Chapter Text
Setting: The night after the finale, after they are showered and changed, and Trixie is asleep.
Her voice was a quiet thred of sound in her darkened bedroom, a whisper, for no other reason than that Chole was so tired, so battered in mind and body, and the quiet, clean peace of her bedroom seemed nearly sacred; she was loathe to break it. “Did you mean it, Lucifer?”
And Lucifer, who should have been just as tired as she was, having fought, and screamed and died today, just as she had, seemed wide awake, his dark eyes bright and awake where he lay next to her. For a moment, just a moment, Chole flashed back to that day in the evidence locker, when he hadn’t even known what she was talking about, when she’d stood in front of him, heart torn and vulnerable, feeling foolish and needy, begging him for words he couldn’t give… Her mouth went dry.
Then his warm palm stroked over her cheek, slid down to rest over heart throat and heart, his hand so large that it could cover both. “I did,” he whispered in reply, leaning over her, his lips soft and undemanding on her own, “I do.” He pressed a half dozen kisses into her skin. “So much.”
She ran tired fingers into his softly curling hair, holding him close, and she felt loved, so loved, and adored, and cherished... but still … he hadn’t said it again, and Chloe felt a slight tightness in her guts that Lucifer’s warm hands and gentle mouth didn’t seem to cure.
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The girl with bubble-gum pink hair in a bob asked her, “What are ya here for, hun?”
“Just a trim,” Chloe said, as the Lucifer-of-her-imagination spluttered indignantly over the idea of Mrs.G at a Supercuts. She mentally shrugged; it was convenient.
“Sure! Be about 30 minutes. Just take a seat.”
Thanking the girl, Chloe turned and picked a seat next to some friendly-looking women in the tiny, cramped waiting room. She pulled out her phone and began to scroll, politely pretending that she was deaf to the conversations around her, in the way of most city-dwellers.
“...most amazing restaurant I’ve ever been to,” said Skinny Jeans. “Everything was going great until he got upset.” Pink Blouse hummed in sympathy. “I don’t get why he can’t get it. Why is this is so hard to understand?”
“He’s American,” Pink Blouse shrugged.
“I am too!” Skinny Jeans sounded really unhappy, and Chloe flicked her eyes over to the women on reflex. Yup, Skinny Jeans was anxiously shredding tissues in her lap.
“Yeah, but we’re first gen. He’s old school American.”
“But - it’s not fair. It’s not like I don’t - not like I don’t-”
“Americans say ‘I love you’ like they’re scattering confetti, Aamira.”
Chloe felt like she’d been struck by lightning. Her phone dropped from her suddenly numb fingers, and Pink Blouse and Aamira blinked over at her in surprise as she groped for it on the floor. She stared down at the phone in hands, eyes unseeing, chewing her lip. She flipped over to Google, and began to search.
By the time her split ends were taken care of, she was armed with a wealth of new knowledge. Dozens of modern cultures did not say ‘I love you’ out loud. Hundreds of ancient cultures did not say the words either. Of course there was no google reference for angelic culture, but if she was a betting woman… yeah, odds were good that Lucifer had said ‘I love you’ to only a handful of people in his whole life - all sixteen billion years of it. And in cultures that didn’t say the words, there were other things, other ways of expressing it, and… and she wasn’t doing them.
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.
.
Lucifer was still prickly about his past in Heaven, about his relationship to his siblings. And any discreet forays into how the ancient culture of a foreign species expressed love was … yeah, that was not something Chloe was remotely about to do to Lucifer.
Chloe tugged at her jacket, adjusted the gift bag full of onesies to her left hand, and rang the doorbell. Amenidiel answered the door with his customarily gentle smile.
“Chloe!” He stepped back to welcome her inside his home, still smiling. She stepped inside, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. “What brings you by?”
She pushed her newly shortened bangs behind her ear and offered up the bag. “Oh, I, um, just saw these and thought of Charlie.”
Amenediel brightened, and he took the offered gift with both hands, peering inside. Fishing one out, he laughed at the pun on the front, then laid them aside. Something clicked in Chloe’s mind.
“Lucifer does that too,” she blurted. Amenediel blinked, his train of thought clearly derailed. Chloe waved a hand. “He takes presents with both hands.” Not all the time, but when it was important, when it was special, he’d turn towards her, both hands extended, dark eyes shining...
“Oh,” Amenediel’s shoulders relaxed. “Yeah, I guess he does.”
