Chapter Text
Chloe has never prayed before in her life. Not really.
Sure, she might’ve sent one or two thoughts that way when Trixie was a breech baby and she was terrified she’d never meet her daughter, or when Malcolm shot Lucifer and she was convinced he had died protecting her family. Those prayers had been formed almost entirely on desperation and a willingness to exhaust any option to save the people she loves. She’s never meant it. Not as a kid, not in a church, not even at her father’s funeral. Not really.
Which is why, when Lucifer takes one look at her and stalks out her door after Pierce breaks her heart, the urge to pray takes her by surprise.
The look in his eye is feral and his steps are measured and deadly. A familiar wild anger surrounds him like an ominous cloud, the one that always overtakes him when his friends are threatened. Even Trixie, who is now snuggled tightly in her arms, had watched her partner nervously, with an understanding beyond her mere ten years, as he had barely looked at either of them before going to confront her ex-boyfriend.
Because that’s where he’s going. There is no doubt in her mind that the man who let her down so brutally will show up to work on Monday with more bruises than he left her home with tonight. That knowledge fills her with a horror and satisfaction that she is too numb to truly feel.
Maze comes home only minutes after Lucifer leaves, taking Trixie from her arms and telling her to pack a bag for her dad’s. She doesn’t say anything about how dead Pierce is, but Chloe can see a rage that matches Lucifer’s in her eyes. There is a guilt there too, and if she was more lucid she’d wonder about that. A Maze that isn’t spewing angry threats is confusing to Chloe, but she knows that sometimes, true anger can cause speechlessness.
Just like a broken heart stops any words from leaving Chloe’s own lips.
Maze hesitantly presses a hand to her shoulder when Trixie bounds down the stairs, telling her that Linda will be over in an hour and that Maze herself is coming back after dropping Trixie off. Chloe hears her, but it’s like she is underwater, so she just nods, hugs Trixie when her daughter hugs her tightly, and only allows her tears to fall when the door shuts behind them.
Letting her head fall loosely on the back of the couch, she shuts her eyes. Don’t let Lucifer kill him, she thinks, not sure if the thought will go to someone or just float around in her head. I really don’t want to deal with the paperwork.
“My Samael doesn’t always seem to have self-control, but I promise you, it does exist in there somewhere.”
Chloe’s eyes flash open, and she jumps to her feet. “Who’s there?” She yells, voice hoarse from tears as she searches out the intruder. “Show yourself!”
The voice chuckles. “I’m right here, my daughter.”
Chloe whips around to find a dark-skinned, middle-aged man wearing jeans and a t-shirt sitting in the same place that she had been only moments ago. His posture is perfect, but he still looks quite comfortable, relaxing in a place where he hadn’t been two seconds ago. He looks somehow familiar, like someone she’s seen in a movie she watched years ago, like her favorite actor from her childhood whose name is long lost to her. She has so many questions that she’s frozen, and she can only gape at him. “How…?”
The man ignores her question, smiling up at her with his eyes twinkling. “Well, not right here. In fact, I am everywhere. But I know you mortals prefer to have something to look at when you are in conversation, so here I am.”
Chloe shakes her head to rid herself of the sheer confusion she feels, looking around for her gun. There’s an intruder in your house, Decker. Focus. “How’d you get in here?” She asks, backing away.
The man leans back, still smiling. “I have been waiting for you to pray to me for a long time, Chloe Decker.”
Chloe trembles. “No,” she breathes. “That’s impossible…” but even as she says it, she knows there is something about this man that is otherworldly and strange, yet peaceful. She feels a sort of serenity she doesn’t want to when she looks at him.
He shakes his head at her fondly, patting the cushion next to him. She makes no move towards him, still frozen, and dammit, where did she put her gun? “I assure you,” he begins, “it’s quite possible. Your partner is an archangel, my dear, and his father is sitting before you. Quite unprecedented, actually. This is a rarity - a new experience for me as well.”
Chloe’s eyes dart around, searching for some advantage against the insane man sitting on her couch. He doesn’t look strong, but the power he exudes and threat he poses itch her skin. “You’re crazy,” she says flatly. “And I’m really not having the best time of it right now, so I’m only going to say this once: get out of my house.”
The man sighs, getting to his feet. “I suspected you would doubt me, as you do my son,” he says, rolling his shoulders back as he stands. “Very well. If it is proof you need, then it is proof you will have.”
