A/N: Sorry for the delay, I had got major writer's block with this! It's annoying because I know where this story is going - I've got sections of it written out! Gah. I think Season 3 threw me for the first few episodes as well... Anyway! Onwards! Thank you for all the favourites and reviews - I love reading the reviews, they spur me on! 3

Chapter Seven: Old Habits

Chloe's phone buzzed as she finished catching up with a couple of uniformed officers and Lucifer poked at the files on her desk. After the bloody find at Nathan's apartment, Lucifer had begged off the case for the evening, pleading the need to catch up with his brother and Maze. She'd waved him off with practised ease and been relishing the idea of finally getting a quiet night to herself before realising, as she soaked in a long-overdue bubble bath, that the quiet was unsettling. Granted, he'd only been missing for a few days and granted, they'd spent an unusual amount of time together since his return, but these two things only served to make her feel his absence all the more keenly. She wanted to call him for a chat or text him to see what he was up to: and wasn't that bizarre. The last time she'd wanted to do anything like that she'd in dating Dan! The urge to know what another was doing, if they were thinking of each other. Chloe had resisted the urge with an iron fist on her willpower and settled instead for a cup of hot chocolate (with just a dash of rum – she wasn't sure whether she should blame Maze or Lucifer for the idea and bad influence it demonstrated).

As it was, she managed to get to sleep without Lucifer there. Despite the coldness of the bed and silence of the room - just as she had for the years before they'd ever shared a bed. However, as with the night he'd returned (from the desert, he still insisted) he consumed her thoughts. Without his distracting presence, her mind was free to puzzle over the Many Mysteries of Lucifer, as well as dissect the few clues they had for the current case: she didn't get a restful night of sleep, broken as it was with bizarre dreams and lengthy bouts of tossing and turning. That morning, when she pulled in to the precinct, she was surprised to find Lucifer there, leaning against her desk with coffees in hand. In all the time she'd known him he'd not once beat her to work. Given that he owned a nightclub, it wasn't actually anything she'd ever held against him. She'd spent the last hour catching up on reports from yesterday; Lucifer was being… Lucifer and not doing anything useful – quite the opposite, he'd just finished distracting a young, uniformed officer who'd walked by her desk.

Chloe's phone buzzed as Lucifer poked at the files on her desk, jolting her from her reverie. She checked the number and answered, as a tall, broad man with greying brown hair finished speaking with Dan and strode over to the club owner. Marcus Pierce, must be. Chloe listened with half an ear as she took down the information from the cop at the scene of a crime scene downtown.

"You must be Lucifer."

"Morningstar. Pleasure." He nodded and held out a hand.

Pierce tilted his head slightly and the barest of smirks teased his features. "There was an investigation last year. We interviewed what was it, 92 of your sexual partners? I think I'll refrain from physical contact if you don't mind." He paused as Lucifer snorted, looking him up and down, assessing. "You don't seem reckless. Narcissistic, hedonistic, that I see."

"Well, thank you very much." Lucifer smiled, slightly self-indulgent and pleased with himself.

Chloe resisted the urge to step between them as she finished with the call. Indignation of his behalf flared hot in her chest and she clenched her jaw shut. Not a compliment, Lucifer.

"Not a compliment. Your file is as long as my Johnson."

"Oh?" He quirked an eyebrow, "Quick read then?"

Chloe grabbed her jacket and walked briskly over to the two men squaring off in the middle of the precinct. Seriously, the Lieutenant of the police was making dick jokes?

"Hardly."

"Well, I, for one, don't need a file to ascertain you haven't even had a snog in ages, have you?"

A small smile tugged at the edges of the Lieutenants lips. Was he interested in Lucifer? "Accurate."

Just get a damned ruler! Chloe chose that moment to step between them.

"Okay! Hi. I am Detective Decker: Lucifer's partner."

He looked down at her, an unreadable expression written in light blue eyes. "I know."

Wait, not what I meant. She cursed herself and tried to correct the assumption he implied. "Actually, he's mine. Uh, uh, consultant, to be exact."

