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The harsh buzzing, humming, and clanking of the hundreds of thousands air conditioning units of Los Angeles were usually wanted noises, ones promising relief from the painfully scorching and oppressive summers which gripped the city. A sort of heat that stole the breath as it settled in the lungs and burned, prickled unpleasantly against the skin as it leached away every drop of moisture. Air conditioning, in Chloe Decker’s opinion, was a necessity.
Which made its betrayal all the more cruel.
She’d always taken care of her AC units, no matter where she’d lived. She dutifully replaced the filters when the manual told her so, cleaned out the dust and dirt when necessary, willingly replaced parts as they failed. And until the past several days, the AC unit had repaid her in kind, never so much as sputtering.
Now, sputtering was the least of her concerns…
“I don’t know what’s causing it,” Chloe said exasperatedly into the phone, pinching her brow with numb fingers. “Three days ago it was running fine, and now it won’t shut off and it’s stuck at its highest setting.”
“Unfortunately, all of our repairmen are currently unavailable. Would you like to make an appointment for next week?” the customer service operator asked. She was the sixth Chloe had talked to in the last hour. “We’re more focused on heater repairs, as you can imagine, it being winter and all.”
“Which is why I would like this issue handled at your earliest convenience,” Chloe gritted out, trying to keep her temper.
“Let me try,” Lucifer implored, standing directly behind her as he listened to the phone call. His hot breath, the only warm thing in the entire fucking house at the moment, felt wonderful against her skin.
She swatted at him halfheartedly before again addressing the operator. “Is there a way to be added to a list in case, I don’t know, someone cancels?”
“Offer her money.” Lucifer was again trying to grab the phone. “I can have a wire transfer completed in less than an hour.”
She elbowed him in the gut, ducking away from him. “We are not bribing anyone!” she hissed.
“Ma’am?”
“Sorry, sorry,” she covered her mouth with her hand, contemplating screaming as she shot Lucifer a glare. “I was just talking to… my kid.” She gave a laugh, partially due to Lucifer’s pout. “You know how they are. The second you’re on the phone, they want your attention.
The operator laughed. “I most certainly do! Well, Ms. Decker, I’ll see if there are any openings in our repairmen’s schedules.”
“Thank you,” she said, hanging up and throwing her phone on the couch.
“Well? What did she say?” Lucifer demanded. “Will they fix it?”
“They’re going to try to send someone today if a spot opens up.” Picking up her discarded blanket, she bundled herself up again. Los Angeles winters were still freaking cold even without rouge AC units doing their damndest to freeze the entire house.
“Why didn’t you offer them any money?” Lucifer collapsed onto the couch beside her, promptly trying to wriggle beneath her blanket. He perhaps would have had more luck if not for the fact he was wearing socks on his hands in lieu of mittens. As it turned out, the Devil was no fan of the cold.
“Stop lifting up the edges!” she said angrily, hands clamped tight on the blanket to keep out the cold air.
“You’re hogging the blanket!”
“I am not! You’re just too big.”
“We fit just fine yesterday...”
When they finally settled, Chloe curled up tight against the arm of the couch and Lucifer squeezed against her with his knees drawn tightly to his chest, they were both gasping for breath.
“See?” Lucifer had drawn the blanket up to his nose, but Chloe could hear his smirk. “I told you we’d fit.”
“Hmm.” Rather than answer, she shoved her feet behind his back. Maybe she could tuck them under his shirt…
“Don’t you dare.” His voice was frigid, and more than a bit fearful as she grabbed the hem of his shirt with her toes.
She raised a challenging brow. “Why not? Need I remind you, ten minutes after the AC broke, you were the one shoving your hands under my shirt and moaning about how cold your fingers were.”
He huffed. “You’ve never complained before.”
Oh, what she would give to chuck a pillow at him now. But that would require freeing her hands from the blanket, a sacrifice she was not willing to make. She settled for pressing her cold foot directly into the small of his back, relishing the warmth of his skin almost as much as his undignified squawk.
He twisted away from her with a wounded expression, puppy eyes far too large and sad to be real. “Why did you do that?” he whined.
“Now you know what it feels like.”
“My hands weren’t nearly that cold when I did it!”
“I thought you were into tit for tat?” she teased. But when his expression remained satirically hurt and unchanged, she sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry. Happy?”
He nodded, shuffling close again and pulling her in close, wrapping his arms around her. “Must we stay here? The penthouse is heated.”
She wished, sinking into the soft fabric of his rarely worn hoodie. She’d bought it for him for Christmas, never really anticipating he would actually wear it unless they went on a trip up north. “The customer service rep said they might be able to send a repairman. So now we have to stay here just in case.”
“Delightful,” he groused, tightening his hold on her.
Honestly, Chloe was still a bit surprised about how cranky he’d become. His body was so heated, she’d thought the cold would barely bother him. He wore three piece suits in the height of summer with little issue. Temperature had always seemed irrelevant to him.
“Are angels not designed for the cold?” she questioned, winding her own arms around him and laying her head on his shoulder.
“That depends entirely on what you mean by ‘designed’,” he chuckled. “Heaven isn’t cold. Nor is it hot. It’s simply,” he shrugged slightly, careful to not move her head, “ideal. Everything in Heaven is always ideal.” There was a trace of bitterness in his voice, one she doubted would ever truly fade. “Hell, on the other hand…”
“Oh,” she said, wincing. Of course he loathed the cold, he’d spent thousands of years in Hell! But it was easy to forget that point sometimes, forget he was the Devil. It wasn’t how she saw him. He was… just Lucifer. He was funny, genuine, occasionally annoying, and the man she loved irrefutably - even if telling him that was still liable to cause cardiac arrest. “Is that why you like Los Angeles?”
