Chloe briefly debated on barricading her daughter's door, but Trixie appeared to be solidly asleep. She did set up a couple of plastic bottles that would get knocked over as a warning sound if she opened the door, but it wouldn't stop her from leaving the room.

She paced in thin pajamas while waiting the short time for her- for Dan to get here. She had a pretty good idea of what occurred. After all, it hadn't taken that long with Lucifer, hindsight being what it was.

It bothered her a lot less than she would have guessed. Which wasn't to say she wasn't bothered at all; she never had polyamorous tendencies before, nor had she ever dated more than one person at once in the past. Neither had Dan, to her knowledge. Lucifer, of course, was literally a whole different animal.

Dan arrived before long on her front doorstep, looking unsure and unsettled and more than a little like someone stepped on his foot. She pulled him inside by the hand when he hesitated on the threshold. "Where is he?"

"He said he had to make a side trip to Hell. I don't think I could have stopped him."

She buried her frustration - this wasn't Dan's fault. "No, I suppose not. Go - Whatever. I hate it when he just takes off like that. Did he say what for? Is he okay?"

"No, he didn't. He looked okay before he left."

Chloe pulled him in for a hug. A familiar scent wafted off his neck; a touch of Lucifer's cologne. "So, what he said on the phone...?"

Dan blushed red. "Er. Yeah."

His neck had a mark that was slightly visible right at the neckline of the fabric. She pulled down the collar of his t-shirt to get a better look. "He did a number on you, didn't he?"

"Uhm."

A sly smile picked at her face and she didn't quite control it. "I kinda want to try that. On you. And him." She really didn't mean to suddenly become aroused, but finding Lucifer's love mark on him shot heat straight between her legs. "Is there more?"

"Uhm."

She lifted the lower hem of his shirt. And got a little weak in the knees. A line of bites and red bruises crossed his hips, angling down to the middle of his belly from either side. They dove below his belt, vanishing from view, but the direction of them was quite clear. She blushed and let go, dropping the shirt. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be just grabbing you like that."

Dan rubbed his neck. "It's okay, I kind of don't mind it when it's either of you."

She stepped back a bit, creating distance. "It's not. I should have asked first."

He held out his arms and she stepped back into them. "Seriously, grab me anytime you want to. It's nice to hold someone again."

"Especially Lucifer, huh?"

"Especially either of you. Lucifer's still learning how to hug. It makes a lot more sense now."

"Yeah, I guess it does. I guess we'll have to teach him. Even after we started officially dating, he still wasn't a big fan of 'hugs'. I don't think he's used to people touching him without wanting something more than just touching."

Dan squeezed her tightly, thinking of the difference in their frames, and let go again. "So, do you have any fun love bites you want to share?"

Chloe's eyes darted to his hidden waist then dragged back up to his face with visible effort. "No, he doesn't play rough with me. I think he's afraid to, sometimes. It's probably why we haven't done butt stuff." She knew her voice had an edge to it that screamed she desired otherwise - at least on the marking part. He hadn't even asked about anal sex again after her knee-jerk refusal the first time Lucifer brought it up. She really was going to settle her curiosity about it at some point, it just didn't seem sexy. Until very recently.

Somewhat oblivious to her current state of partial arousal, Dan flopped on the couch to wait for Lucifer to show - he said he would. She curled up next to him, burrowing into the hollow between his body and the couch pillows. His body was pleasantly warm under her head. For lack of anything else leaping to his scattered mind, he said, "that doesn't have to be rough, by the way. With me, he went really slow, but I'm not sure how much of it you were paying attention to, since you were, uh, a bit out of it."

She giggled. "Yeah, mistakes were made. I feel bad now that I missed out on some of that, but drunk-witnessing sex was fun too. A couple of months ago, I never would have thought having my own personal live-porn show with two men would be nearly as hot as it was."

Dan grinned, blushing just a little. "Thanks, by the way. I meant it, it really is nice, having you, and him, at least as much as you'll let me."

Chloe appeared interested. "It hurts though? Doesn't it? And Lucifer is...impressive."

He draped an arm over her shoulder, pulling up a throw blanket over them. He was too both wound up and tired to be anything but be honest. "It did, at first. I snuck some web research in at work, and it's, uh, normal to be uncomfortable at the start, but you can get ready faster, over time. Enough lube and it's, uhm, better than fine, honestly. You don't have a prostate or anything, so I can't speak for that - but it was pretty amazing. I didn't hurt him, I think if that's what you're asking. At least, he didn't say it did more than burn a little. That was the first thing we did tonight that could have hurt him." Dan was pretty sure he was rambling.