"That's what I said."

Do not sass the Lieutenant. Do not sass the Lieutenant. Chloe felt a muscle in her cheek twitch from the strain of hold back all the responses she wanted to make, and instead bit out a civilised response.

"Right well, we've got a case. We should go." She turned to Lucifer, who was still staring out said Lieutenant. "Lucifer."

He hummed at her and leaned forward ever so slightly, narrowing the space between himself and the other man. A tiny invasion of personal space. A tiny threat. The air felt tighter around them, almost imperceptible but there.

"Nice to meet you, Lieutenant." Chloe nodded, then brushed past Lucifer in a silent command to follow. She was hoping it would work but refused to turn and check. He'smy partner! He's not even LAPD! The assumption in Pierce's comment smarted more than she was willing to admit.

She was half way up the steps when she heard his light tread hasten to join her. Chloe tried not to smile and forced her features to straighten before she glanced at him. "All done? You sure you two don't want a ruler?"

"No need, Detective." He assured her, straightening his jacket as they emerged into the bright Californian daylight. "I can say without a doubt that I am the bigger 'man'. No ruler needed. Where're we going?"

Chloe gave a derisive snort and forcefully stopped thinking about what she'd glimpsed on several occasions. He didn't have anything to complain about, certainly. And to be fair to his comment, the Lieutenant would have quite some job to 'measure up'. And now I'm thinking about the size of both of them! She felt a blush creep up her cheeks and from the smirk on Lucifer's face, he'd seen and guessed precisely where her thoughts had led. She carried on, ignoring the unspoken taunt.

"There's been another murder – sounds like it could be related."

Lucifer straightened his sleeves and waved her towards the stairs. "Well then, lead on, Detective."

There was no question whether or not it was a premeditated murder. The body was strung up onto the inside of a shipping container roof in the shape of a cross. The floor was covered in symbols, written in what looked like blood.

"Looks like the victim was drained of their blood before they were tied up and hoisted up there," Ella gestured up to the ropes and wooden cross that they'd lowered to the ground.

"Is this Latin, again?" Chloe gestured to the floor, looking to Ella, then Lucifer.

"No," Ella said, "At least, I don't think so."

"It is, and it isn't," Lucifer frowned, tilting his head to look at the painted floor. "Some of it is Latin – though it's a very old, very obscure dialect. Some of it is… it's Enochian."

"Enochian? Never heard of it."

"It's the celestial language, used by angels and most demons. The dialects are different, of course."

"Which dialect is this? What does it say?"

"Demonic." He said with certainty. "I think Dad, even as distant as he is these days, wouldn't let Angelic Enochian be written in fresh blood, especially since he discovered Mercy." Lucifer walked around the bloody text, cocking his head at an awkward angle to better read what was written there, "And it says, 'I'm coming for you Sa -'"

"Sa?" Chloe prompted. Lucifer was suddenly very still.

"Samael."

Chloe frowned at Lucifer, it wasn't like him to hesitate. But then again, there'd been something off since the minute he'd turned up in her bedroom. She'd thought, initially, that he was back to his normal self but last night, alone for the first time in 48 hours she'd thought that he's persona seemed… thin. Like just under the surface was something else. "Who's Samael? Does that name mean something to you?"

"Nothing of consequence, Detective."

The brush off, how quaint. Well, she didn't get to Detective by letting people give her the brush off whenever they deemed something unnecessary to share. "No, na uh. This is a murder investigation, Lucifer. I'll decide what's of consequence, and what's not. Who's Samael?"

"He's… featured in ancient Judaism? I think. Hard to keep track, you know. He's said to have been an angel in the heavenly host, one given the task of being the archangel of death. He was sometimes referred to as Satan, in later texts. He's not mentioned in the Bible." Lucifer shoved his hands in his pockets to appear laid back, but looked down at his shiny, expensive shoes and held his shoulders too tautly to pull it off completely. It was this, rather than his words, that caused her concern.

"So, Samael is the Devil?"

"It's slightly more complicated than that." He complained, "You're reducing thousands of years to a sentence."

