[Lucifer] Ch: 32 [The Devil Knows] (Patreon)

[A Few Days Later] [Chloe’s House]

The hot water should've been helping Chloe relax, though her mind had other ideas. She stood beneath the shower with her eyes closed while memories of Lucifer kept slipping into her thoughts. Bullets hitting him without leaving wounds, a gun disappearing from Dillion's hand before she could even follow the movement, Joe Hanson hanging several feet above the ground from one of Lucifer's hands, and that strange ability he used to make people admit things they would've normally taken to their graves.

His explanation remained exactly the same every time.

He was the Devil.

Chloe still didn't believe him, but lately she was running out of explanations she did believe.

A heavy thump downstairs pulled her out of her thoughts.

Chloe immediately opened her eyes and turned off the water. She stood still for several seconds, listening carefully, before another faint sound came from somewhere below. Trixie wasn't home, and nobody else was supposed to be inside the house. Chloe quickly stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around herself, grabbed her gun from the bedroom, and made her way downstairs with damp hair clinging to her shoulders.

She moved quietly through the hallway before reaching the kitchen, gun ready in front of her. She suddenly turned toward the kitchen.

Chloe gasped when she recognized him. “Lucifer?”

Lucifer Morningstar was standing at her kitchen counter making breakfast.

The smell of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee filled the room while Lucifer moved between the stove and the kitchen island as though he'd been cooking there every morning for years. His suit jacket rested over the back of a chair, and his sleeves had been rolled up neatly while he worked. 

The sudden movement loosened the towel around her body, and it slipped straight to the floor.

She didn't notice.

Lucifer turned toward her and immediately forgot what he had been doing.

For one dangerous second, Karl Jenson disappeared completely beneath the sheer mental impact of the sight in front of him. Chloe stood several feet away holding a gun while completely naked, her wet hair resting around her shoulders as drops of water slowly moved down her body.

'Big boobs, perfect tummy, and clean-shaven...' Lucifer's celestial memory captured everything with horrifying efficiency before he forced every ounce of self-control he possessed into keeping his expression reasonably normal.

Research purposes.

Entirely for research purposes... That's what he told himself.

“Well, good morning, Detective," Lucifer said with his classic smile.

Chloe frowned at him, still completely unaware of the towel around her feet. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Lucifer's grin became slightly harder to control as his eyes briefly moved down her body before returning toward her face.

Chloe noticed the look.

Her confusion changed immediately.

She looked down.

Her eyes widened.

“Shit!”

Chloe bent down quickly, grabbed the towel, and wrapped it tightly around herself again while Lucifer turned his attention toward the pan with an expression of exaggerated innocence.

She stared at him in disbelief. “You were staring.”

Lucifer wisely decided that answering that particular accusation might reduce his chances of surviving breakfast without being shot.

Chloe tightened the towel beneath one arm and glared at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Setting the table.”

Chloe looked toward the kitchen island and finally noticed everything he'd prepared. There were plates, coffee, pancakes, eggs, toast, bacon, fruit, and several other things that made the whole situation even more ridiculous.

Her eyes returned toward him. “You broke into my house?”

Lucifer turned away from the stove and gave her a confused look, as though she had just accused him of something completely unreasonable.

“You left your keys last night at Lux, remember? You were pretty drunk. I dropped you off at home, and you had to use your spare keys. Then you told me to bring the key in the morning. And you even permitted me to make you breakfast. You said something like, ‘Treat me like a queen and make me breakfast.’ So,” he pointed toward the kitchen island, “I made a little brekkie. You were taking forever in the shower. What do you do in there?”

Chloe closed her eyes for a moment as pieces of the previous night returned.

Unfortunately, Lucifer was right.

She'd spent almost the entire previous evening dealing with a particularly ugly murder case. The victim had been found in a condition Chloe would've happily gone the rest of her life without seeing, and after hours of crime-scene photographs, witness statements, blood, rotting smell, and paperwork, she'd needed something that would make her brain stop replaying the images.

Lux had been close.

One drink became another, and somewhere after that, Chloe had apparently decided whiskey made her capable of keeping up with a man who claimed alcohol barely affected him. Lucifer had eventually driven her home when walking in a straight line became more complicated than she wanted to admit.

