Chapter Text
Fighting Uriel was nothing like how Lucifer remembered.
Not that they’d ever fought much before. Little scuffles when they were young, Uriel pestering him, Lucifer putting him back in his place. A few sparring matches when they were properly learning to fight, none of them serious. Lucifer won every time, because even though Uriel learned to anticipate his next moves, he wasn’t yet skilled enough for it to make a difference, wasn’t yet brave enough to stand his ground against a better fighter.
Now it was different. Uriel had millennia of practice, had honed his gift and his ability to fight with it. And while Lucifer was stronger, too, against his brother who could evade every attack as Lucifer made it, there was little he could do. He was lucky to land any hits at all. He took far more of them, strikes to the face, blows to the gut, each one slowing him down a little further. He couldn’t yet see a way to win. But there had to be one.
Lucifer had hoped there wouldn’t be a fight at all. He’d called Uriel here to try to convince him to stand down, to give up on his self-appointed quest on their father’s behalf. Give up Mother, or let Chloe die. There was no good reason why it had to be one or the other. But Uriel refused to listen.
“One last chance,” he’d said, standing next to the organ in that abandoned church. He held out his hand, one finger hovering just above the keys. “Return here with Mom, or I press this key, setting off a sequence that will end your precious human’s life. This time, it’s foolproof. You’ll never see it coming. You won’t be able to stop it. So, brother. What’s it going to be?”
Lucifer punched him in answer. At first, it seemed like maybe he would be able to beat Uriel the way Amenadiel hadn’t; he was the devil, after all. His little brother shouldn’t have been able to gain the upper hand so easily.
But he had. Now Lucifer was left staggering to his feet after being thrown into the pews, blood running down his face, pain radiating from his body everywhere he’d taken the full force of Uriel’s blows. Maze was on the floor unmoving. Mum would end up back in hell. And Chloe…she…
No. Lucifer wouldn’t allow anything to happen to her. He would keep fighting with everything he had until he found a way to win.
“I have to say,” Uriel said, “I’m enjoying this even more than I thought I would.” He moved toward the organ again, unbothered, unhurried.
Lucifer rushed forward and slammed into him, trying again to put him down, futile as it was. A second later Uriel struck his side again. Lucifer felt his rib crack, a burst of fire he ignored. But he couldn’t ignore the kick that followed, sending him reeling back once again.
“Not good enough, brother,” Uriel said, and before Lucifer could stop him, he pressed the key.
The sound reverberated through the church, a single high, lonely note. Tiny. Insignificant.
A death knell.
“No,” Lucifer breathed. He made a grab for Uriel—whatever he’d done, he could stop it, he could undo it—
Uriel vanished in a rush of air, only to reappear at the other end of the church a second later. As he could have done at any point since Lucifer first punched him. Their whole fight was nothing but another way to show Lucifer how powerless he was. “This game is old,” Uriel said.
“Please,” Lucifer said desperately. “She’s human, she’s not part of this—”
“You made her a part of this when you bargained for her life,” Uriel said calmly. “If you change your mind and decide to give up Mother, I’ll put a stop to it. Otherwise…well, you know what will happen.”
He disappeared again, for good this time.
Lucifer spun around, searching for him anyway, clutching his side. Chloe. They had to get to her. Uriel said the pattern had faltered once before—it could happen again. Lucifer would make sure of it.
He took a step towards Maze, just as she groaned and sat up. Her hand was twisted in a way it shouldn’t be, but just like Lucifer’s own injuries, she’d heal. They had more pressing problems. “Where is he?” she asked.
“Gone,” he said, panic flooding through him. “He got away. Pressed the key. The detective—”
“Go,” Maze said. “I’ll find your mom. Make sure he doesn’t go after her too.”
He nodded and left as fast as he could. Out to the street, his car ready and waiting to go. Through the streets of Los Angeles, as empty as they ever were at the late hour. Up the walk to Chloe’s apartment, quiet and still. Nothing appeared to be wrong yet, but that wasn’t surprising.