A light fills the room. A Divine Light. A Light that burns Chloe’s eyes and fills her with awe and terror and an ancient sort of peace.
Seconds later, she hits the ground in a dead faint.
-
“Daughter? Are you well?”
Chloe groans, bringing her hands to her aching head. She dislodges a throw blanket on the way up, and she recognizes it as the one that she keeps on her bed. Did she go and get it after Maze and Trixie left? No, there was something - someone else, a man, a Light.
Chloe sits up abruptly, staring at the being who hovers next to her. It’s him. No, her brain pushes back against her common sense, it’s Him.
“It’s all true,” she breathes. She can’t even hear herself speak; her brain is numb. Images race across her mind like a movie on fast forward. Everything she’s ever told herself about the world is wrong. She’s wrong.
God - God - nods. “Quite,” He replies, patting her shoulder in a fatherly manner. “I apologize for the headache, my dear, but otherwise, I fear you would have resisted the truth.”
“It’s all true,” she repeats. It’s all true. God and Heaven and Hell - and oh God, is Lucifer-?
“Yes,” God answers, because of course He does; He’s omniscient. He can hear her thoughts. “My Samael - your Lucifer - is the entity you know as the Devil.”
“Lucifer…” she breathes, unsure if she is calling to him or merely putting his name and his name on top of each other for the first time. Regardless, the epithet tastes strange on her tongue.
God gives her several minutes of silent consideration before He continues: “I am sorry,” He begins gently, “to not allow you more time to process what you have just learned. But we must speak before your visitors arrive.”
Chloe nods, pulling herself together. She holds tightly to the throw blanket to stop her hands from shaking. “Okay… okay, I’m sorry-”
“I do not need your apologies, Daughter. I need you to listen.” Chloe nods again, attempting to focus on His words. “I require your expertise.”
A hysterical giggle bubbles up in Chloe’s throat, but she shoves it down. If she hadn’t seen the Light, she would be convinced that she was being pranked. God, asking her advice? What does she know that He doesn’t? “Go on,” she manages.
God watches her flounder with a soft expression on His face. “You are a mother,” He observes. “A very good one. What do you do when your child is disobedient?”
“Not cast them out of Heaven,” she replies, an unexpected bitterness rising in her before she can think. Her eyes widen when she remembers who she is speaking to, and her hands clap over her mouth. “I- I’m sorry. That was-”
God sighs. “I do not speak of Samael,” He says slowly, as if she’s an idiot for assuming He came to talk to her about the one child of His she actually knows, and wait, Amenadiel - he’s an angel too. what the fuck- “I suspect your advice would be biased. No, I speak of another child, who thought he was doing what I wanted but instead, acted out of selfish desire.”
Chloe swallows, opening her mouth to respond when God stops her. “No, Daughter, think. I require your well-considered honesty.”
Chloe nods, trying to ignore the fact that God is in her living room and her partner is the Devil, and wait - does this mean Lucifer was telling the truth when he said Marcus is Cain from the Bible…?
“My son was right to warn you,” God says, serious and deep, reading her thoughts with an ease that immediately leads her to wonder whether privacy even exists. Is everything she is an open book to Him? Is anything about her free? Her breathing speeds up, but He pulls her out of her downward spiral with a command: “Now, Detective, think.”
Deep breath. Exhale. Think. She can do that. “I guess,” Chloe says several minutes later, when she’s gotten ahold of herself, “I can’t expect Trixie to know what I’m thinking if I don’t tell her. I would have a hard time punishing her for something she was doing to make me proud, but I would also tell her that it’s important to develop your own moral compass. She should learn to know that things are right not because I want them, or she wants them, but because they’re just… right.”
God studies her, His expression contemplative. “Free will,” he muses, like He’s thinking about a pet of His that He loves but He’s considering putting down. “That’s quite a radical solution, Daughter. But I did ask, so I will give it some thought.” He looks back at her. “In the interim, I will send My child to you. He will know that your words are to be taken as My law.” He presses a warm hand over her palm, and Chloe is so shocked that God is touching her that His words don’t sink in right away.
But they do a couple of seconds later as He stands to go. “Wait-” she tries, mind working furiously as millions of questions bubble up in her mind. “Wait,” she repeats, “Can you-?”
