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They’d long since passed the whole ‘I’m the Devil’ barrier that they’d seemed to have at the beginning of their relationship.
Well it had been more Chloe’s problem really. There were only so many times he could say, ’I’m literally Satan’, before coming up with other ways of telling her.
Had he been too subtle or something?
And when he had eventually gotten her to believe him, she’d cut herself off from his company for a month. A whole bloody month of avoiding his phone calls and dead-bolting her front door so he couldn’t barge in like he normally did. A month of him pacing back and forward like a scorned school boy and of trying his best not to think about her.
That had lasted all of two days before he’d just given up and accepted that he wanted to think about her. Doctor Linda had been less than helpful. She’d suggested that he was actually missing the woman. That he had developed feelings for her and that her rejection of his true self had hurt him.
After denying all of her accusations, he’d sloped home to sulk for the rest of the day and had given in not long after.
What if she needed his help? What if something happened to her and he wasn’t there to be all immortal and charming and save the day?
When he’d had thoughts about saving the day he’d promptly stopped his pacing and gone straight for the liquor cabinet and opened a bottle of whatever was strongest.
He had clearly lost his mind.
Two hours later he was halfway to smashed and the phone had buzzed loudly on the counter. He almost hated just how quickly and eagerly he’d answered, a relieved smile on his face that hoped she’d perhaps decided to come to terms with him being a fallen angel. His relief had lasted all of a second before her voice was desperate and sobbing into his ear.
“Lucifer, he has Trixie.”
Then he’d had tunnel vision. He’d missed out on a month’s worth of cases at this point. Missed out on the most recent and harrowing and now the child’s life was being threatened by some cretin not worthy enough to even be in her presence. Fuck, he didn’t even know who this ’he’ who had Trixie was. All he knew was that he was a dead man walking.
He kept telling himself that he didn’t even like children.
All the way to his car, he told himself he was doing this to win back Chloe’s favour. For selfish reasons. Even as he broke every speed limit there was, ran every red light and dented two cop cars as he screeched into the parking lot, he told himself he was doing this for himself.
Then Chloe was in front of him, tear stained cheeks and red eyes pleading and he could have sworn that something akin to a heart shuddered to life inside his chest.
“James Beattie, thirty-four, in interrogation room A right now. He knows where his partner is but he won’t talk,” the words, calm and cold, rolled off her tongue as though she’d been practising them in her head over and over again. She probably had.
“Talking? I’ll get him singing for you if you want,” Lucifer replied, not even a hint of humour in his voice before he was gone, slipping into the interrogation room she’d directed him to.
In five minutes, he’d done what they couldn’t in two hours.
Of course, he’d left the little weasel screaming and whimpering on the dirty floor, jabbering on about the face of the Devil. Whatever could he be talking about? Lucifer had taken a moment to smirk maliciously on the way out of the door.
Then a blur of flashing lights, a warehouse by the docks, him slipping into a back entrance and Trixie looking up at him with an arm wrapped around her neck like she knew he would come for her. No fear in her eyes at all.
Just relief.
She had known he would save her. Then he’d asked her very calmly to close her eyes and not open them again until he said so.
She’d only started to cry when she was safe in his arms. Huge, hiccuping, gulping sobs that left her breathless as she buried her face into his shoulder and hugged his neck so tight he thought she might break it.
He didn’t even like children, he told himself again as he hoisted her from the ground and carried her away from the broken body of her kidnapper. Chloe had seen them from her position near her car. She hadn’t even been allowed near the building because of her conflict of interests, as it were.
But he walked calmly past all of the other questioning officers until he had delivered Trixie right into her mother’s waiting arms.
They’d cried and hugged each other to the point of breathlessness and then Detective Douche had finally arrived, having been following another lead for his daughter across town. More tears and more hugging had left him feeling oddly out of place, uncomfortable.
So he’d beat a hasty exit.
An hour later, a pounding at his door had seen him leave his drink and come face to face with Detective Decker. “Thank you so much Lucifer,” was all she had said before launching into his arms and hugging him as hard as she could. “I don’t care what you are or who you are. You saved her tonight and I can never thank you enough.”
He’d fallen into bed that night elated. Feeling almost at peace with himself for the first time in millennia gave him the best night’s sleep he’d ever had.
