I knew what I was getting into when I said your name

...but I said it just the same

It's an easy case. Dan pokes at the frozen lump in his chest a few times to see if he feels anything about that. There's no reaction. He decides that, rationally, the assignment is a thing he should be grateful for. Washed-up druggie gets killed by her loser of a dealer, who does them a solid by driving his shitty car so badly he promptly dies himself rather than cluttering up a cell waiting to plead guilty. If Dan had anywhere he wanted to be he'd be tempted to skip on gathering evidence, but that's another feeling and Dan has more or less stopped having those, so, yeah, he does his job. The washed up dead druggie has an empty bag in her purse that matches the full ones in the dead drug dealer's pockets. Empty, full, open, shut.

There's a surviving witness Dan assumes is some douchebag she was trying to fuck or steal cash out of. But you should always have some cases on record where you make a point of dotting every i and crossing every t, and the ones where you don't need to worry it'll lead to more work are the best for that, so fuck it, he'll do this properly. For Trixie.

"Nice watch," Anthony says by his side. "You gonna..."

Dan shakes his head. "Nah, man, it's all yours if you want it. Probably not even worth anything if a bottom-feeder like him had it." He'd bet it can't even keep time properly.

"Always about the moolah with you."

What else does he have to offer?

He's jolted by Anthony's friendly pat on the back. "Hey, that guy you're going to talk to, the witness? He's that guy with the devil act the boys were talking about. Does the kind of 'favors' that means he owns people, calls himself Lucifer."

"Huh." Dan's memory hasn't been the best these last months. Yeah, maybe they'd been talking about that.

"Might be behind the hit himself. So don't stick your neck out or anything, alright?"

"When do I ever," Dan says, and Anthony laughs.

When does Dan ever. No, everyone on the force knows that's not their easy-going Detective Espinoza. Not about any of the little things. Not about any of the big things. Not even for his wife.

(Except once, after it was too late. But no one will ever know about that.)

Maybe the 'witness' really is behind the druggie's death, because he's not in the hospital himself. Supposedly, he was standing right next to her but miraculously, he wasn't so much as nicked. He's back at his nightclub already, and when Dan enters, he's even playing the piano.

Dan doesn't believe. Not just in God, in anything. The closest Dan has ever been understanding what other people meant by religion was the sight of Chloe that day, white hospital sheets under her glowing like a halo.

But maybe Dan is too tired to care anymore about if this is all fake. Maybe he's too tired to care that some guy with mob connections and delusions of grandeur can't make an actual miracle. And maybe if there was really such a thing as the devil, it'd be this man, with something wrong and wild in his eyes.

He doesn't know that he still has a soul to pawn when it feels like he's sold it a thousand times already, but he's never heard of the devil turning anyone down.

Lucifer Morningstar asks what a corrupt little band of piggies plan to do about the killing. He says they're incompetent. He raises his voice. Dan can barely hear him because it feels like his heart has started beating again without bothering to unfreeze first. The reasons for keeping his mouth shut are shattering away and all that's left is how much it hurts and how much he wants.

"Chloe," crashes out as unstoppable as an avalanche.

The man who might be the devil is startled into a laugh. It isn't a kind one. But that's what Dan wants, isn't it. The devil. What he deserves. A way out. "You are a weak thing, aren't you. At any rate, no. I'm quite big on free will, you might have heard, and I'm sure she had good reason to turn you down. There's other fish in the sea, chum!" He leans in and in and in and Dan can't see anything but him. "But I'm sure there's something else, something that you really desire, hm?"

"I want Chloe to wake up."

"Huh," the man says, sitting back in his chair. "I wasn't expecting that." He learns forward again. "Tell me more."

Dan falters and chokes on his words for a moment, because he wants to, he wants to lay his soul bare for judgement but what about Trixie? He manages, "She's in a coma. She was shot." Such cowardice to put it that way, like it was just something that happened, when it should be Malcolm shot her, when it should be I let Malcolm shoot her.

"And you want...you want her to wake up? You don't want revenge?"

He laughs in Lucifer Morningstar maybe the devil's face. "I'm a cop!" he says. "God -"

"- I assure you, He's not involved here -"

" - you think I need your help with revenge?"

Lucifer chuckles. "No, I suppose you don't."

"But she wouldn't have wanted that," Dan continues. "She's - a good person. Someone who does the right thing."

The man frowns at him, looking perplexed. "You didn't?"

He can't he can't he can't what about Trixie but forget Hell and its pitchforks he wants his guilty heart weighed on the scale and thrown to crocodiles like he heard about as a kid in elementary school, he wants what he deserves, he wants to confess that the truth is, "I did." Ruined another family's life just like his had been ruined. "She's a good person. She's the one who should be here. I'm - I'm not."