I'll bite. 13 and 35 look like they might be fun together. 😈
Thank you so much for this fun prompt, Shelly ❤ The opportunities seemed endless, but in the end I went with this. I hope you like it.
Once again, I screwed up at brevity, so this is 1.9K (:
13. Someone does something stupid + 35. 'You wanna bet?' 'Care to wager?'
Never make a bet with the Devil.
A deal, if you must. But do not bet against him.
Not because he’ll take your soul or anything; he won’t even necessarily take your money.
But because he can’t handle it. He can’t. He’ll stop at nothing to win, and when he doesn’t—when he can’t shoot down a bottle of vodka with a slingshot from 400 feet away, or blow a soap bubble with his nose, or fly to Sweden and back in under thirty minutes (the latter he did do, but a drug test showed he’d taken EPO)—he’ll walk around in a pathetic cloud of self-pity, sulking and pouting to an unbearable degree for days on end.
So if you care about the Devil, don’t bet with him. It’s for his own good.
It really is.
And yet-
Chloe picks up the dirty plates from the coffee table as gunshots fire around her. It makes her a little uneasy, how real it sounds through their newly installed surround sound system. One so expensive she doesn’t even want to know.
Their just as overpriced (and unnecessarily big) TV is bathing Lucifer in white-blue light as he stares at the screen intently. He did want to watch the movie with her, but she’s not much of a Weaponizer fan, and she’d like to clean up before she snuggles up next to him on the couch and inevitably falls asleep. As she’s gathered all the dishes in her arms, however, she can’t help but pause and glance at the film for just a second.
‘Yeah, like that could actually happen,’ she snorts, watching the car jump across a considerable gap in a bridge, flip mid-air, and land on all four wheels on the other side. ‘I mean, no one’s ever done that.’
As soon as the words leave her mouth Chloe knows she’s made a mistake.
Lucifer pauses the movie—because God forbid he misses five seconds of a film he’s watched thirty times—before he looks up at her with a lifted eyebrow and a devilish grin.
‘Is that a challenge, Detective?’
Chloe glares at him, her jaw clenching. ‘It’s not possible,’ she states firmly, which is even worse, because now he can only reply with-
‘Care to wager?’
Chloe wants to kick herself.
‘There’s no way in Hell you’re doing that,’ she tells him, nodding towards the paused screen before she heads for the kitchen to start the dishwasher.
‘Why? Because my worried girlfriend won’t let me?’ he calls after her. ‘I’m invulnerable, remember?’
Chloe refills her wine glass, generously, and returns to the living room.
‘No,’ she objects, careful not to spill Pinot Noir on the couch as she settles against Lucifer’s warm, silk-clad side. ‘I just know you’ll never forgive yourself when your beloved Corvette rams into a cliff.’
Lucifer gasps and scoffs. ‘As if I’d ever risk such a sweet beauty like that!’ He plucks the glass out of her hand and takes a sip. ‘And even if I did, she would not, because I would succeed, first try.’
‘First try? Really?’
Chloe grabs the remote and replays the last fifteen seconds. Looking at it a second time, it’s even more ridiculous. The background is so obviously a green screen it’s not even funny, the flip is clearly made using some sort of outdated CGI, and they haven’t even bothered making it look like there’s a real person in the car. Also—Chloe doesn’t remember much from school, but she’s pretty sure the entire stunt defies physics as the car leaps, practically flies over the 150 feet gap, all the while rotating 360 degrees sideways.
‘Maybe third,’ Lucifer admits.
Chloe shakes her head and sighs.
‘I can do it, Detective.’ He looks at her like it’s a threat. ‘And I will.’
Oh, he will definitely try. The determination in his eyes leave no doubt about that. But he can’t possibly copy that stunt with an actual car and an actual gap. There’s just no way. And she shouldn’t spur him on. She really shouldn’t. But the idiot’s gotta learn at some point, and if she’s gonna have to deal with his childish disappointment (and she will), she might as well get something out of it.
‘Fine,’ she shrugs. ‘What are we betting?’
He grins at her, brown eyes twinkling with excitement.
‘If—nay, when I win,’ he answers promptly, and Chloe rolls her eyes, ‘I’ll finally get that thing I’ve always wanted.’
Chloe stares at him, comepletely clueless. If his tone and stupid smirk are anything to go by, it’s not a pet shark he’s talking about.
‘One... re-enactment for another,’ he clarifies slowly, his dark gaze gliding over her body before his eyes flicker to the glass doors leading to their terrace—and their outdoor hot tub.
Chloe fights the urge to roll her eyes again.
‘Okay,’ she agrees, internally reminding herself it doesn’t really matter. She gives him a cocky smile. ‘And when I win?’
Lucifer chuckles as if he finds her adorably naïve. Asshat. Still, he says, ‘You’ll get anything you desire.’
Chloe thinks. There’s not much she desires he wouldn’t give her anyway. She could have him do paperwork for a month, but he’d just mess it up, and she’d have to listen to his complaints about ‘torturous boredom’ and ‘purgatory’. She could also go for something funnier, like have him wear t-shirt and sweats to work for a week. But that would just be cruel, wouldn’t it?
‘I don’t know,’ she tells him, but the words are barely out of her mouth before Trixie’s enthusiastic voice sounds behind them.
‘I might have an idea!’