You’ll never see it coming .
Uriel wouldn’t act right away. He’d have set it up so that nothing happened until Lucifer’s guard was down.
That didn’t stop him from hammering on the door anyway. “Detective!” he called.
A minute passed without any answer. Lucifer was a second away from letting himself in when a light flicked on, and then Chloe opened the door. She was dressed for bed, her hair loose around her face and slightly disheveled.
“Lucifer?” she asked. “It’s two in the morning. What’s wrong?” She blinked. “Oh my god, are you okay? Your face—”
“Are you okay?” He scanned her over, but she seemed fine. Lucifer let out a breath, his panic fading at last. For now.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chloe quickly shut the door again and reached for him, pulling him inside.
In her presence, he was weaker, and he barely managed to stand upright, even with the back of the door supporting his weight.
For the first time since his fight with Uriel, Lucifer took a moment to breathe. However pained it was with the pressure on his rib cage, bruises surely forming by now.
“I—”
“You’re bleeding!” Chloe interrupted him, alarmed eyes zeroing in on the corner of his temple where a slick line of blood trickled down his face. Mixed in with sweat. She left his side, going to rummage through her kitchen drawers, utensils clattering rather loudly.
“The child isn’t here then?” Lucifer presumed as he walked slowly over to the bar stool, casting a glance over to where he knew the Urchin usually slept.
Just as he’d spoken those words, like devil like urchin, she popped her head through the door and gasped.
Shaking her head, Chloe padded over to him, slippered feet sliding across the floor as she hurried to place down the large box in her arm. “She was asleep—sorry Trix, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she replied, continuing to remove the contents of what appeared to be the biggest first aid kit Lucifer had ever seen.
The child scooted further out of the door and headed over to him, mouth dropped open wide as she looked at his injuries. “Woah, were you in a fight?”
“Sort of.” Lucifer grimaced at how close she was getting, glancing at the detective.
Beatrice frowned, finger pointing at her chin. “Did you win?”
Fortunately, he was distracted from answering that, because the answer would undoubtedly be a big fat no. “Detective, what are you doing?” Lucifer asked, watching as she pulled out a plastic bag, then gauze. A few bandaids with…small, white kittens on them spilled out onto the table as well.
Chloe just scoffed, as if she didn’t know why he was even asking, glancing across at him as she worked. She grabbed a bandage and set it on the kitchen counter. “You need to let me clean that up, I can’t see how deep the wound is, but it could get infected. And you wouldn’t want that, trust me—”
Lucifer cut off her rambling, placing a hand on her arm. “I’m completely fine, Detective, or I will be. I didn’t come here for that, I came for you!”
Chloe frowned, reaching for a bowl and filling it with steaming water. “What?” she replied, engrossed in the task at hand.
Lucifer hissed as she touched his face, the water and cotton pad she was using to swipe the dried blood off of him was both soothing and stinging, not that he noticed much, not with her face this close to him, he could see every freckle, the glistening pools in her eyes.
He blinked, her question prompted him to remember why he’d come here in the first place.
“Have you been home all night?” Uriel could’ve paid her a visit during the time it took him to get here. He could’ve followed her home already, he could’ve been at the precinct—
“Um, yeah. Why?”
Lucifer sighed, he supposed that it was a good thing she was baffled by his questions, it meant that she hadn’t experienced anything out of the ordinary, hadn’t seen any feathery foes lurking around. She was safe. For now.
He winced as she applied some sort of cream to his temple with the pads of her fingers, ever so gently, but it burned .
Chloe held his chin with her other hand. “Keep still,” she whispered, surveying the damage.
The child placed her hand on his knee, stood beside him apparently playing assistant to her mother. “Does it hurt?” she asked quietly.
Lucifer hummed, awkwardly plucking her hand from his leg, children were infectious little creatures, and he hated her touching him on a good day, never mind when he was sat here at his weakest with cuts and bruises dotted all over his body. “Well, it’s not pleasant, Urchin, far from it.”