“Partially. The temperature is agreeable. Usually. And the irony was simply too perfect to pass up.” He tightened the blankets around them. “But I suppose the main draw was I’d never really explored here before. My every vacation to Earth was to a different place, different countries and cities. I’ve seen a great deal of this world over the centuries, but Los Angeles was novel.”
“What about those other places though? Isn’t there one you’d like to see again even if it’s no longer new?” she wondered. She still had some vacation time saved up. Maybe they could take a trip somewhere and visit one of the areas important to him?
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Memories,” he said softly, nearly mournfully, and she raised her head, trying to judge his expression. “Time differs between Earth and Hell, as you know, but it still crawls forwards. Imagine revisiting a place, a place you enjoyed, only to find everything changed. The people you knew, long dead. The streets you walked down vanished. The sky doesn’t even seem the same.” He sighed. “Everything’s different.”
Her breath caught. It sounded tragic. More than tragic. Cruel. So needlessly cruel.
She settled her head lower on his chest, seeking out his heartbeat with her ear. She wanted to tell him she wouldn’t disappear. She wanted to tell him this house would always be here. She wanted to tell him their sky would never change.
She didn’t want to lie…
“So, how do angels stay warm then?” she asked. It was a clumsy redirection at best, but Lucifer relaxed beside her, tension she hadn’t even noticed unraveling.
“Our wings serve numerous purposes,” he said. “Protecting us from the elements is one of them.”
“You… use them like blankets?” She tried to keep the interest from her voice, knowing how he could sometimes get if she became too curious about the wings.
He nodded slowly. “I suppose that is an adequate descriptor.”
It sounded nice. And more importantly, it sounded warm. She shifted restlessly, wondering how he would react if she asked him to demonstrate. Despite the blanket over them, she still felt awful, the chill gripping her bone deep and refusing to dissipate. She could only take so many hot showers to stay warm.
“Show me?” she asked gently. “If you want to.”
Lucifer was silent for a long moment. She regretted asking. True, he’d let her touch his wings a few times but never like this. Cuddling under them… that was definitely too much.
“You don’t-” she trailed off as Lucifer leaned forwards carefully, pulling her with him. His body flexed, muscles sliding beneath his skin, and then with a low flapping noise, his pristine wings popped into existence, folding close to his back.
As always, the sight stole her breath. There was something so unworldly about the wings. Holy even, though she would never dare voice that aloud to him. Something about the wings clearly said no human was meant to see them, no human deserved it. And yet, he offered them to her now. Simply because she’d asked.
“Here,” Lucifer pressed her to lay down, following after to curl up behind her. There wasn’t much room on the couch, and Chloe pressed her back flush to his chest for fear of falling off the couch. She needn’t have worried though as Lucifer wrapped his right arm around her stomach, anchoring her to him. He tucked her feet between his own, throwing back the blanket and allowing the cold air to hit them full force.
She shivered. “Lucifer-”
And then one of his wings curled forwards in a position that didn’t look exactly comfortable to her and covered them both. His wing shivered twice before settling, it’s great weight pinning her down. But she felt no fear, the soft feathers docile, the skin beneath oh so hot.
Lucifer shifted behind her, ducking his head under the wing. When she craned her neck, all she could see was tufts of his dark hair sticking out, black as ink against the light feathers.
“Is this comfortable?” she asked doubtfully. He had a habit of putting her comfort before his own even at the best of times. And though it was wonderful beneath his wing, the cold being driven from her core, it wasn’t worth upsetting him.
“It’d be more ideal on a bed where I can spread them properly.” His lips moved against the back of her neck, tickling. “But you said we had to wait for the bloody repairman.”
“But it doesn’t hurt?” she pressed.
She felt his smile against her skin. “No Chloe, it’s fine.”
“And if it’s not, you’ll tell me?”
“Of course.”
Satisfied, she carded her fingers gently through the feathers covering her. Lucifer made a content noise, settling deeper into the couch. He had cocooned her fully, far superior to their thin blanket. She could get used to laying down like this.
“This is nice,” she murmured, feeling suddenly lethargic. “I could get used to this.”
“Me too,” he whispered. “Me too.” He shifted, his leg coming up across her own. “Course, sharing body heat is most ideal when both parties are naked…”
She rolled her eyes, bemused. “I was wondering how long it would take for you to suggest that.”
“So is that a yes?”
“Absolutely not. I’m not removing a single layer until that AC unit is fixed.”
“It was worth a try.” He sighed dramatically, and she enjoyed the feeling of his chest pushing against her back with each breath. “You know… sex is warm too.”
“Repairman,” she reminded him.
“So? That’s never stopped the couples in pornos.”
“Those aren’t real. And I am not missing the repairman because we were too… busy.”
He groaned. “In the spring, I’m getting all your AC units replaced.”
She snorted. “Just be glad you can leave whenever you want.”
“No, I couldn’t. I can’t leave you to suffer on your own. Especially when I’m the closest thing to a space heater that you currently have.”
She repeatedly stroked one of his longer feathers, the vein delicate in a way which belayed the strength she knew the limbs held. “And thank you for that.”
“No thanks necessary, Darling. Strangely enough, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
She couldn’t disagree.
Chloe wasn’t sure which of them dropped off first, when their breaths turned heavy and slow, when the wings across her body fully relaxed to drape, trailing against the floor. All she knew was they were warm, happy, and together. That was more than enough.