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“Lucifer.”
He did this a lot.
“Lucifer.”
He never enjoyed it.
“You haven’t been answering your phone. Dan and I have been trying to get a hold of you.”
It was in moments like these when everything went quiet, and his view didn’t change. Lucifer had nothing against his decorator, but there was something remarkably dull about the oval lamp on his bedside.
“Hey,” a woman’s voice softened, appearing closer to his ear.
Sometimes his gaze wandered to the shower across from the pillars and his king-sized bed, not really seeing it.
The glass was clean, and every red towel was soft and unsoiled. Fingers ran through his hair as the bed dipped.
Lucifer should have looked up, but something in him felt scooped up and hollowed out. On the rare occasion this happened, it felt like the meat inside his ribcage ached. Every thought, every feeling, all positively a livewire for the devil, was stunted. Cut off.
A cool hand wiped his cheek by the corner of his eye.
“You have glitter on your face,” Chloe said.
Did he?
His nose was numb.
“I have a case; it’s on the set of a sitcom. You like those, right?”
The afternoon sunlight beamed onto the glass panel of the shower through a crack. It shot a spectrum of colors against the wall.
Chloe sighed deeply.
“Do you want me to call Amenadiel?” She asked.
Lucifer found himself blinking and remembered to breathe, “No,” he said quietly. Perhaps the rainbow wasn’t the worst of his father’s inventions.
A few fingers combed through strings of hair that fell on his forehead.
“Do you want to take a shower, and I’ll put on a movie?”
“No.”
“Lucifer.”
"..."
“Just-“ The Detective made the noise she always did when he was being particularly frustrating. He gripped the covers tighter over his shoulders, his right ear in the downy pillow.
“You need to get this all gunk off of you.” A few gentle swipes, and he could see sparkles fall off, hitting the mattress.
He didn’t respond.
Not when wind in his brain kept building and building, threatening to block her out completely.
Chloe got off the king-bed again, and the surface dipped once more. She disappeared, speaking through her phone. Her voice trailed across the loft.
Lucifer watched the spectrum of colors across the wall from the shower door. Red. Green. Yellow. Blue.
Red.
Green.
Yellow.
Blue.
His jaw wavered before he clenched it tight enough to grind his immortal teeth to dust.
Until the tingling sensation in his nose caught up to his brain.
His bed was warm.
Lucifer's silk sheets and black comforter cocooned up his shoulders and the tips of his ears. He wanted to tell Chloe he didn’t want to solve crimes today. Perhaps if she thought it loud enough, she could hear, or she would get the hint and leave.
The wind roared a little louder.
He looked up on his nightstand and found a dozen empty champagne glasses, food crumbs, and odd smears of white dust around the lamp.
He should probably get David to clean the place up a bit. Now that the Detective was over. She liked to keep her afternoons and most evenings busy.
She stood at the end of the steps by his bed, her hands on her hips, hair in a tight ponytail. Chloe’s face looked pinched.
She probably would benefit from champagne. Or he could have Kevin bring her a nonfat foam whipped caramel latte.
“Lucifer,” her tone hardened as not to waver; it sounded like a question. So decidedly not a question. It then got lighter as she went on, “I’m going to put on Bones. You’re going to join me.”
He stared at her.
And blinked.
“You can bring the blanket,” she said.
That’s how the Devil found himself in a staring contest with Los Angeles’s best detective.
Naturally, he found himself sitting up, every bone and muscle aching as he did so, cocooned in the blanket. He blinked, and she was gone. When a few warbled voices of Bones and Booth fell through the air, he stood, and his bare feet padded softly across the stone steps and granite floor.
Chloe’s face was still pinched but shaping itself into something mildly pleasant as she messed with the remote and set it down on the table.
“Do you want some breakfast?”
Lucifer walked past her and nodded, groggily rubbing his eyes. More clumps of gold glitter fell, leaving a burning sensation in the process.
With great effort, the King of Hell flopped on the leather coach below.
Chloe went silent and started messing with her phone, “You want pancakes? You like those.”
He watched the wide TV screen, at the trails of melted bones and goop inside a car at a crime scene.
He focused on the characters a little, trying to process what they were saying. They were going back and forth, the camera panning in on the broken eye socket and jaw of the skeleton.
There are 206 bones in the human body.
Lucifer tightened the blanket around his ears, his head on the pillow.
Humans were interesting.
Chloe put her phone away and sat next to him by his furled-up legs.
Most humans thought he hated them, which was ridiculous, because he didn’t. He did like them, for the most part. Sometimes they did horrible things. And then sometimes they did really good things that surprised him.
They made pancakes and vodka and cocaine and wrote poetry and made TV shows about death and relationships.
Truly fascinating indeed.
He didn’t know how long they sat there in front of the TV, the afternoon sun beaming through the window to his terrace when DoorDash dropped off their delivery. The elevator dinged, and Chloe disappeared for a moment.
Lucifer watched the screen, Bones in the lab with Booth. He really needed to add an access code to the penthouse. He tried before, but apparently “8008” was universal.
When the food was laid out on the oval glass table in front of the couch, the angel found he was forced to sit up. Sleep was still marinating his brain, so he did his best to scoop out the butter with a plastic knife.
He and Chloe sat side by side silently.
She poured syrup over her pancakes and scattered it across slices of bacon.
Savage woman.
Lucifer gave her a side glance that said as much about his harbored feelings, when she grinned, licking the sticky bits off her fingers.
He balked.
The Detective asked, much too proud of herself, “What? Not a fan of syrup on your bacon?”
Lucifer sniffed, opening his box container, saying, “I must confess I haven’t tried it-“she opened her mouth, “-nor do I want to.”
A corner of her mouth up ticked, “I thought you were the King of New Experiences over here. YOLO or whatever. Livin’ la vida loca,” she tried, teasing, but trailed off awkwardly.
Lucifer could thank Dad she did.
“Just eat your bloody bacon.”
She grinned even wider, and he shook his head. They sat shoulder to shoulder and watched the duration of the episode.
And then they watched a few more after that.
And a few more after that.
After the detective's phone rang a few times, she turned it off. Then his head went fuzzy. By the time the sun went down, his head was in her lap, and his eyes were partially closed.
He must have fallen asleep, because he didn’t recognize the scene or the guest star. Chloe was slowly pushing him off her legs, standing carefully.
“Detective?” he slurred.
“Hey, Lucifer. I have to go, I’m sorry. I have to go get Trixie from my mom,” she said, stepping over take-out containers.
“Okay,” he exhaled and rubbed his eye, head falling awkwardly flat on the cushion.
Chloe stood over him, ponytail mussed, typing on her phone. The glow cast a light on her face, “Why don’t you take a shower, okay?” she said softly, and he couldn’t help but agree.
He nodded.
“Feel better, Lucifer.”
Lucifer called out, “Night, Detective.”
After the elevator closed, the words on the television became muffled in the penthouse, and he took his blanket to wade across the living room to the bathroom.
He dropped it onto the bed and eyed the litter of empty glasses on a variety of surfaces. He could probably leave it for now. It was fine.
Lucifer turned on the shower, undressed, and climbed in.
The TV kept playing in the other room.
He took a deep breath, hands rubbing his face, and started washing.