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Pain in her chest, cold air, more pain. Chloe opened her eyes. She was… on a rooftop? What had happened? Oh right. The man she had considered marring had shot her.
In comparison Dan really looked great. She should probably call him to send back up for her and…
Lucifer! Where was he? Was he still down there? And why wasn’t she? No, she couldn’t think about this now. She had to get to her partner.
She called Dan on her way down the stairs, told him to get backup and hang up before he could get a word in. She didn’t have time. Was Lucifer still alive? Was he bleeding out right now? She couldn’t lose him too.
She was finally down the stairs; she could see him now. He was kneeling in front of Pierce; he looked fine, Lucifer not Pierce, he seemed dead, but she wouldn’t think about that now. Lucifer was fine. She made her final steps down the stairs. Her friend, her partner, her…
Lucifer turned around. His eyes were red, not contact lenses red, hellfire red. And his skin it looked red and peeled and scarred.
And all in all, it looked like the face of the devil.
He was the devil.
The devil took a step towards her: “Detective?”
A word no one could say with as much affection and love, yes love like the… the devil.
“Uhm, you’ve uhm got something in I mean… as your face.”
He looked confused. Was that confused? It would be a reasonable reaction to her words. Was the devil reasonable? Lucifer certainly wasn’t.
He touched his face. Realization dawned on him. Maybe. Probably. Was he offended? She wouldn’t like it if something referred to her face as a something.
She was pretty sure that it wasn’t a good idea to offend the devil. As in really not a good idea. Although Lucifer had never been easily offended, by her at least. Had he been acting? Was Lucifer just a character or did he just happen to have a more complicated backstory then she had ever imagined?
“Detective?”
He had been calling her name, or title, for a while now, she realized. And his face was back to normal, her normal at least. Was the other one his normal?
“Yes, I’m here. Are you…” going to kill me, going to take me to hell, going to hurt my daughter, going to bring the apocalypse, the greatest deceiver of all time “…hurt?”
He seemed to be surprised by the question: “Am I okay? Its nothing you need to worry about detective, uhm Chloe. Are you hurt?”
He was evading her question. She now saw all the blood around them, blood that hadn’t come from Pierce: “I am fine, and you are evading my question.”
“I have felt worse, but why, why are you still here? Why aren’t you running?”
Running, why would she… right he was the devil. She was here alone with the devil, who knew she knew his secret, who she may very well have sold her soul to, she couldn’t remember ever making a deal with him, but she couldn’t remember her lunch from two days ago either. But… assuming he didn’t steal her soul…
“Do I have a reason to?”
He had never hurt her so far, physically at least. And if the devil did want to hurt her… the memory of his eyes gave her a feeling going on a mars mission wouldn’t be far enough to escape him.
His eyes grew wide: “No, no of course not. I am not going to hurt you, or steal your soul or something … but if you need time… or…or if you want to never see me again… I won’t follow you, or contact you or hurt you, or Beatrice.”
It was a vow. If anything about Lucifer had been true it was that he wouldn’t break his word. There were loopholes, the devil had demons -Maze was a demon… forged in the bowels of hell- he could send after her if he wanted to, but she did still appreciate the gesture. She would have questions later, but for now she didn’t have time, she didn’t have time for locking herself into a room and pretending Lucifer couldn’t break any lock either.
She nodded.
“Back up is going to be here any minuet, I don’t think we have time to get our stories straight, I’ll- I’ll pretend I am hurt worse than I am, and you will insist on coming with me to the hospital, alright? That will give us enough time, to talk about how we are going to explain this.”
He seemed surprised, maybe hopeful? She had been sure she knew how to read him, but she wasn’t anymore.
“I, thank you, and I think there is an easier way. One where you won’t get unnecessarily drugged. From what I understand, you have something against taking drugs of any kind, although I certainly can’t understand why-” Sirens outside cut him off.
“If you are going to do something, do it fast.”
That was all he needed.
“Amenadiel!”
His brother stopped time before he even appeared in the room. He took the scene in, the blood, the feathers, the body, and Chloe. His beautiful, wonderful, brave detective, who had seen him for what he really was and still spoken to him. That was trying to protect him even.
If he hadn’t known he loved her before he knew now.
The pain in his wings, brought him back to reality. And to Amenadiel, who was staring at him. “What happened Luci?”
“Cain shot the detective, I protected her, flew her up, killed Cain, got my devil face back, the detective saw it and didn’t run.”
Amenadiel didn’t shout at him for killing a human, nor for showing a human who he was.
“So, all that blood is from you? Show me your wings, we need to get the bullets out, I can use some of my feathers to heal them.”
A figure stepped out from the shadows. Azrael: “I can help as well.”
Azrael, he should have known.
“And just so you know, he is in hell.”
Lucifer nodded; he had already known, after what he had done to Chloe… should he ask Amenadiel to restart time for her?
No, he wanted to talk to her, but if they would take care of his wings… he didn’t want to risk her sanity.
He spread his wings.
The blood still dripped from his wings, they were oddly shaped, broken on multiple places, he didn’t know himself how he had managed to fly the detective, oh his amazing, perfect detective- to the roof. Probably through pure rage.
Amenadiel and Azrael got to work and after what would have been half an hour his wings were back to normal. He liked them much more now that they had helped him save Chloe.
Chloe, should they first clean up, or should he as Amenadiel to exclude her from his time thing. She would likely be less freaked out, if the room didn’t suddenly change around her.
But she wouldn’t want two archangels ganging up on her in addition to the devil either.
“Rae Rae, I greatly appreciate your support, but-.”
