unravelling || deckerstar || lucifer
a/n: After Season Three's agonizing cliffhanger, I suppose we could all use a bit of closure (although realistically impossible— excuse me, let me just sit in a corner and start sobbing) to try elevate our miserable spirits.
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"It's all true." Chloe took a disbelieving step back, a numbness dropping on her heart like stone, turning every part of her rigid with shock as roaring filled her ears.
"What is?" The man who stood before her was made of red rock and gunmetal, of devastating lines and cruel curves, of things formed far beyond her world. This was what he had been trying to tell her all along. Had openly, earnestly confessed before all her dismissive manners. "Detective?" He took a step forward, a hand reaching out towards her as shadows shifted across his face, but she shook her head. Shook it as if it would clear whatever impact the shooting had on her, or maybe it was the stress and fear from Marcus's betrayal.
But it did nothing to clear the delusion.
"All along you've-- you really are--" She stumbled over her words, unsure of how to organise the chaos in her head.
His brows furrowed as he cocked his head, and it was all achingly familiar.
"Alright, now you've completely lost me." He grinned, lips sharply curling. "What is?"
He doesn't know, she realised underneath her thundering heartbeat, he doesn't know that something's different.
Chloe looked at him, really looked at him. Studying those eyes that were of embers and shadows, a face a promise of menace and terror, only to find that there was nothing beyond that. That face. He still looked at her with same raw honesty and eagerness. Had spoken with the same voice laced with posh and charm. Had moved with the same grace, smiled with the same confidence. But his face--
Her eyes slid to the debris and shattered glass around him, to the motes that still danced in the air and the illuminating sunlight that filtered through the windows, at odds with the darkness that charged the enclosed space. She took in Marcus, her heart skipping a beat, as she found him laid out behind Lucifer, Maze's twinkling blade embedded in a rose of dark blood in his chest, to the similarly broken, unmoving bodies splayed across the room. Mayhem. It had been utter mayhem.
And it was then that she finally let herself acknowledge the radiant, white feathers that glistened with blood strewn around the room. Around the man who survived the chaos of it all only minutes before.
And for the first time since she met him, she finally let herself believe.
"You--" She choked on her words, a multitude of thoughts wanting to be poured out simultaneously. "I'm sorry."Â
Lucifer, who was in the process of adjusting the lapels of his suit as he began to stride towards her, paused at that, narrowing his eyes. "Excuse me?"
"That I never believed you."
Lucifer blinked, but as he watched her, noting her ragged breathing, her shaking hands, her wandering eyes, the enthusiasm on his face drained with the onslaught of the dawning realisation.
A hand shot up to feel the side of his face, his eyes widening as he drew a horrified gasp. He watched Chloe for a moment longer, seemingly paralysed, clearly waiting for her to do something, before his eyes lowered and he abruptly turned, stooping. Hiding. "Detective, this," His voice faltered. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"I-- I don't get it." Chloe stayed where she was, staring at his hunched shoulders. "Isn't this what you've--"
"Well," Lucifer let out small, hoarse laugh. "that was when you didn't believe me." From where Chloe stood, she saw him shake his head. "It's different when you finally see the truth for yourself, isn't it?"
She licked her lips, unsure of what to say. "It is."Â
Angels and demons, Heaven and Hell. God and the Devil.
He took a shuddering breath. "You don't have to stay."
Truth be told, she didn't know what she wanted to do.
She had spent so long in the bliss of what she thought was reality, of ignorance, that when the truth unraveled before her, it was hard to clamp the urge to dismiss it all. Just as she had every other time. To sweep it all from sight and claim it a hallucination, a dream, something that wasn't real. But now--
Chloe was a detective, and she relied on evidence for truth. This was real.
"No." Chloe drew in a breath. "But I'm going to."
"I do." She insisted. "Lucifer, I do."
"You're not afraid." But he was, she finished with a steadying breath. This was what he had told her that night, the side of him that he hid in fear, afraid that the whole truth would scare her away. Bad, monstrous, he had said. He thought he was protecting both of them. But--
"You haven't given me any reason to be."
The legends and the myths, regardless of how accurate they told their tales, have always had. But, the Lucifer she knew, the Lucifer that never lied, the Lucifer that always had her back, the Lucifer that was daring and honest and good, she knew him and she wasn't afraid. It didn't matter whatever he truly was, whichever skin he shifted between, because she had glimpsed his soul and knew that that's who he really was. His true self, before the world tainted his image rotten, deceiving both the people and himself. A burning ache in her chest compelled her to move forward, her steps deafening in the otherwise silent room.
"I meant what I said." Chloe reached for his shoulder. "You're not a monster to me."
What would it take, for him to see what she honestly saw in him?
"Chloe, please," He shook his head again, burying his face deeper into the nooks of his hands. "Don't--"
"This changes nothing." Chloe gently took his hands and held them firmly within hers, trying to catch his lidded eyes. "Lucifer."
Rose red and moon rock, Lucifer's face, leveled with hers. Familiar, but entirely not. His hopeful eyes searched hers, the rigidness loosening as relief flooded his face, soft and grateful. And suddenly she was looking at a man, dark, handsome and human, his hair a mussed mess and his eyes were shining. Still Lucifer. "Truly?" His voice sounded small.
"I swear on my life." She said.
A small, disbelieving smile bloomed on his face. "What did I do to ever deserve you."
He deserved the world. For constantly guarding her back, for staying true to his word, for being the best, irreplaceable partner she's ever had, he deserved more than their contempt.
"You have no idea." And Chloe tightly embraced him.Â
Lucifer slowly returned it, uncertain, his hands delicate across her back as if she would suddenly disappear. Run away.Â
Because she's lost count of the amount of times she's promised to always be there for him.
"You're really . . . okay? With this?" His voice was muffled by her hair, and she felt him motioning with his hands, still not quite believing it.
She hugged Lucifer tighter.
Because in the end, she still loved him, all of him.