"I'm summarising."

"Yes, well if you want to get it correct, rather than summarising, then Samael was my original angelic name. Before… everything. Not a common connection, and not so much a nickname as a former name. You'd think they had something against 'Lucifer'! What's wrong with 'Lucifer?'"

"So, our killer is some kind of what? Religious zealot? Satanist?" Chloe rubbed forehead with her fingers, trying to push back the headache she felt brewing behind her eyes. She was piecing together the logical history behind his explanation, pronouns aside. He didn't even blink, aligning his character with the history of Samael without pause. Of course, if he was the Devil that might explain the healed scars… don't even go there, Chlo. "Ella, anything?"

"Sorry man, whoever this is – they're good. No prints on the body or around on the floor."

Chloe huffed out a breath and put her hands on her hips, thinking. "Last time, it was 'I am returned; my time has come; Your time has come.' Now it's 'I'm coming for you, Samael'? We have no physical evidence, no impressions, no trace evidence and no suspects? So, all we do know is that the murderer is probably well educated – he can write Latin and this… Enochian. He's probably deeply religious, if what you're saying is right and it's supposed to be the language of 'angels' and 'demons' –"

"Are the air quotes necessary, Detective?"

Chloe waved Lucifer's indignant complaint off with a tilt of her head, still verbalising her assumptions. "We can assume they either work in or around the docks, or live nearby given that both murders occurred here. Do we have a rough time of death?"

Ella hummed as she thought before answering. "I'd need the full autopsy report to be sure, but I'd put it between 3 to 4am this morning – same time as our other victim, actually."

"Alright: let's get any CCTV we can from as close as we can to the containers. There can't be that much coming and going here at that hour."

As it turned out, there was considerably more comings and goings than one would think. It took the rest of the day, one vending machine sandwich and two awful coffees to complete the task, by Chloe's count. Lucifer alternated between intently reviewing the tapes and being thoroughly distracted, usually by his phone. It did, however, provide them with a lead.

Singular.

Chloe phoned in the plates from a suspicious black sedan and leant back in her chair, turning her head to Lucifer. He cocked his head in response.

"What now then, Detective?"

"I need to pick up Trixie from school, no sitter today. Wanna come?"

"Willingly subject myself to your Spawn?" he scoffed, "Think I'll pass. Did she like the chocolate, by the way?"

"She hasn't had it yet – she's been at Dan's. It's waiting for her in her bedroom. I'll have to ration it, you know. She eats enough chocolate cake as it is, never mind all those treats you bought for her as well."

"You can't do that! That's… depravation!"

"No, it's moderation. She'll eat chocolate until she's sick, otherwise."

"How do you know?"

"Because she's done it before, Lucifer. Two years ago, the day after Halloween."

"That was then, this is now. Really, Detective. I expected better!"

Chloe rolled her eyes at his dramatization of what most people would just call 'parenting'. He had some seriously odd hang ups – where Dr Martin even start in their sessions? Mind you… people in glass houses, and all that. She wasn't ignorant enough to think she didn't have her own issues with her mother's parenting style.

"Just because someone, the Spawn, did something before that you, in your wisdom, deem as wrong-"

"She puked chocolate for an hour, Lucifer."

He stalled mid-rant and considered her words. "Yes well, my point still stands. That was two years ago. The little urchin has grown since then, wouldn't you say?"

"You think I should give her a chance, with the mountain of chocolate you bought for her?"

"Exactly!"

She sighed. This was one of those conversations with subtext that he usually reserved for the criminals of cases, and yet she was getting it now, about Trixie, and chocolate. Her first reaction was to blow him off, after all what did he know about childrearing, but the man did have a point. She hummed. "I'll leave it where she can see it, in the kitchen. If she only eats what she's allowed, or at least only steals an extra one or two, then it can stay there."

"So you're testing her?"

She nodded, "I guess."

"What is it with parents and testing their children?" he muttered, turning to peer out the windows. Disgruntled. Chloe felt tension knit its way across her shoulders, indignation written in the weave.