She frowned deeply, causing the detective to reassure her. “He’ll be alright though, monkey, we’ll have him fixed up in no time.”
With his head tipped backwards, the light in her kitchen suddenly became too much, far too bright for the throbbing feeling in his head, so he closed his eyes and simply allowed her to continue cleaning him up. It couldn’t do any harm, and while he was here with her, he could protect her, and the child, because while Uriel didn’t directly threaten to end Beatrice’s life, Lucifer wouldn’t put it past him to try and involve her in his wicked games. Angels didn’t have the same moral compass as most humans, a child to them was just as much a pawn as a regular human and therefore, he would have no qualms about hurting her.
His brother’s words circled round and round in his head.
“Return here with Mom, or I press this key, setting off a sequence that will end your precious human’s life. This time, it’s foolproof.”
The reverberating sound of the key followed, ringing in his ears.
This was all his fault. But what was he meant to do? Just give Mum up? And for who exactly? Uriel, his little brother who’d come to delight in playing twisted power games, or his father who’d reigned in his puppet strings once again.
An innocent, dragged into his family’s battles. It was unfair, unjust, and Lucifer hated the fact that because of him, Chloe’s life was at risk. And he had no idea how to stop it. Or what awaited them.
He jolted then as a hand gripped his shoulder, shaking him.
“You scared me then!” Chloe exclaimed, releasing a breath and meeting his gaze. “I thought you fell asleep.”
Lucifer hummed. He longed for a stiff drink, but he knew he’d not find anything of his taste in her cupboards. Apple juice just wouldn’t do it for him right now. Or ever.
Chloe moved to stand between his legs—and for a moment he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, so they ended up hovering above his lap—bending down to seemingly stare at him.
“You could have a concussion, so don’t go to sleep alright?“ She shook her head. “I mean, we should really go to the hospital…”
“No,” he said quickly. “No hospitals.”
Chloe huffed but didn’t argue, tilting his chin with her finger. She inspected his eyes with a furrowed brow, tongue poking out from her lips. He sat, frozen still. Holding his breath the closer she got.
Eventually, done with her investigation of his injuries, Chloe stood and backed away, beginning to unwrap a bandaid. “Lucifer, what the hell happened?”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” he said, looking away. “Just as you didn’t believe me earlier today.” An unfortunate fact that was about to become a major problem. How was he supposed to explain an angel had arranged for her death in a way Lucifer didn’t yet know? How could he convince her to take extra precautions if she didn’t understand the full scope of the problem?
Chloe moved to stand in front of him again. She gently grasped his chin, tilting his head up so that they were once again looking at each other from only inches away. He met her gaze, willing her to see his sincerity, the gravity of the situation.
After a moment she turned her attention back to the cut on his temple. Carefully applying the bandaid, she said, “No. I don’t believe there are cosmic forces out to get me. But you had to have gotten these injuries somehow. Tell me.”
Still he hesitated, his eyes landing on the child listening all too attentively to their conversation.
Without needing to look, Chloe picked up on the reason why. “Trixie, go back to bed, please. You should be asleep.”
“But—”
“No ‘but’s’, off you go.”
Beatrice gave an exaggerated sigh as Chloe stepped back again. Before Lucifer could blink, there were tiny arms wrapped around his waist, squeezing with quite a lot of force for someone so small. It reawakened all the pain from his ribs that he’d been ignoring. His breath left him in a short burst, more of a hiss than anything. The detective didn’t miss it. Her eyes narrowed, zeroing in on his torso. “ Trixie ,” she admonished, pulling her back. “Come on.”
“Sorry,” Beatrice said, letting go. “Hope you feel better, Lucifer.”
“I’ll be fine, child,” he said.
Chloe steered her towards her bedroom and returned a moment later, alone this time. “I don’t think the cut on your cheek needs a bandaid,” she said. “Where else are you hurt?”
“I’m fine ,” he insisted.
“Lucifer—”
“There’s nothing else requiring your ministrations, I assure you.”