“Our paths will cross again soon, Daughter,” He interrupts her. “Until then, fare you well.”
He blinks out of existence just in time; her front door swings open as Chloe stares at the space where He was. Where God was. Or where God is, she supposes; if he's omniscient, he's everywhere at once, right?
Ugh, she should've taken that philosophy elective in college.
“Pierce is an asshole,” Maze announces, not even looking at Chloe as she throws herself on the couch. Linda follows with a bottle of whiskey that Chloe recognizes from the top shelf of Lucifer’s personal bar. “I’m gonna kill him, but first, we’re gonna get you super drunk.”
As Maze takes a swig out of the bottle, forgoing a glass and telling Chloe exactly how drunk they’re going to get tonight, Linda studies her friend carefully. “Are you okay, Chlo?”
Chloe smiles tightly at her friend. Does Linda know? She’s Lucifer’s therapist. Would Lucifer tell his therapist? Well, she thinks, he tells everyone. Would Linda believe him? “Yeah. Fine,” she replies, distracted.
Linda nods knowingly. “Well, the Lieutenant doesn’t know what he’s missing,” she says. “You’re better off without him.”
Chloe blinks. She had almost forgotten how badly she had been dumped tonight. It doesn’t seem to be that important after being the first mortal to be visited by the Creator of the Universe. “Yup,” she manages. “Now, give me that bottle.”
She’ll process tomorrow. For now, she wants to get, as Maze called it, super drunk .
-
Lucifer doesn’t come over Saturday or Sunday, giving Chloe exactly two days to process that she’s been in love with the Devil for the past year before she has to see him at work. Again, it doesn’t seem that monumental after having God grace her living room.
Sunday night, she gets a visitor.
“Father?” A man - nope, an angel, Chloe realizes as she spots the massive wings that take up half her kitchen - calls after he appears in a gust of wind. He has dark hair, dressed in white robes that look like they were made of clouds. His eyes are a dark brown, like Lucifer's, but there is a striking innocence in his expression that's she's never seen on anyone's face, not even a child's. “Father?” He repeats, clearly hopeful, before he spots her in the corner gaping at him. “Oh,” he says dumbly, taking her in. “A mortal.” He sounds as if he is in awe, which makes Chloe want to laugh. A celestial being, in awe of her. “Am I on the Earthly plane?” The angel asks. “Have your eyes beheld a Light, child?”
“Yeah, and kind of,” she says finally, keeping a steady distance of at least five feet between them. “Who are you?”
“I am Haniel,” the angel announces, his back growing broader and his chin lifting as he smiles serenely in her direction. “And I am the first angel my Father will speak to in eons.”
Chloe winces at the angel’s pride. “Yeah, he’s not here,” Chloe blurts out. “Um, did you happen to do something that you thought he would approve of recently?” She asks, thinking back to her conversation with Him.
Haniel stands straighter, puffing out his chest. “I did, mortal. How did you know?”
Chloe just looks at him, swallowing before she delivers the bad news. “Yeah, so, He might’ve told me to tell you to stop?” What had He been thinking, making her do this? “Um, He doesn’t approve of what you did. Whatever it was.”
Haniel’s eyes light up white with anger, and Chloe takes a step back in fear, throwing up her arms in a defensive posture. “How dare you presume...” he hisses, before his eyes alight on the hands she holds out in front of her. “What? How?” He stops, staring at her before suddenly dropping to his knees.
“Forgive me, Father,” he breathes. “If this mortal is how you speak, I will listen.” Chloe can only stare at the divine being kneeling before her, and she has to push down the atavistic revulsion, the instinct telling her that no angel was ever meant to prostrate himself before a human. She’s not devout; she’s barely religious, despite confirmation of the existence of God, but no intellectual thought removes her base intuition. So she asks him to stand, and he obeys without question, which is almost worse. “What glorious news have you to bestow upon me?” he asks, and it takes her a second to figure out what he’s talking about, but first:
“Wait,” she says, eyes narrowing, “so we’re okay?” He was furious with her mere seconds ago, and now he acts like she could smite him. Which she definitely can’t. Can she?
Haniel looks sheepish, and it is strangely relieving to see the expression on his face. It’s the first time since he appeared in her apartment that he hasn’t looked like a terrible, celestial being that could kill her any second, and the tension in her body drains slightly. “You bear my Father’s mark, mortal-” he begins, gesturing to her arm.