"To see what they've learned, Lucifer. To see if they're ready."

Chloe pulled the door to Trixie's bedroom door shut softly and returned to the dining room table, where she'd spread out all her notes for their current case. Forensics had come back with their reports since they'd picked Trixie up from school – much to the little girl's delight. Chloe could hardly deny the amusement that sparked through her at seeing Lucifer's flinch at her enthusiastic greeting.

Lucifer was sprawled across her sofa, Scotch in hand and head lolling against the low headrest. Chloe longed to sink down next to him and take the weight off her feet but instead braced her arms against the dining table and stared down at her notes from the case.

She groaned in frustration. "It just doesn't make sense."

"So you've said, Detective." He replied without turning around. He was playing with his phone, fingers flicking across the screen deftly – texting someone no doubt.

"You don't get it – it's not possible. These reports say there's nothing from the bodies. Not even the smartest murderers leave nothing. There's always something. And the only weird thing we have to go on is that vehicle, and the sulphur traces."

"Sulphur?"

"Yeah, Ella confirmed that's what we could smell at the apartment. There were smaller amounts at the other crime scenes as well. There's a few other unsolved cases that match the sulphur thing –"

"What?"

"Yeah – the last one was a few years ago." She brushed her fingers over the sheets of paper and muttered, "I really don't want to have to file this one under 'Sinnerman' as well."

"You're not making much sense, Detective. Please explain."

Chloe nearly jumped – he was stood right behind her. When had he even moved? How hadn't she seen him? One the sofa, he would have been still in her peripheral vision, it was why she liked to work at the table and leave Trixie in the living room.

"Lucifer!" she scolded, "Don't do that! How did you do that?"

"What, walk?" he smirked, "Or make that lovely blush creep into your cheeks?"

She noted, absently, that he didn't answer the question. A bluff. She gestured for him to continue.

"You said 'Sinnerman' – who's that?"

"Depends on who you ask. Most cops think he's some kind of crime lord working in the shadows."

"And you?"

Chloe sighed, this was another place where she and her colleagues disagreed. Not quite as polarising as Palmetto, but still another line in the sand between Her and Them. "I think he's just an urban myth some suspects like to blame stuff one when they need an excuse or can't remember. The sulphur thing is the only bit I can't explain – it was at the other supposed Sinnerman crime scenes too."

"That is… odd."

"Yeah." Chloe turned back to the table and gathered the notes. She wasn't going to get any further tonight, not without more evidence or a fresh lead. "Are you… staying?"

Lucifer frowned and shook his head. "'Fraid not. I've not been to see Linda yet and I feel… quite bad, about that."

Chloe bit down the surge of jealousy that reared its ugly head, pushing it and the disappointment down with ruthless pressure until they were boxed neatly away with everything else. She knew Linda and Lucifer's… payment arrangement was a thing of the past – that wasn't what bugged her. She knew he spoke to Linda. Properly. No bluffing, no skirting the truth – he had to, she was his therapist as well as his friend. Why wouldn't he trust her like that? She also acknowledged her own nagging guilt that she hadn't dropped in to see the injured Doctor yet either. She'd been so preoccupied with pretending not to be preoccupied with Lucifer's disappearance she'd admittedly forgotten about the other woman, for the most part.

"Fair enough," she agreed, walking with him to the door, "see you tomorrow, Lucifer."

He gave her a sad smile, his eyes hooded and dark as he stood in the shadows of the doorway. "Until then, Detective."

Linda Martin did not usually pander to her clients. She had office hours (Monday to Friday, 8.30am until 6pm): however, Lucifer Morningstar had never been like the rest of her clients. He was certainly the first one she'd slept with, the first one she agreed to let pay for their sessions with sex.

He stood out in many ways. For example, the rest of her clients were human; Lucifer was the Devil. The rest of her clients called to book an appointment at her office; Lucifer just turned up. At her hospital room. Outside of visiting hours.

"Good evening, Lucifer."