She pursed her lips and shook her head, then began cleaning up the first aid kit. “I can’t make you. But for the record, you’re being an idiot.”
“Noted,” he said drily.
“Now would you please tell me what’s going on?”
He supposed there were some things he could tell her that she would believe. A starting point, if nothing else. “As I told the spawn, I had a fight of sorts. With my brother.”
She frowned. “Why were you fighting with Amenadiel?”
“Not him. One of my other brothers. His name is Uriel.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “Why were you fighting with him, then?”
Well, they’d gotten to that point rather more quickly than he was hoping. “It was…over what to do with my mother. And…and over you.”
“Me?” Her brows shot up to her hairline. “I don’t even know Uriel. What could you possibly have been fighting over me for?”
How to explain… “I made a deal with my father. Asked him to protect you. And in return, he told me to…well, it wasn’t exactly clear, but as Uriel believes, I was to return our mother to him. I didn’t want to.”
“You asked your father to protect me? From what? Wait. By ‘father’ you mean God, don’t you?”
Lucifer didn’t answer her this time. He merely looked at her, until she shook her head again. Closing up the first aid kit, she said, “Fine. So you disagree with what you were ‘supposed’ to do?”
“As I said, there was some wiggle room in the deal. I chose to exploit it. Uriel, he didn’t think much of that, and he already hated me for other reasons. So he decided…” Lucifer exhaled, knowing he was about to lose her again. “He decided that I broke the deal completely, and that that meant your life is fair game. He came to collect.”
Chloe stared at him from across the counter, studying him for a moment, undoubtedly trying to figure out the hidden meaning in his words. “You’re trying to tell me your brother wants to…what, kill me?”
“Yes.”
She gestured to his face, waving her hand in a circular motion. “And you fought him because of it.”
“Well, yes,” he said, wondering if maybe she’d believe him after all.
“And then you came here to make sure I was still alive.”
There was the faintest trace of skepticism in her voice this time, slight enough that he would have missed it if he didn’t know her so well, if he hadn’t heard her use that exact tone of voice with suspects she thought were lying. “Uriel has a gift of seeing patterns, Detective. He set something up that I don’t—”
“Is this about the car accident again?” she asked wearily. “I thought we went over this, Lucifer. Things like that happen, but it doesn’t mean your family was involved. It doesn’t mean someone is out to get me.”
He gingerly got to his feet, unable to sit any longer. “But this time I know my brother was behind it! Detective, you have to believe me—”
“I believe you think that it wasn’t an accident. I know how hard it is to accept that there’s no one to blame for it, that there’s no way to prevent it from happening again. But that’s just how it is.” Chloe walked around the counter to stand before him and placed her hands on his arms, head tilted up just a little to look him directly in the eyes. “You have to let it go, Lucifer.”
Lucifer knew there was nothing he could say to change her mind, to make her understand. Nothing except…except showing her proof of all of it. And that would have the opposite effect he desired. If he showed her his face, she would want to stay far away from him, would perhaps even blame it all on his doing instead. It would be that much easier for Uriel to harm her.
That was the only reason, he told himself. The only reason he didn’t force the truth on her.
“Please,” he said. “Please listen to me, even if you don’t believe me. Please take the child and go, somewhere completely random, somewhere you didn’t even know existed until you looked it up, please—”
Chloe let go of him again. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Lucifer saw the resolve on her face, clear as day. Nothing would get her to flee a threat she didn’t believe existed. He hadn’t really expected it to. But he’d had to try.
“If your brother ever tries to hurt me, I’ll handle it,” she said. “Running away won’t fix the problem. If you really believe he’ll do something, then I have to be here to stop it.”
He briefly closed his eyes. That was it, then. He would just have to watch for any sign of Uriel and find another way to break the pattern. There had to be a way.
There was always a way.
“Come on,” Chloe said. “It’s late, and you’re in no shape to drive.” She brushed his arm as she passed him. “You can stay here tonight.” She headed out of the room for a moment and returned with a folded blanket.