She was playing with her keys and... it was all too hazy, but she was sure she left it there at Lux.

She remembered finding her spare key outside the house. She also remembered telling Lucifer to bring her keys in the morning.

The breakfast part was less clear.

There was, however, an uncomfortable fragment of memory involving Chloe leaning against the front door and telling him that if he was going to bother her in the morning, he could at least treat her like a queen and make her breakfast.

'Damn it.'

She couldn't even blame him properly.

Lucifer was Lucifer. The man seemed completely incapable of understanding that people didn't necessarily mean everything they said after several drinks.

Chloe opened her eyes and looked at the irritatingly proud expression on his face. “You are unbelievable!”

Lucifer grinned. “Oh, thank you, but it’s you who should take the compliment. Really kept things up since Hot Tub High School, haven’t we? Ding-dong.”

Chloe's expression went completely flat.

She took a slow breath while fighting the urge to raise the gun still hanging loosely beside her leg. “I want to shoot you.”

Lucifer's smile immediately returned. “Tease. Do it. I’m immortal, remember? Uh, do you have any truffle oil?”

Chloe stared at him for several seconds.

Somewhere inside her exhausted brain, she considered the possibility that shooting him might actually be therapeutic. Unfortunately, explaining that to Internal Affairs afterward would probably ruin the effect.

She sighed and pointed toward the cupboards on the left. “Second shelf.”

Lucifer immediately opened the correct cupboard and found the bottle. “Excellent.”

Chloe shook her head and started toward the stairs. She needed clothes, coffee, and several minutes to reconsider whatever sequence of decisions had resulted in Lucifer Morningstar cooking breakfast inside her kitchen while she stood there wearing nothing except a towel.

She'd barely taken two steps when the front door opened.

Chloe stopped.

Dan walked into the house first, with Trixie following close behind him. He'd clearly been saying something to their daughter before entering, though the sentence disappeared the moment he looked toward the kitchen.

His eyes moved toward Chloe: Wet hair, towel, bare legs.

Then his attention shifted past her.

Lucifer stood at the kitchen island with his sleeves rolled up, calmly preparing breakfast like he belonged there.

Dan's entire expression changed.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?”

Lucifer looked toward him without appearing remotely bothered by the hostility in Dan's face. “Nothing in his name. Here on my own, actually.”

Trixie looked past her father and immediately saw Lucifer. Her face lit up. Then she looked at Chloe standing in a towel, looked toward the breakfast covering the kitchen island, and looked back at Lucifer.

A huge grin appeared.

“Did you and Mommy have a sleepover?" She asked.

Chloe's eyes widened as she immediately turned toward her daughter. “No. No. Absolutely not, no. What are you guys doing here anyway?”

Dan still hadn't taken his eyes off Lucifer. “She left her bird report here.”

Trixie turned toward Lucifer with the same excited smile she always seemed to have around him. “Want to see?”

Lucifer glanced toward her before returning his attention to the food. “Maybe later.”

That was apparently enough for Trixie. She ran down the hallway toward her room to find the report, leaving the three adults alone in the kitchen.

The atmosphere changed immediately.

Dan stepped farther inside and looked at Chloe again before staring directly at Lucifer. His irritation had been obvious from the second he entered, though now there was something much more personal beneath it.

“Are you sleeping with this idiot?” He asked.

Chloe's eyebrows rose. “Dan.”

Lucifer slowly turned away from the kitchen island. “Aren't you nosy and, from what it looks like... controlling? Does she need your approval for her personal life?"

Dan's jaw tightened as he stepped closer. “That's not what I said.”

Lucifer gave him an unimpressed look. “It sounded remarkably similar from where I'm standing.”

Chloe looked between them and already knew exactly where the conversation was heading. Dan's jealousy around Lucifer had become obvious weeks ago, while Lucifer seemed to consider irritating Dan a recreational activity. Putting them together in the same room while Chloe stood between them wearing a towel was probably the worst possible combination.

Dan opened his mouth to answer.

Trixie came running back into the room before he could.

She held several pages in both hands and looked ridiculously proud of them. “I found it.”