Chloe shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and tried for casual. “So… is that like a brother thing, or…?”
Amendiel’s eyebrows raised. Chloe raised a hand to play with her newly trimmed hair, then realized what she was doing, and lowered it again. Her sort-of-brother-in-law’s smile deepened and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Would you like some tea?”
He led her to the back porch, letting Charlie toddle around the yard, offering Chloe a lounge chair and a warm mug. Chloe was grateful that Charlie was there, something to focus on, a distraction. She sipped at her tea, watched Charlie decide that grass didn’t taste good after all, and searched for a way to break the silence without being weird.
“Sooo…” Amenediel spun his mug in his hands. “Why are you really here?’
Caught. She turned nervously to face him, but Amendiel’s serene smile and gentle eyes weren’t judgmental. “I- I just realized that I don’t know-” She licked her lips, and waved a hand weakly at the space between them. “I realized that I’m doing it all wrong.”
For the first time, the angel across from her looked concerned. “Doing what all wrong?”
Her jaw worked soundlessly for a moment. “...I don’t know anything about angels.”
Amenediel slowly lowered his mug to the little patio table, and his words were careful and slow. “Riiight. You, and literally every other human on the planet.”
“Yeah, but not any other human on the planet is-” she broke off, just staring at him, willing him to understand.
“Living with one?” he suggested.
Chloe huffed a breath. “In love with one,” she corrected.
“Ah.” Amenediel nodded slowly, lips pressing together around a smile that clearly wanted free.
She shifted. “I want to do this right. I want to understand- I want… I want him to feel loved, Amenediel.”
The suppressed amusement fell from Amenediel’s face immediately, His hand was heavy and warm on her shoulder. “Chloe. I don’t think that Lucifer has ever felt more loved than he feels with you.”
“But if there’s something that I’m not doing that I could be… I want to understand.”
He spread his hands wide and leaned back in his chair. “What would you like to know?”
Chloe took a deep breath, and smiled widely. “Do angels say ‘I love you?’”
His answer was immediate. “Noooo,” he shook his head. Chloe gestured for him to keep talking. It was his turn to shift and drink tea. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “There isn’t a word for it.” She frowned. “Like, literally, Chloe.There isn’t a word for ‘love’ in our language.”
Her brows wrinkled in confusion. “But.. you’re angels.”
He laughed. “Yeah. I think it’s meant to be implied.” He visibly searched for words. “We’re all family, Chloe. Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters. We’re all supposed to love each other. There are words for ‘appreciation,’ there’s ‘praise,’ there’s ‘affection,’ ‘honor,’ and even ‘friendship,’ but … no. The word for ‘love’ was created by humans, to designate a special bond. I’m pretty sure that we were all supposed to love each other.”
Chloe shook her head at how strange the idea was. “But that’s not - Amenediel, do you seriously love every member of your family equally?”
He spun the mug around in his hands again. “Well, not equally, no. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love them. And I don’t think that we were supposed to be as dysfunctional as we are.”
“Huh.”
Amenediel pressed his lips together, and leaned toward her, like he was about to share a secret. “Chloe, how many angels do you think have taken a life partner before?”
“Not...many?”
“None,” he enunciated. His lips curved at the shock on her face. “But Lucifer is nothing if not… unique.” He leaned back in his chair again.
The bottom had dropped out of Chloe’s stomach. “But that means… Amenediel, that means there’s nothing? There’s nothing I can do to-”
“No, no,” he cut her off, “There’s a lot you can do, Chloe.”
“But-”
“There’s not a word for it; that doesn’t mean that we didn’t have others that we felt especially close to. And with no real words to express that, it’s all in actions.”
She nodded until her ponytail bobbed, rubbing clammy palms on the thighs of her jeans. “Okay,” she nodded, “Yeah,” more nodding, “Like what?”
“Well. I’ve noticed that you always call Lucifer by his full name,” he suggested.
“And you don’t.”. Luci, his siblings called him, and Lu.
Amenediel nodded. “Nicknames are considered affectionate, intimate. Like-”
“-Detective,” she breathed.
Amenediel nodded, lips quirked. “Yeah. Like ‘Detective, and ‘Urchin.’”
She frowned. “But he calls Ella ‘Miss lopez.’ That’s even more formal?”
“But it’s unique to them. They’ve known each other for years, and he still calls her that, and none of her other friends do.”
“He called Dan “douche.”
Amenediel’s eyes crinkled. “Well, it’s a form of affection, as long as it’s not overtly offensive.”