Lucifer raised his brows, about to thank her for her generosity when she added—
“ Just to sleep. No funny business, so don’t get any ideas.”
He rolled his eyes, a habit he’d surely picked up from the detective herself, and then smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Chloe narrowed her eyes and grabbed the television remote. “Grab yourself a drink, make yourself at home, just keep the volume down, alright?”
He saluted her with two fingers, nodding his head in agreement. She sat down on the couch and stretched her legs out so that they were perched on the end of the small table in front of her, seemingly having decided to join him for a while. He settled beside her, sitting closer than he probably should have, if her side eye was anything to go by.
“You know, when you boss me around like that, your nose bunches up. Like a little bunny.”
He turned his head and chuckled at the dark patches of red suddenly blotching across her cheeks, and the teeny, tiny smile tugging at her lips.
When he was about to pick her up on it, “And now your—”
Chloe shushed him with her finger on his lips, tossed the remote control on the coffee table and settled back into the corner of the sofa. “Stop talking.”
And he did. Because she didn’t need to let him stay, so for the rest of the night, he vowed to behave. Sitting beside her, watching some awful sitcom she’d put on her far too small television—perhaps she’d like a new one, a repayment of her kindness this evening, she could certainly do with an upgrade—helped settle his anxieties about what was in store for them. The storm, brewing on the very thin horizon.
Lucifer should’ve known that getting her to believe that his angelic sibling was after her was fruitless, she didn’t believe in any of that, heaven, hell, God, angels, she’d told him so herself a million times before. Perhaps it was easier that way, in a sense, then she was spared the constant feeling of paranoia he felt already. He couldn’t keep it from her, she already thought he was acting strangely after the car accident, following her around, checking her every move, but he didn’t have any choice. He had to keep her safe. If she didn’t believe that there was a celestial vendetta against her, then perhaps she’d still be cautious in case his more ‘human sibling’ was out to get her as part of some sort of revenge on Lucifer. The detective could look after herself, she was a strong, capable woman, and she was smarter than most, she’d always kept her wits about her, but how could she defend herself against the unknown?
And how could he defend her from it, for that matter? There were a thousand ways for someone to die. It’d never seemed all that important before, because those random incidents, incredulous accidents, unfortunate timings—they would never happen to her . They were always for other people. But now that his brother might be intentionally orchestrating one…
It could be anything. Even staying up with him now might be part of it. What if she didn’t get enough sleep, and was too tired tomorrow to drive properly? To pay attention to the moment a suspect pulled out a gun? What if it caused her to be a fraction too slow?
He gazed over at her, at the shadows playing on her face from the flickering light of the television, the way her hair fanned out along the curve of her neck. He was terrified and enraptured in equal measure. “You should sleep,” he murmured. “So you don’t miss the gun.”
Chloe blinked at him, as if she’d already started spacing out. “What?”
“Sleep,” he said. “You need it.”
“Right. Sure.” But she only settled deeper into the cushions, resting her head along the back of the couch, so that there was hardly any space left between them. “You should get some sleep, too.”
Lucifer merely hummed in response. He had no plans to sleep tonight. He could go a lot longer than she could without it.
“Lucifer?”
“Yes?”
“It’ll be fine,” she said, her voice quiet but sure. “We’ll both be fine.”
He desperately hoped she was right.
It wasn’t much longer before she fell asleep, right there on the couch. Her eyes drifted shut, her breathing becoming long and slow. Undoubtedly the snores would start up soon enough.
Lucifer’s hand was reaching for her before he could tell it not to. He stroked lightly along her hair, tucking a wayward strand back into place. She didn’t stir. “We’ll be fine,” he whispered. Maybe by saying it aloud, he could make it true.
He didn’t mean to fall asleep. But the dark and quiet, the long hours stretching before him, the lingering pain of his injuries and the aftermath of his panicked fight—it all coalesced into one heavy weight that settled over him along with the blanket.
He doubted even Uriel could arrange for her death while she was sleeping like this. And it would be better for him to be rested, too.
So he gave in, and let his exhaustion pull him under.