“Chloe,” she interrupts.
“Chloe,” Haniel agrees. “So I will hear and consider whatever words you impart to me.”
She flips her hands over to study her palms, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “What mark?” She asks.
Haniel nods. “It makes sense you cannot see it - primordial as it is. Though you are Chosen by my Father, you are still but a mortal, and it could very well send you mad.”
Chloe takes a deep breath. “Okay, I need to sit down,” she announces, moving for the couch, hoping the angel follows her without asking too many questions. “Let me get this straight,” she says once they have settled into their seats, her on the loveseat and him on the couch. “After visiting me and putting some weird celestial tattoo on my hand - without my consent, mind you - your Father somehow told you to come here, and you think there’s something I can tell you that you don’t already know after, I’m guessing, thousands of years of life?”
For the first time, Haniel actually looks amused, and she can’t decide if she wants to slap him or just be happy she got an angel with some sort of sense of humor and situational awareness. “Yes, Chloe. You are correct.”
Chloe just blinks at him before crossing her arms over her chest. “Well,” she sighs. “I’m guessing that it’s not going to go over well if I kick an angel out of my house, even though I haven’t slept in two days.” She neglects to mention that her lack of sleep is the fault of Haniel’s Father, but she assumes he can guess. “So, let’s do this. What’s on your mind?”
Chloe and the angel stay up late into the night. She had been worried initially that God had decided to make her some sort of angel therapist, but surprisingly, her instincts as a cop and a mother seem to be the most relevant tools she needs. She listens to him haltingly tell the tale of his actions, and in return, she warns him about pride and greed, about what they feel like, and how to know when they are affecting a decision rather than justice and rightness. It’s a bit - okay it’s a lot - like talking to Trixie. It even reminds her of some of her conversations with Lucifer. Haniel listens and asks questions as she describes pride to him, promising that he will take her words to heart. When he gets up to leave, he turns to her.
“Is it okay - if I have doubts - might I return and ask your advice again, Chloe?”
Chloe sighs, but she nods. Her life is already so strange that she feels like she is having an out of body experience at this point. What difference could occasional angel visits make? “Sure, Haniel.”
The angel squeezes her hands, bowing slightly before disappearing in the same gust of wind on which he came. Chloe drops onto the couch, rubbing her eyes.
At least there is no possible way this could get any stranger, she thinks desperately.
-
Oh, how wrong she was.
It gets a lot stranger.
When she goes into work on Monday, Pierce - Cain, her brain hisses - tries everything he can to get her to forgive him. She avoids him like the plague - Lucifer too, whose identity she hasn’t quite come to terms with. She clings to Ella and Dan who she prays are normal humans, ignoring Lucifer and Cain’s frantic attempts to one up each other.
Thursday night, Haniel arrives back at her doorstep with one of his sisters.
“We come bearing gifts, Chloe,” Haniel announces as he strides through her door like he owns the place. Chloe has to suppress the urge to roll her eyes, but she is not fazed; Lucifer does this all of the time. His sister follows after him, clearly curious, her long, blonde hair cascading to the small of her back in golden curls. She looks like she has just stepped out of a painting of Venus, painted by some great European genius, and Chloe spares an errant thought wondering how Lucifer can be attracted to any human if this is the perfection to which he was born. “Cassiel did not believe me when I told her about you; would you show her Father’s mark?”
Chloe blinks at their brilliant wings, still adjusting, before shaking herself loose of their awe-inducing power. “Yeah, sure, come in guys. Trixie’s asleep upstairs though, so please keep it down.” She presents her palm to Cassiel, who gazes at it in wonder.
“You have spoken to our Father,” she breathes. “What did He say?”
Chloe snorts. “Not much, to be honest.”
Haniel holds up a sparkling vase, handing it to her with a deference that takes her breath away. It feels like an important exchange, though she’s not sure what it means. “For your home,” he says gravely, informing her that his talent is glass-work, and that he dearly hopes she finds his work beautiful.
“Thanks,” Chloe says awkwardly. “But I don’t need any gifts - you can come by without them.”
Cassiel exchanges a look with her brother full of meaning, and they both look back at her with bemusement. “You are honored by our Father, and you honor us with your precious time. Angels like to give precious items to precious souls.” She smiles winningly at Chloe, bright white teeth and all.
