Chapter Text
Chloe went up to stand behind Lucifer where he was sitting on the balcony, waiting for her to join him. She bent down and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder for a moment. He pressed his head back against her, like an automatic reaction, and a deep, almost inaudible hum worked its way through him. “I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“I do love it when you think. What about? More brilliant ideas for our change in livelihood? Hopefully not something else where I’ll end up covered in paint with my clothes still on.”
She smiled, remembering how they’d ambushed him the other day with an art project. Her and Trixie and Maze had set up the garage with drop sheets and canvasses, put on old clothes they didn't mind ruining, and started going crazy with the two dozen paints they’d bought. She’d told Lucifer to come straight to the garage when he got back from Lux, and they’d lobbed paint at him as soon as he’d opened the door. She loved the paint splatters that’d ended up missing him. If they never fixed it, that was fine with her.
“Or perhaps your thoughts have taken you on a much dirtier path,” he mused. “I have to say, right now, I’d really quite prefer that option. Go on, Detective, don’t be shy. Tell me all the absolutely filthy things you’d like me to do to you tonight.”
“To me?” she murmured, turning to put her lips under his ear, licking along the edge of his scruff. “What if I want to do absolutely filthy things to you?”
“Ooh. Even better. Yes, do go on, darling. Tell me in great detail every depraved thought in your wonderful mind.”
“Well, first…” She splayed her hands on his chest. “I was thinking we’d go for a drive.”
“Mmm. Not where I thought this was going, but all right.”
“And then I’ll take you by the hand, and lead you somewhere very secluded.” She straightened, trailing her left hand along his shoulders as moved around the chair and perched on his lap. “Just us, the sky above, no one around to hear us…”
“Better,” he said, his eyes starting to glaze over.
“…except Trixie,” she finished.
He started, eyes widening. “I’m sorry, what?”
She smirked. “Mind out of the gutter, Lucifer. My thoughts were entirely about all three of us going out somewhere, with no sex happening whatsoever.”
He huffed. “Did you have to lead me on like that?”
“You asked for it.”
“Fine. And where, exactly, are we going?”
“It’s as I said. Just us and the wide open sky. I was thinking that I once suggested going out somewhere we can see the stars, since there’s no good view here.”
She glanced out at the night sky from the balcony, which was always a hazy, dark gray even in the middle of the night. There were thousands of stars up there—stars he’d created—but it was impossible to see more than a handful of them where they lived. It’d seemed a shame to her when he’d first told her about them, and it still did now.
“Oh.” He put his arms around her waist, as if he just wanted to be holding her. “I suppose that would be fine, though I’d still prefer if it was just the two of us and a whole lot of sex happening.”
“Too bad.” She patted his cheek. “I think you’ll be fine without it.”
“Mm. Do you really care that much? About the stars, I mean, not taking the child with us.”
“I’ve never seen them properly, and I wanted to even before I found out you made it happen. Now I especially do, with you there to tell us about it.”
“There’s really not much to tell. I made some light and set it adrift, and that’s that. But if you want to… then all right.”
Despite his attempt to downplay it, she thought it meant something to him that she wanted to go. “Then how about this weekend? I looked up a few places out near Death Valley that are supposed to be good.”
“If only it had a better name,” he said. “Very well. On two conditions.”
“What?”
“For one, I get to drive.”
“And the other…?”
He told her. She smiled and kissed him. “I can work with that.”
So on Saturday, they left Los Angeles and headed out to the desert, Lucifer behind the wheel.
It took a few hours to get there. Trixie was thrilled. She talked for half the trip about how cool it would be, and how she wanted to find all the constellations, and if there were wild coyotes that would try to eat them in the middle of nowhere. Lucifer said, “If there are, I’m feeding you to them first. Buy me enough time to get your mother to safety. You understand how it is. Nothing personal, urchin.”
Trixie laughed. “No, you won’t.”
“Better hope there are no coyotes, then, so you don’t have to find out.”
And then the sun sank behind them, and they got to watch the stars slowly unfold as they kept driving east. A few at first, then a few dozen, the deep blue indigo bleeding out of the sky as night took over in earnest. After they left the last town behind, they all looked out at the expanse of stars shining ahead.
Lucifer didn’t take them out too much farther. Just enough that the town’s light was firmly behind them, and they would be out with hopefully few cars driving by. They parked and walked out a few yards into the dusty stretch of ground by the road, and laid out a blanket large enough for all three of them. Even with only a quarter moon off to the side, there was more than enough light to see by.
“Wow,” Trixie said, gaping up at the sky in awe. “There are so many.”
“Took me ages,” Lucifer said. “And you can’t even see them all from here.”
Trixie threw herself down flat on her back to take it all in, while Lucifer stretched out and lifted an arm for Chloe. His second condition: they had to snuggle up together while they were out here. She settled with her head on his arm as he wrapped it around her, his warmth enveloping her just enough to counter the cool breeze.
For a minute she just looked up at the sky. The blues and dusky purples of the Milky Way, the endless scattering of stars right up to where the hills peeked up into the night. She could feel Lucifer’s eyes on her. “Even though I’ve seen pictures, I was somehow still expecting the sky to be black, just with more white dots,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s like a whole different world.”
“It’s your world,” he said. “You just can’t ever see it the way you’re supposed to.”
“It’s awesome,” Trixie said. “Space is so cool. Where are the constellations? Which ones are your favorites?”
“I don’t have favorites,” he said. “And I only know some of the constellations…”
He told them what he did know, which was far more than Chloe did. She’d tried to research it a little before they came out here, but actually seeing it in person, the information she’d picked up felt wholly inadequate. There was so much to look at that it was hard to pick out the couple of constellations she’d memorized that Lucifer didn’t know. And while she could have just opened her phone and looked at the stuff she’d saved, she didn’t. She wanted it to just be the three of them making the most of it.
“Did you actually design them?” she asked.
“Not really. I made them, but I didn’t have the patience for artwork. They govern themselves.” He paused. “Actually, I never really thought of it that way, but I quite like the idea.”
Of course he did. He’d made something by request of his father, something lovely and vast and powerful in its own right, and the stars had been set free into the universe. Something he’d long since wanted for himself and had only just recently been able to truly attain.
She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “I love them,” she said. “And you.”
He smiled, obviously pleased. “Of course you do, love. I’m magnificent. And anything I make is, too.”
She thought of his stick figure drawings and said, “That is definitely not true. But in this case, I’ll let you have it.”
He kissed her, too. “Good.”
When they were ready to leave, they packed up the blanket and headed back. Trixie fell asleep on the drive back, and so Lucifer carried her up to bed while Chloe got out some late night wine.
When he’d returned downstairs, she handed him a glass. “Do you still feel weird about it?” she asked.
He knew what she meant. “Yes. But tonight…” He swirled the wine just a little as he considered her. A faint smile appeared on his lips. “I don’t know. It didn’t ache as much.”
She put an arm around his back and leaned into him. “I’m glad. I know there’s not a simple solution, but I wanted to tip it a little, make it more positive than not.”
He set the wine down and hugged her fully. Not tightly, but the same way he’d held her waist the other night. Like he was just glad for the contact. “You did. Thank you, Chloe.”
She hugged him back, grateful all over again that she could be there with him.