Lucifer sighs and gives Chloe an unimpressed look before he shifts slightly in his seat to look at her daughter.
‘Alright, but only because your mum lacks creativity like a sober Faulkner.’
Trixie walks around the couch and comes to stand in front of them, a mischievous smile on her face.
‘Please don’t tell me it’s a unicorn on the cheek,’ Lucifer huffs, taking another gulp of Chloe’s wine.
‘It’s not,’ she assures him and holds out her iPad for him to see. It’s a doodle of a small, fluffy goat with pink fur. ‘I was thinking something more… permanent.’ With the hand that’s not holding her tablet, Trixie pats a spot on the left side of her upper chest.
Lucifer slowly removes the wine glass from his lips, and the sheer horror on his face makes Chloe snort with laughter.
He stares at the small, inarguably adorable drawing like it’s a personal insult, glances down at his chest with dread, and looks back to Trixie.
‘You little Devil,’ Lucifer grumbles, but there’s no trace of hostility in his voice. If anything, he sounds a little impressed. He grabs Trixie’s iPad from her outstretched hand and studies the pink kawaii buck for a second, as if he’s seriously considering saying yes to the deal.
Eventually, he sighs. ‘I’m in.’
‘Lucifer-’ Chloe immediately begins to protest. He’s not gonna win this bet, and she knows how downright intolerable he’ll be when he’ll have to get a cute, chubby animal—one that, to him, represents mockery and misconception—tattooed onto his skin. She's tired already, just thinking about all the whining she'd have to deal with.
But it’s too late. Her boyfriend and daughter shake hands, and the deal is settled.
Chloe palms her face.
‘Wait, what do you get if you actually manage to… whatever it is this time?’ Trixie asks, her small hand still clasped in Lucifer’s.
Chloe looks up at him, heat creeping up her cheeks. Their eyes meet shortly before he looks back to her daughter, visibly conflicted.
‘Eh…’
It’s not so much a word as it is a breathy, high-pitched sound, partly stuck in his throat. But it’s answer enough for Trixie.
‘Forget I asked,’ she quickly says, her face scrunched up in disgust. ‘I’ll be in my room.’
She takes her iPad back and leaves them alone on the couch.
‘So, I guess it’s tit or tat, then,’ Lucifer remarks with a chuckle, glancing down at Chloe’s chest.
She snorts and smiles, despite herself.
‘But, I mean-’ He grabs the remote and plays the scene a third time.
He must not see the same utterly absurd and almost comically impossible stunt she (still) sees, because he leans down and whispers in her ear, ‘Better start rehearsing your lines, Detective.’
Chloe shakes her head at him and snuggles closer to his body.
*
‘You’re lucky I like your mother,’ Lucifer mumbles as the needle pinches ink into his chest.
He’d driven off in a ‘cheap’ Porsche this morning and returned eight hours later, looking like he’d literally been fed to the wolves and with no Porsche.
‘Hey honey,’ she’d greeted him, hiding her smirk behind her cup of tea. ‘How’d it go?’
He’d answered with a grunt, blamed the Germans for making their cars too ‘praktisch’ and the Italians for not making theirs fast enough (he’d controlled for variables) and finally concluded it was all his dad’s fault because He ‘created that pesky gravity’.
Then he’d handed her an ornate, black business card and looked at her as if he’d picked his own casket.
Chloe had bit her cheek and hugged him before driving all three of them to the high-end tattoo parlour he’d requested.
‘You okay there?’ she asks him, letting him grip her hand tighter. The fact that he isn’t feeling any actual pain—‘any physical pain, Detective!’—makes his wincing all the more pathetic. Still, she feels a little bad for him.
‘No.’ He bends his neck to peer down at his chest, and pouts. ‘I’m not.’
Trixie grins beside him. ‘I think it looks cool!’
‘Of course, you do. You’re a twelve-year-old girl.’
The smile on Trix’ face turns into a smirk. ‘A twelve-year-old who girl you lost a bet to.’
Sighing deeply, Lucifer turns his head to scowl at her like she’s his annoying little sister and not the stepdaughter he’d go to the ends of the universe for.
‘It’ll be gone in a few months,’ Chloe reminds him, earning her a funny look from the tattoo artist.
The muscle in Lucifer’s jaw ticks. ‘It’s not even finished yet and I already hate it more than I ever did my bloody wings! How am I supposed to endure this… horned cotton candy for months?’
Chloe takes a deep breath. She brought this on herself. She knew she shouldn’t have made that bet with him. She knew he’d be an insufferable drama queen.
She also knows, after hours of hearing him moan, that he’s not gonna shut up about ‘deceitful special effects’ and ‘useless laws of physics’, much less the ‘vile, little creature marring his muscled chest’. Not unless she does something.
So Chloe does something.
For the second time in her life, she gets naked in—and out of a hot tub.
‘No moaning, then,’ she tells him, giving him a stern look.
Lucifer looks her up and down in awe and hunger, dark eyes lingering on the tiny red bikini he knows she’ll take off in a matter of seconds. ‘Now, there’s a promise I can’t keep.’
‘About the wager,’ she clarifies, but he’s not listening.
With a sigh, Chloe sinks into the hot, bubbling water, loosens her bikini top, and gets into character.
She is never, ever betting with the Devil again.
30 notes
·
View notes