Until sunlight filtering through his curtains had brought with it searing, agonizing pain. The likes of which he hadn’t felt since-
He managed to stop screaming in pain long enough to stumble into the bathroom and gaze in horror at his reflection in the mirror. Two fleshy stumps had sprouted from his shoulder blades overnight and were currently going for the world record for most amount of pain caused to one being in the shortest time possible.
Between his gaping and later on, Maze’s barely stifled laughter, he’d had one Hell of a morning.
No pun intended.
First, he’d mostly paced.
Next, he’d been unable to stop saying “What the bloody fuck is going on?” and his only answer was Maze bursting into another fit of barely controlled and very unsettling giggles. He’d glared at her but even that hadn’t been enough to stop her. Demon’s did NOT giggle and yet there she was, laughing it up at him.
Come the third step, he was fuming, setting up mirrors so he could get a proper bloody look at the things.
They were nothing and yet everything at the same time. He’d stared for almost an hour at where they protruded from his scars, looking in every way like the beginnings of wings.
But that wasn’t even remotely possible.
“I had no idea you could grow wings back,” Maze, who had finally managed to get her laughter under control, had observed.
“That’s because we bloody well can’t! We’re Angels, not lizards.”
That had set her off again and he’d punished her by sending her down to work the bar for the rest of the day. When the door had closed behind her, he’d slumped, all anger leaving him. The loss of his wings had been something necessary but painful.
Unable to fly, or feel his father’s grace from them anymore had been a blessing and a curse.
He could distance himself from Heaven. Pretend to be the monster his brothers and sisters so desperately sought him to be. But with distance came longing. A longing for his Father, for his home and for better times before humans had arrived to spoil it all. He’d had Maze cut them off and he’d wept openly the whole way through it.
Not just from the physical pain.
Because for every single slice and hack, he’d felt his connection break. He couldn’t hear the choirs of Heaven singing any more. Couldn’t feel the soft, welcoming warmth of grace. Cast out and alone, save for his demons, he’d had the remains destroyed in hell fire so he would never have to look at them and remember what he’d lost.
So how exactly were two new wings sprouting from his back right now?
By lunch time they had grown down to his waist, still featherless and making him look like a horror movie extra.
By dinner, feather’s were sprouting everywhere.
He almost wished for the fleshy horror look back. He didn’t want to look in the mirror anymore. Didn’t want to see the reminder’s of his fall. So he simply draped himself over a backwards facing chair, looking out over the skyline and let them grow as they wished. He would have Maze cut them off again when he could be bothered to call for her.
By the time night finally fell, he could feel his feathers brushing the floor and the unfamiliar weight making him sit straighter. It was everything he’d ever wanted and yet everything he loathed at the same time.
He’d almost called Amenadiel several times just to ask what was happening.
Were they burned?
Charred?
He didn’t want to look to see. If his wings had been given back to him, surely they would be in the state they last were. And the state they last were, was covered in flames and burning to a husk. He shuddered at the thought.
The door opened behind him, spilling light into the darkened room.
“I thought I told you to go and work bar for the rest of the day? It’s only nine,” he snapped, really not wanting to deal with Maze and the fact that she thought this was some hilarious joke.
When she didn’t speak, he finally turned around to look at her.
“Oh my God Lucifer…”
“Bugger.”
Detective Decker stood, expression much the same as his had been that morning in the mirror. When she didn’t speak again, he grumbled. “Look, don’t bloody stare. It’s rude,” he stressed the word and her eyes finally snapped to his instead of the wings. Which he had to give her credit for.
After all, they must be the most horrible of sights for her to stare the way she had been.
Or he was just feeling sorry for himself and she was just staring because they were wings and she’d never seen an actual angelic being before.
He was hoping it was more the second option.
“Lucifer, they’re…” she struggled to find words and he suddenly found himself frustrated.
“I know, I know. Don’t get your knickers in a twist alright? As soon as Maze comes back, I’ll have her lop them off again. Good as new. No more hideous feathery monstrosities flapping about on my back,” he spoke in the most sarcastic and cutting tone he could just to try and get her to stop flicking her gaze towards them.
“No!” she barked out suddenly and his eyebrows rose.
“No?”