Chloe immediately took advantage of the interruption. She pointed toward the front door while tightening the towel around herself again. “Okay, everybody out. Trixie has to get to school. I got to get to work. Come on, out, please.”

Dan gave Lucifer one final annoyed look before turning toward the door with Trixie.

Lucifer watched Chloe for a moment before something occurred to him. “How are you going to get to work without your car? Take a bus?”

Chloe stopped.

Her eyes closed.

Of course.

Her car was still sitting at Lux.

She'd driven there after work the previous night, gotten drunk enough that Lucifer had refused to let her drive home, and then left the damn thing behind.

Chloe slowly rubbed her forehead. “Right. My car.” 

Lucifer’s smile grew, as if he’d been waiting for the realization to dawn on her. Chloe didn't need him to offer; she already knew exactly how he would milk this opportunity. But a glance at the clock settled it. If she waited for a bus or a cab, she’d be late for work. Like it or not, Lucifer was her only ride.

Trixie interrupted before either could say anything else.

She walked over to Lucifer and wrapped both arms around his legs.

“Bye, Lucifer."

Lucifer looked down at her, and the expression on his face softened in the familiar way Chloe had started noticing whenever Trixie was around. He rested one hand on top of her head and gave her two gentle pats.

“Bye, little human.”

Trixie released him and hurried outside before Dan could remind her they were going to be late. She ran toward his car with the bird report held against her chest while Dan followed more slowly.

Chloe watched them through the open doorway.

She stepped toward the doorway as Dan stepped out.

“Hey, Dan, I’m…”

Dan stopped beside the porch and turned around.

For a moment, Chloe thought he might apologize for the question he'd asked inside or at least acknowledge that he'd crossed a line. They aren't married anymore.

Instead, his expression hardened.

“Really, Chloe? I’m disappointed in you," Dan said.

The words hit harder than Chloe expected.

She stared at him in disbelief, the unfinished sentence disappearing completely from her thoughts.

Lucifer had followed her toward the doorway.

His expression changed the moment Dan spoke.

The playful man who'd spent the morning making jokes about her towel, cooking breakfast, and deliberately irritating her disappeared almost instantly.

Lucifer stepped up beside Chloe and looked directly at Dan. “What gives you the right to say that to her after everything you did?”

Dan froze.

Chloe turned toward Lucifer immediately. “What are you talking about?”

Lucifer didn't look at her.

His eyes remained locked on Dan.

Karl already knew the answer.

Palmetto.

Lucifer's memories and Karl's knowledge of the original story fit together too easily. Dan Espinoza had been involved in the Palmetto situation, and Chloe still didn't know the truth. She had destroyed her standing inside the department because she'd trusted her instincts about a corrupt cop, while the man who'd been her husband had allowed her to take the fall without telling her the truth.

Lucifer had tolerated Dan's jealousy because jealousy was amusing.

Judging Chloe was different.

Especially when Dan was carrying secrets of his own.

Lucifer's expression remained calm, though the warning inside his eyes was impossible to miss.

“Oh, he knows what I mean. Don't you, Dan?”

Dan looked at him. For one brief second, the anger disappeared from his face. Nervousness replaced it.

Chloe saw the change immediately.

She knew Dan too well to miss something like that.

His eyes moved toward Lucifer, and the look between them lasted only a moment, though there was clearly something there. Lucifer knew something about him, and judging by the sudden tension in Dan's shoulders, Dan knew exactly what Lucifer was referring to.

Chloe looked between them. “What's going on, Dan?”

Dan's jaw tightened.

Trixie called from the car before the silence could stretch any longer, asking whether they were going to be late for school.

Dan looked toward his daughter and then back at Chloe.

Whatever answer he'd considered disappeared.

“I've got to get her to school.”

He turned and walked away.

Chloe watched him head toward the car, still trying to understand what had just happened.

Dan opened the driver's door without looking back, climbed inside, and pulled away from the curb a few moments later.

Chloe turned to Lucifer, who was watching Dan's car drive away with no amusement on his face, and she narrowed her eyes, realizing Lucifer knew something that Dan also understood, which was enough for Dan to abandon the argument and leave without answering a direct question.

Chloe tightened the towel around herself before looking at Lucifer again.

Breakfast could wait.

She had a new problem to deal with.