She smiled a little. "So your 'punishment' was to sit there and take whatever he wanted to do to you?" Damn. She wanted to add more marks to him right now. Maybe trade some.

"Mostly standing rather than sitting, but, uhm." Dan blushed. It was adorable.

She shifted against him, her breasts shoved up against his side. Her bra from earlier rested somewhere back in her room, and good riddance.

Dan felt her pulse pick up. He definitely noticed her lack of a bra as his fingers dragged in long circles over her back. "Chloe?"

"Uhm." The soft fabric between them tickled her nipples, hardening them.

"Are you turned on by that?"

She snaked her arm around his waist. "A little yeah."

This, her in his arms, reminded him of back when they used to cuddle on the couch with a movie. How had he ever been so stupid as to let her go? Or, more accurately, do stupid things that pushed her away? He kissed the top of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair, gently.

Chloe leaned up and kissed him. He hadn't done more than put clothes on before he came over, and he smelled musky but not in a bad way, with a mix of interesting smells on him. "Mmmmm."

"Uhm, Chloe?"

"I can taste him on you." She licked his lips. "I can smell him on your face." She kissed the corner of his mouth.

Dan flushed, thinking of what had been there recently, his mouth busily wrapped around Lucifer's cock. "I guess I should have showered, sorry."

"No, it's nice." Her hand crept up his thigh.

Dan's growing erection helpfully reminded him Lucifer left very abruptly. She kissed him again, deeply, her body twisting to make better contact with his, leaning against him. It was getting easier to just relax with his - with Chloe. Something tried to prick at the back of his brain.

He let them go on for a moment or two longer, then pulled back. Hesitantly, he said, "you should probably call Maze. I don't have her number."

"Oh? Oh! Right, she might know what to do about Lucifer. I should have thought of that." Chloe gave his upper thigh a squeeze and picked up her phone from the back of the couch, sitting up.

Maze actually picked up this time. "What?"

"Hey, uhm. How often does Lucifer run back to Hell?"

"Pretty much never, why?"

"He's-"

Ash suddenly filled the living room in a cloudburst. Lucifer had his wings out, the tips touching opposite walls and he ineffectually brushed ash off his coat sleeves with either hand in turn. The smell of brimstone hit them next, along with a wave of cold then hot displaced air. The whole house began to fill with the smell of dying charcoal embers. Most of the ash stayed localized a few feet from the couch.

Chloe almost dropped her phone. "Nevermind. He's back."

Maze cursed and hung up.

Dan and Chloe both leapt off the couch at the same time. Dan got to him first. "Hey! Are you okay?"

Lucifer grumbled without answering at first, fluffing out his wings and sending ash further out into the room. He looked disgruntled, dirty and annoyed, but not anxious. Dan breathed in some by accident and coughed. Lucifer dropped his jacket on the floor, through his wings, and it landed with another puff of floating ash. Gruffly, he said, "it's fine. I'm fine."

Chloe waved her hand in front of her face. "What on earth happened?"

He dropped his shirt next, looking gloriously bare-chested in trousers and wings out, flakes of ash starting to settle at his feet. He groused, "Nothing happened. On earth or otherwise. I appeared in a particularly dense ashfall."

Dan walked around the wings and picked up his clothing. "What kind of nothing?"

"I had to make sure I could still go. I...panicked. I thought perhaps I was losing my 'Luciferness' as Chloe likes to put it."

"The wings weren't an indication you were still you?"

Lucifer shook himself and shrugged. Everyone sneezed again. "Not being able to enter Hell wouldn't be the first thing I lost, but it would be distressing. I haven't had access to my Devil form since a few months ago."

Chloe bit her lip. "You said something about that before. Are you okay?"

Something was bothering him. He opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head. "I said I'm fine."

Dan regarded the ashy wings, apparently taking his statement at face value. "Well, now that your curiosity is satisfied, can we take you to a car wash? Or at least outside? That's where your clothes are going."

Chloe arched an eyebrow. "Feeling possessive of my apartment, Dan?"

Before he could answer, she waved him off. "He's not wrong. How can we fix this? And yeah, get those pants off too."