“No, God please don’t…” She took a step forward and he took a wary step back, knocking over the chair in the process. The wings flexed behind him and still he refused to look at them. “Lucifer, they’re gorgeous,” she uttered, breathless and clearly itching to touch them.
He scoffed.
“Look Chloe, as sweet as that is, you and I both know I’m not going to be winning any angelic beauty pageants any time soon. So, get your kicks while you can, because they’re goin- hey!”
He jumped half a foot when she lunged forward and buried her fingers in the feathers that made up the arch. He should have pushed her away and screamed at her not to touch him, to get out and just who the fuck did she think she was anyway?
But he said nothing because for the first time in millennia someone was stroking his wings with all the love and care that he’d felt before he’d rebelled.
It was something they’d done to form bonds, to show love and camaraderie.
To calm each other down or even just when they were falling asleep. Angel’s revered each others wings and his had been the most beautiful. The proudest and the brightest and fiercest. He’d carried star light and fire in them and they were such a sight to behold.
He hadn’t seen anyone look at them like she was in so long that he just stood there, frozen and unable to stop her as she glided her fingers through thick feathers.
“Lucifer, how can you say they aren’t beautiful? Have you even looked at them?” she asked softly, hesitantly, as if she was afraid he would turn around and attack if she made a wrong move. Yet still she petted him as though she couldn’t tear herself away.
He swallowed hard and let out a long breath. “No, I bloody well haven’t.”
“Then pull your head out of your ass and take a look,” she ordered and he glared at her, clearly unamused by her tone.
But for once, he followed her instruction and stretched out a wing to full length and turned to study it.
He felt like he’d been suddenly punched in the gut and the air in the room had left him.
“Oh.”
That was all he could manage because Father help him and his sinful pride, but they were even more stunning than he remembered. Dark and shiny, midnight blue feathers at the top that faded down to lighter blues and purples that were speckled here and there. His eyes scanned right down to the bright white tips and he flexed them again, seriously unable to believe his eyes.
Dots of white were speckled all over, like stars in the night sky.
Whatever way he moved, the light from the hallway outside caught them and they shone like silver.
His first pair had been pure, glossy white that caught sun rays and sent them scattering across the clouds. He’d been pure when they’d been created for him and he supposed that now, this colour was far more fitting for his personality.
Darkness with perhaps, a little tiny bit of light still in there, threatening his big bad reputation.
“Are you okay?” Chloe’s voice broke through the heavy silence.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “It’s okay…” It was almost like she was reassuring him or something. Her fingers curled into the soft feathers and as much as he was torn about what to do now, all he really wanted to do was stand here and let her touch him. So he did.
He gave her free reign over him, letting her explore as she wished. She took no prisoners, asking him questions that he answered as best he could, his voice thick sometimes when she did something that reminded him too much of home.
She ran light touches over the longest feathers, straightening them where they had become ruffled earlier. Sometimes she just ran the back of her hands over the softest parts to feel the feathers against her skin.
“It’s like… touching silk and clouds.”
“You humans,” he managed to stifle a groan. “So closed in. There are a million billion things softer than either and yet you could only manage that.”
She knew he was teasing and so she just smiled at him and finally stepped back and away.
“Why’d you stop?” he asked blearily, lifting his head from where it had fallen back against the wall and opening his eyes, looking very much like she’d been doing something else entirely.
How such an angelic being could look so sinful, she could never comprehend.
“I’ll only keep going if you promise not to cut them off.”
A low blow but right now, she knew she had a bit of an upper hand with him. He was clearly enjoying having someone to touch him, to make him feel like he was home again and to appreciate his wings.
He looked a little torn though and some more convincing was in order. “Look Lucifer, there has to be a reason they’ve grown back and if you cut them off again, you’ll never find out why. It has to be important. At least keep them for a little while. Please?”
Her hands found their way to them again and his head fell back. “If you really insist. You know, you really are very persuasive Detective. Are you certain my father didn’t send you?” he asked, relaxing into her touch.
“Think of it as my way of paying you back for saving my daughter’s life.”
“Keep your voice down. I’m still the Lord of Hell you know,” he said, while leaning into her touch and practically melting for her.
Oh she knew alright. But in moments like this, it was very easy to forget.