"Linda! How're you feeling?" He stood the doorway, hands in his pockets and taking in the bruises on her body, the machines still around the bed. Thankfully now all disconnected, save for a drip into her arm.

"I'm much better: they're discharging me tomorrow, hopefully."

"Wonderful!" He gave her one of his rare, genuine smiles and finally stepped into the room, settling himself comfortably in the hard, plastic chair next to her bed that Maze had vacated just an hour before. Linda gave him a minute to get settled, then raised her eyebrows at him expectantly. It wasn't like he made house calls, after all. He clearly wanted to discuss something: either relating to his disappearance or Chloe. She'd place money on it being both.

"Maze told you what happened after I left here?" he said without preamble.

"She gave me the cliff notes version, I think. Someone knocked you out and took you to a different plane of existence where time passed differently for you."

Lucifer nodded. "Did she tell you what my Father did?"

When Linda shook her head no, he leant back in the chair and peer out into the hallway. Seeing no one, he tipped the chair back onto all fours and frowned. "He gave me my wings back."

She blinked. Had god almighty restored his most fallen of Angels? She blinked again. Her lapsed faith was still struggling with the concept that it was all very real. For now, she continued to focus on her patient: she could ask questions later. She was getting better at holding in the desperate need for answers to well, life, during his sessions. "How did that make you feel?"

"Furious! Who does he think he is?"

"God?"

"Very funny." His face said he didn't think her funny at all. "It's not a gift if you can't refuse it."

"You think they were supposed to be a gift?"

"I'm sure that's what He would describe them as."

If there was a prize award to patients who were most gifted at avoiding an answer, that award would go to Lucifer, every time. "Can you… return the gift?"

"I can cut them off and burn them again."

"Will you?"

"I keep trying and they keep coming back." Lucifer gripped the arms of the hospital chair, opened his mouth as if to speak again but no sound came out. Linda looked at him expectantly: she'd found that after a certain point he couldn't be guided to his own answers or pushed into further self-discovery. This felt like one of those times. She switched track.

"Last time we spoke, you implied you would speak with Chloe. Have you?"

"No," he huffed, "It's too… complicated now."

"Why do you say that?"

"Weren't you listening? My wings!" he said angrily, "She won't believe I'm the devil now, she didn't before! How will she believe me if I have my wings? And my devil face is gone! And let's not even get started on the fact that it looks like there's some Arch Demon on the loose!"

Linda took a moment to ponder this, using the pause both to fully consider what the statement implied and to give him a moment to regain his composure. And to pick a topic. "You're worried she'll think you're… an angel? Not the Devil?"

Lucifer made a frustrated noise and stood up, pacing to the window and back again, like a caged animal. "I am an angel, Doctor. Just not a very 'good' one. Devil: evil, remember?"

"You always insist that you punish evil, why do you see yourself differently now?"

He pushed his back into the sofa and crossed his arms. Linda felt tension knit across her own shoulders as she thought perhaps she'd pushed a little too hard, a little too fast. Lucifer was a lot like a frightened animal, backed into a corner much of the time. He couldn't be forced out. She retreated and tried again.

"You mentioned your devil face is gone, what do you mean?"

"I mean, I tried to frighten another annoying preacher cretin downtown and nothing happened. I tried it with Maze before I came here and still nothing. How can I be the devil, if I don't have a devil face?"

What do I say to that? Years of psychology training, twice as many practising and she had no idea how to answer that. It was half existential crisis, half identity crisis. Of biblical proportions, literally. "Do you feel like you're still the devil?"

"Dad can't give me back my wings and take away who I am!"

Linda mentally tallied up another avoidance award before saying, "Well then: do you feel you're still the devil?"

He smiled without humour. "Once evil, always evil, right, doctor?"

"You're not evil, you're the Devil: you punish evil. They're your words, Lucifer."

"I did say that, didn't I?" he mused, "I think I'd forgotten. Perhaps it's time I proved that I still do, wings or no. I can start with the Hellspawn taunting me from the docks."

Lucifer nodded and stood abruptly, giving her a quick, wide smile. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm glad to see you're on the mend."