Lucifer was relatively clean under his suit, thankfully. He fluffed his wings outdoors but they remained full of fine bits of dust and ash. The late hour permitted him to stand outside for a few seconds before Chloe shoved him back inside towards the bathroom. The neighbors were a lot closer here than her mom's place, and nosier.

Dan flapped the suit pieces, releasing Hell-Ash on the evening breeze and hoping he wasn't losing yet more points with 'Dad' by doing so. He figured it was one thing for Lucifer to do it, but God was probably not too happy about his kids hanging with mortals. He tried not to think too hard either about Lucifer carting around anything from Hell up to earth. And trying not to think about Mazes' face changing and how it had anything to do with Lucifer.

Ash flecks floated away and melted against the dark night, fading to nothing against the stars in the sky. The moon was bright and waxing, he thought. Someone really did make all that. Or start it anyway.

He fixed his eyes on one star and then another, and another. He knew the ratio of even this much blackness to light was an illusion, that so many of the 'stars' they could see from this level were whole galaxies too far away to distinguish from stars by eye. The void beyond their own home of spinning light was immense. The sky only appeared this full of points of light because they were inside the gravity well of their nest of stars, looking out. Out on the edge of the rim, it would almost look like a true void.

He let himself get a little lost in it.

He remembered reading somewhere, or someone telling him that the earth's sun rested in a relatively large pocket of empty space. It was going to be harder for them to get off this rock than somewhere else. Or maybe harder for aliens to get to them.

Did God plan for His creation ever leaving?

Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Chloe looking up too. He resumed flapping, looking over with a small smile. "Hey."

"Hey. Lucifer's taking a shower. He's going to need help cleaning his wings later. For now, they're just away. He says it doesn't bother him."

"Sounds like it's going to be time-consuming. Does it have to be tonight?"

"We can wait until tomorrow. He doesn't want to unfurl them again until we're ready to help, which means he can't...teleport either. Since no one else has a car here, I'll drop him off in the morning before work. Well, he could teleport, but it would mean opening his wings again and getting more ash everywhere. Most of it's out, but I don't want to clean up indoors and then have to do it again."

"How much worse could it be?"

"'You don't want to know'."

Dan flapped the pants he was holding one more time. "He should have just gone back to his balcony or something."

"Remember, he was a little scared about this. He probably wouldn't want to appear in his flat half-blind from ash if something was wrong. That might be why he insisted you leave too, if something was up."

Oh, right. "What do you think it is?"

"Well. I don't think it's anything he's worried about - he said he's vulnerable around me, but I've been thinking. The first time he got shot, I wasn't sure that I wasn't hallucinating. But now I know. He wasn't hurt. His suit was destroyed. He was shot in the back just a few feet from me, more than once. I was passing out from blood loss or shock or something, and he didn't go down. It was the first time we met him."

Dan blinked. "So, that was...before he wanted to sleep with you?"

"Ah, no. He wanted that right away. If he was vulnerable around people he only wanted to sex up, he probably wouldn't have much sex."

"So, it was-Oh shit."

She kept going. "After he started having strong emotions for me, or some kind of feelings that were more than just sexual in nature, yeah." She eyed him, then looked back up at the stars, her face wiped of emotion.

For anyone who didn't know her anyway. "Chloe? What's wrong?"

She put her arms around his waist. "He feels so much more than he lets on. I know that now, and I think you do too. I knew there was a risk of something like that happening, like this, but I didn't know who he was then. I know he's insanely attractive, in both a physical and emotional sense, and pretty irresistible."

The hug was reassuring, but he wished she'd get to the point. He waited.

She continued, stars reflecting in her eyes, "he likes you. Too. I'm not going to ask him not to."

Dan knew he shouldn't ask, but, "would it be different if he wasn't who he said he was?"

She stayed quiet for a few seconds longer. Then sighed. "No. I love him too much for that. I can't say I'd want to expand our little circle, this is complicated enough, I think."

His heart sped up at 'our'. "Does that mean you aren't kicking me out of it?"

Chloe leaned up and kissed him. "I thought about this a little while you were on your way over. I said 'yes' to you years ago and I don't regret it. The window while we were apart made room for Lucifer. Maybe it was supposed to happen this way."

Dan put an arm around her, kissing her hair. "Well, that seems extra complicated to be on purpose. Not to mention the fact I'm responsible for someone's death in the process. The divorce wasn't easy on Trixie either."

She looked embarrassed. "Yeah, sorry. I'm responsible for some deaths, too. It was easier when I was just an atheist."