“Okay,” Chloe says, head spinning. Will her life ever feel normal again? “Okay,” she repeats. “Did you want to talk, then?”
Cassiel nods eagerly. “Yes! Haniel informed me that much of your advice comes from your experience as a law keeper. Tell us of your mortal justice system. How does it function?”
Chloe sighs, thinks God, give me strength before realizing He can actually hear her, and leans forward. “Okay. I work as a detective...”
Two hours later, Pierce appears at her door with a ring, and after quickly ushering the angels into her bedroom and demanding they stay quiet, she turns him down as gently as she can. Not because she really gives a shit about his feelings, but she knows that he’s a volatile man, and she doesn’t really want to anger him with her daughter asleep upstairs and two angels eavesdropping from the hallway.
“Who was that?” Cassiel asks once she has shooed him back out the door. Both angels look concerned, and she wonders if they can sense something she can’t.
Chloe hesitates before deciding that she might as well tell them. The more people - or celestials - that know who her ex-boyfriend is, the more they can all keep an eye on him. “That’s my ex, Marcus Pierce, but your Dad told me that he’s Cain. Like, Cain and Abel Cain.”
“The first murderer,” Haniel hisses, eyes narrowing on the door as if he can see through it. And honestly, who knows? Maybe he can. “Why was he here, Chloe?”
She shrugs to hide the redness that rises in her cheeks. “Well, he was here in my apartment because he was trying to propose-” more angelic hissing, and Chloe thinks half-hysterically that Lucifer’s siblings are unknowingly looking out for his interests, if his excessively extravagant behavior in the past few days is any indication of his feelings - “but here in LA? I’m not sure,” she admits. “I just want to keep him away from Trixie.”
Cassiel and Haniel look at each other, then back to her. “We will keep a wary eye on both your offspring and Cain,” Cassiel says, and Haniel nods in agreement. “You will not come to any harm.”
Chloe waves a hand at them, both thankful and overwhelmed. “You sound like Lucifer,” she says without thinking, trying to contain the fond smile that threatens to spread across her face.
Both the angels start in surprise. “Samael?” They breathe in unison.
Chloe nods, wondering if she should have mentioned their brother at all. God hadn’t said anything against it, barely speaking of Lucifer. She hadn’t knowingly kept her connection to the Devil from Haniel on his first visit, but if Amenadiel and Lucifer’s general animosity is any indication, he doesn’t have the best relationship with his siblings. In fact, she wonders if many of them have any relationship with him at all. “Yeah, that’s what your Dad called him too.”
“You know him?” Cassiel demands, confirming Chloe’s fears. “Amenadiel was sent to take him back to Hell, and he Fell, but without Father’s omniscience we assumed he was back where he belongs.”
“He’s my partner,” Chloe explains. “He is part of the - um - mortal justice system. Wait, you guys know Amenadiel?” Obviously they do, but a subject change would be much appreciated.
“He is our eldest brother,” Haniel says, “and the wisest. So, Samael is… aware of you? Knows you?”
Well, her divergence didn’t work in the least. Chloe tries vehemently to hold back a blush, thinking about the kiss they had shared on the beach months ago. She still dreams about it, even if the memory of it is clouded with pain. “Yes, he’s my friend. End of story.”
“Has he tempted you, Chloe?” Cassiel asks gravely. “Has he threatened your soul?”
All the sudden, an unfamiliar fury rises in Chloe’s veins. “Did you watch?” She asks, ignoring the question, her hands curling into fists of their own volition. “When he Fell?”
“I was there,” Cassiel says, a glassy look of remembrance overtaking her face, but Haniel shakes his head. “Haniel was unmade.”
Chloe exhales. These angels hardly understand right from wrong, and God had presented them with her as a teacher. I hope You know what You’re doing, she thinks, unwilling to call the half-threat praying. I hope You know how I see Your son. “Lucifer is a good man,” she tells them, and they listen to her words with nary a breath to distract them. “I’m not sure what he did to deserve what your Dad did to him, but the Lucifer I know is not evil. He’s not the Devil, not to me.”
Haniel and Cassiel don’t respond right away. “We will consider your words, Chloe,” Haniel says eventually. “You have given us much to think on.”
They are gone in an instant, and Chloe lets her head fall in her hands.
She needs to talk to Lucifer.