#mazikeve

“I don’t pull quarters out of ears, pet.” 

“Come on, John, please?”

“I don’t do bloody birthday parties.” 

Maze popped a balloon to grab their attention. “I was told no blood.” she said, a smile tugging on her lips. “We can use blood?” 

Chloe glared daggers at John. She tried to hold in her sigh, but as soon as Lucifer put his arm around her, it escaped her lips anyway. 

“No blood,” she breathed out. “It’s a little girl’s birthday party!”

Maze pouted. Chloe’s eyes caught on those needy, puckered-up lips for a moment too long. Lucifer’s own mouth split into a grin, blindingly white, and he gently pushed Chloe in Maze’s direction. Maze immediately dragged her fingers onto Chloe’s arms, pulling their chests together until Chloe’s hands were laced behind Maze’s back. 

That was when Eve came out of the other room. She smiled at her wife all over their queerplatonic partner. She had tiny baby Rory in her arms, rocking the sweet thing with a well-tested rhythm. 

“You know Trix hates when we still call her a little girl,” Eve said.

Lucifer seemed rather lonely without someone to grab at, so he tugged on John’s sleeve to close the gap between them. 

“She is turning 15, darling,” Lucifer agreed. “And she does like the creepy stuff, especially now that she knows we’re creepy stuff. Perhaps blood shouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility.” After a beat too long, he added, “Fake, of course.”

Chloe rolled her eyes as Eve kissed her temple. Maze danced her fingers in front of Rory. She cackled at how Rory’s tiny little hands tried to reach out to catch her. Chloe just stared down into her baby daughter’s eyes, tightening her hold on Maze and leaning against Eve.

“Hi, honey.” Chloe sniffled at Rory, then raised her head up before tears could roll and ruin her makeup. “I swear, it feels like just yesterday, Trixie looked exactly like that. She didn’t even have dimples to go with her cute little smile yet! Where’d all the time go?”

John stifled his chuckle by pressing Lucifer’s knuckles into his lips. “You’re gonna be a wreck on her sweet 16, aren’t ya, love?” 

Chloe groaned at the very concept of Trixie turning 16 and buried her head in Maze’s neck. Eve moved Rory to one arm so she could pat Chloe’s back, giggly but all-too-empathic. Chloe’s phone beeped in her pocket, but she let out a growl into Maze’s collarbone, so John snapped his fingers and the phone flew into his grasp.

He started, “Danny-Boy says he’s got the cake—”

“Double fudge chocolate cake, right?” Chloe had to make sure. 

John nodded. The look Lucifer gave him told him that, on the slim chance Dan got the wrong cake, he’d be the one fixing it into the right one. This is what ya get for making a comet out of domestic devil, John thought. In his defense, when you get invited to a party by the literal devil, you don’t really stop to wonder if it’s a kiddie birthday party for his stepdaughter before you portal over. Lucifer and Maze had changed a lot over the years.

Chloe nodded, too. “How much longer until school gets out?” she asked.

“About three hours,” Lucifer answered. 

Chloe pulled herself back from Maze. She looked wildly around the poorly-decorated apartment. She ran her fingers down her face, exasperated. “We’re gonna have ravenous teens packed here in three hours, and this place looks terrible! Oh, Trixie’s gonna hate us.”

The phone buzzed in John’s hold again. “At least Linda’s getting enough junk food to satisfy the ravenous teens.”

Rory made a blub-bluh noise at that. Eve cooed down at her. “Don’t worry, baby, you’ll be ravenous one day, too, just you wait.”

“John, please.” Chloe stepped closer to him and pouted the way Maze did. “I’ll do anything. Please.”

“Never say anything, love,” Lucifer reminded her. “We don’t know where he’s been.”

John hummed. He elbowed Lucifer’s side, making Lucifer laugh, and picked a loose lash off Chloe’s cheek. “He’s right,” he said. “What’s in it for me?” 

“My daughter’s happiness?” Chloe offered.

“I’ve disappointed a lot of little girls, what’s another name to the list? Something else.”

Chloe put her hands on her hips. “If you do it, then I don’t have to call any of those all-grown-up little girls to do it for you.”

“You’re bluffing. Since when have you got their numbers?” 

Chloe pointed her chin at her phone, still held by John. He scrolled through her contacts and, sure enough, she had a few different numbers for a Nora Darhk and an Astra Logue. John deleted them immediately.

“Aw, you think I’m the only one on this Earth that they text?” Chloe chuckled, biting her smile. 

John was the one groaning now. He caught Lucifer’s eye, and that wicked devil was grinning like a mad man. “I can see how this one managed to strum your heartstrings.”

“Yes, she’s something, isn’t she?” Lucifer scrunched up his wild eyes at Chloe in adoration.

John tossed the phone back at Chloe. Maze caught it for her and slipped it into Chloe’s back pocket, not without a pinch to the fabric there. Eve stepped back from John, holding Rory into her chest. That was when everyone else got the memo to stand back, too. Lucifer just got closer to him instead, unbothered. 

John raised his hands in the air, whispering into the invisible black, head up and eyes rolled. Slowly, the apartment lit up. A night sky was cast on the ceiling. Stars burned overhead, bursting and forming, flying like comets between the giant planets of the solar system. Balloons in all shades of blue and orange sprout up from nothingness. Happy birthday space cadet was hung on the back wall in big lettering. Take-home gift bags for Trixie’s friends littered the kitchen counter, stuffed with cheeseballs that the packaging called asteroids. Cut-up fruit were stuck on sticks to make them look like rocket ships. Silver party poppers exploded on the floor, making everything glitter. DVD’s for alien horror movies piled on top of the TV. 

It was cheesy, sure, but so was everything he already knew about Trixie. 

Chloe gaped in awe of everything. Then her brow knit. “... I-I never told you Trixie likes space.” 

“I have my ways.” John shrugged.

The way in question was Maze, who tilted her head in a sharp smile at him. Even so, Chloe shook her head and just breathed in relief. She shoved John into a hug. John took the chance to nibble on her ear and Chloe swat him away.

“Thank you, I mean it,” she said. “This is really important to us.”

John clicked his tongue, curling his lips. Any time, he almost said. Instead, he went, “Sure, love. But if it’s so important to the lot of ya, then you all owe me.”

“Well!” Lucifer gladly clapped his hands together. “Three hours to go, and we haven’t anything left to do.” 

Maze looked back and forth between Rory and the doorway into the room where her crib was. Eve quickly traded Rory into Maze’s grasp. Maze started for the crib.

“How will we fill the time?” Eve asked, pouty like the rest of them, rolling her shoulders all-innocent.

John leaned closer into Chloe’s face until their noses almost hit. “Danny-Boy’ll be here sooner rather than later, but Linda’s out for quite a while.”

Lucifer put his hands on either of their shoulders. Eve put her arms under Chloe’s, wrapping her hands at Chloe’s midsection.