“But your detective wouldn’t want to deal with the angel of death on top of everyone else, I get it Lu, I am behind on my workload anyway, so no offense taken”, his sister smiled.
“Thank you, Azrael… and think about telling someone a few things, mortals are apparently more resilient than one would think.” At least Chloe was he thought proudly.
Azrael’s expression grew darker: “I am going to think about It brother.”
And with that she disappeared into thin air.
“Could you unfreeze her?”, Lucifer asked his brother with a nod towards Chloe.
“Are you sure?”
Lucifer thought about it for a moment, about all the people he had lost because they had been too scared of him, then he thought about Chloe, she had asked him if he was hurt! Was there a more wonderful being than Chloe Decker?
His brother was waiting for an answer.
“Yes.” And it was the truth.
Chloe was startled. Where was Lucifer? Could he teleport? And where had Amenadiel come from? The man had suddenly appeared out of nowhere!
“Detective?”
To her credit, Chloe did not wince. Oh, there he was, about 20 feet from where he was last standing.
“Whhat- What just happened?”, her voice sounded horse.
“Amenadiel was friendly enough to give us a bit more time, by stopping it.”
Oh, so stopping time was a thing now, great although she really shouldn’t wonder about anything at this point.
Although- what was Amenadiel? Didn’t all the angel names end with “iel”?
“Are you an angel?”
“Yes I am.” Amenadiel smiled gently.
Since when did angels work together with the devil? She had done a bit of research in the beginning of her partnership with Lucifer, but apparently not nearly enough, she would have to pick it up again after she got home. By now she was at least almost sure she would get there in one piece. Though she would try to not offend any celestial beings for the next few minutes. Had Lucifer gotten offended by any of her questions? He hadn’t stroke her down so far, so that was probably a good sign.
Though Lucifer would never hurt her, and if the devil was Lucifer, he wouldn’t either. But what if Lucifer was the devil?
Lucifer and Amenadiel had started picking up bloody feathers that were all over the room. What had happened and where were the wings the feathers had come from?
“They are from my wings, and I currently have them tucked in”, Lucifer answered her apparently voiced question. Unless he could read minds?
She towards his back, no wing bumps.
She stood up, when had she sat down? And started picking up feathers as well. Better than doing nothing.
This meant all this blood really was his. How was he standing?
What happened exactly? She asked in her mind and when he didn’t answer, repeated the question out loud.
“How much do you remember?”
“I- I remember everything up until he shot me, the bastard.”
“Of course, marriages weren’t exactly common back then, but I agree with the notion.”
Wait what?
Lucifer continued: “After Cain, or Pierce, as he last called himself-“
Oh, that, right, Lucifer had told her about that. What was her life?
“-shot you, his men started bombarding us with bullets as well. Since bullets aren’t exactly healthy for the human body- or the devil’s body- I naturally shielded us with my wings. Afterwards I flew you up to the roof, so you would be out of the line of fire. Then I fought with Cain, and after I had unsurprisingly won I- I killed him“
The devils voice broke at that. And wasn’t it weird, that a being that had allegedly caused the death of billions of innocents seemingly didn’t want to think about killing a single, extremely guilty enemy?
“Thank you for saving me. Lucifer.”
“Thank you for not running away Chloe.” Lucifer said with puppy dog eyes.
Damn she loved that guy.
Shit, she loved the devil, the actual devil.
Amenadiel interrupted her thoughts: “I am very sorry to interrupt this, but where exactly are we going to put the feathers, we can’t just throw them away.”
“We will have to burn them”, Lucifer said.
“Will trash bags work for now? I found some over there”, Chloe asked.
“But they are holy, we can’t just- Yes, trash bags will do for now”, Amenadiel gave in.
Not without a guilty look towards the strangely glowing heap of feathers they had gathered from all over the room.
“Great.” Chloe and Lucifer started stuffing them into trash bags, while Amenadiel just watched them sorrowful.
“What about the blood?”
“I think I will just call in a favor or two about that. It isn’t too obviously celestial and won’t make anyone go mad just by looking at it for too long either…”
Questions she would have to ask later.
“…I will take that one back though.”
He ripped out the knife from Pierce’s- or Cain’s chest. It was one of Maze’s, with the time she had spent, pulling them out of walls in her house, she would recognize them anywhere. More questions for later.
“So, what do we tell everybody?”
“The truth, we were shot at, I brought you into safety after you had passed out, I and ’Pierce’ fought, I stabbed him in self-defense.”
With everyone else she would be sceptic, but she knew Lucifer for long enough to know what kinds of situations he could charm himself out of, guess she now had an explanation for that one. But why wasn’t she affected? More questions for later, she should start writing a list.
Lucifer had been talking to Amenadiel, who nodded and disappeared with the trash bags.
“He is bringing them to my apartment, brace yourself, he should resume time, right about-“ Sirens started blaring “-now”, Lucifer finished.
The next few hours were a rush. Dan’s and Ella’s concern, anger, guilt and shock from everyone else. The whispered rumors that were started immediately, both she and Lucifer escaped a proper questioning for now. On an unrelated note, she was pretty sure the officer that should have taken them in was gay now.
When they escaped the chaos on the crime scene- nobody could make sense of it- it was already in the evening. Lucifer offered drive her home, but she refused, she wanted to be with him when he burned the feathers, she wanted to observe him, to understand him and to be with him.
As they stood next to the flames that ate away at the white feathers, she didn’t watch the fire, but the man next to her. She now knew, the devil hadn’t stolen her soul, but her heart.