, and she knows that battle has already been lost.
"My pleasure," he says, and she sighs. It'll probably be her pleasure later tonight, too.