"Everything you feel responsible for was In the line of duty. Most of the officers who are out on the street have drawn their weapon at some point or another. Not all have fired it, thankfully. But this isn't a safe job."

"I would be happier if it were just me making him this way, I won't lie about that. But I'm awfully tempted to have him not follow us around at work so much."

"That's kind of funny, isn't it? That he wants this job?"

Chloe sighed. "Come to bed, we're all exhausted and I'm pretty sure that suit is completely ruined anyway. We can ask him heavier questions later when my brain works again."

Dan needed a few extra seconds to make sure he was interpreting what she said correctly. "You don't want me to sleep in Maze's room?"

She snorted. "Maze absolutely hates it when anyone messes with her stuff, and the couch is covered in ash. I"m going to have to call a cleaner tomorrow and figure out what to tell Trixie."

"Oh."

Pecking him on the cheek, she added, "but even if the couch was clean, you should probably stay with us anyway. I like group cuddles."

He attempted and failed to rein in a stupid grin while coming back inside.

Lucifer, clean and under a few sheets, at least smiled when Dan followed Chloe in, but he still looked a little rattled.

Chloe leaned down and kissed him, then invited Dan to take a quick shower with her as they were both dusted with hell debris.

Dan thought of baptisms for some reason.

He got out of his clothes for the second time that night, briefly startled by a low wolf-whistle from Lucifer. Chloe told him to be quiet and Dan smirked, but for once, didn't blush. He didn't even think too hard about the quick shower, remaining mostly practical while scrubbing Chloe's back for her. She turned to repay the favor and was less restrained to be just methodical, gently cleaning him without irritating his patchwork of marks. She kissed his back a few times over teeth marks and he closed his eyes and enjoyed it.

They exchanged towel duties and it was so much like their early days he couldn't help but smile. Chloe did too, purring a murmur of thanks at drying her off. They kissed then, fully naked but not awkwardly so. Chloe nipped his ear and placed a sucking kiss very near one of Lucifer's as he looked at her lean back in the mirror, his darker arms around her small waist.

Lucifer was nearly fidgeting by the time they got back, Dan taking an extra minute to think about bill statements so he wouldn't walk back out with a raging hard on. He at least found some boxers to wear to bed.

Having Lucifer in the middle seemed to work well, so she pulled on underwear, got the lights off and curled up against his right side, slipping an arm around his bare midsection.

She realized this was the first time they were all in bed together without the expectation of sex - not that it hadn't recently happened.

Dan sat on the edge of the mattress, a little raw-nerved.

Lucifer was having none of it. With supernatural speed and strength, he tugged Dan in to his other side, turning to big spoon him. Chloe easily readjusted, thinking about the logistics of going back and forth between places. Well, there were worse problems to have.

Like an ash-covered living room.

Sigh.

She heard Dan's not-quite-grumble, and Lucifer's apology. "I'm sorry I left you unsatisfied, Daniel. I'm not used to changes happening in, well, mortal lifespans. I fled without thinking about your well-being, and I apologize. If I were being targeted or some such, I didn't want you to be close enough to be, too."

"Everything's fine, right? Just a new development?"

"I'm still not dealing with emotions well. I feel like I owe you a better evening."

Dan yawned, settling, already deciding he could well get used to being cuddled by Lucifer, which was somehow different from hugging. "You'll figure out how to make it up to me, I'm not worried."

The muscled arm around his body drifted from gently touching his neck, sliding down over a nipple. Dan stiffened out of reflex, pushing fully into Lucifer's warm chest. Long, increasingly familiar fingers slipped down his sternum to abs, caressing his flat stomach. He skimmed lower, his forearm over Dan's hips. A hand grasped him directly, lightly and Dan breathed in with a soft sigh, suddenly glad he hadn't been alone in the shower and taken care of himself there.

Chloe's hand brushed between their hips, where she could reach. He felt Lucifer open his legs a little, and her hand disappeared, doing something to Lucifer to make him push hard against Dan with a low groan.

He whispered in Dan's ear, low and sultry. "I could make it up to you right now. I believe the current rule is to be quiet, however."

Dan pressed his ass back against the line of Lucifer's body, who clearly really was happy to take care of things for him, judging by the hard line up against his backside, trapped between them. Behind them, Chloe sounded like she was kissing Lucifer's back, shifting lower down. Her hand reached further, gently stroking Dan's balls, her forearm putting pressure on Lucifer's.

How could he say no to that offer?