Chapter Text
1. Oh my capital G-God (Chloe)
It’s been a whole day since Lucifer left her the voicemail. A whole day and he hasn’t come over, hasn’t called her again and hasn’t written her a message.
Chloe thought that he would finally open up to her. That he’d come over to her place, they would sit down over a glass of wine, they’d sit closely to one another and he would explain to her what was really going on with him.
She had hoped. Again and again, she had hoped for him to talk to her, to stop speaking in his crazy metaphors and just tell her what he was hiding—because she can feel it in her gut that he is hiding something from her. And he confirmed her gut feeling, with his voicemail.
“I am done hiding,” he said.
The sun is setting and she can feel the weather changing. Thick clouds collect above the city, looming dark and heavy. Leaning against her kitchen window, she glances up at the ominous thundering sky and lets out a heavy sigh. It will rain any second and it will come down pouring buckets, the weather channel has announced.
She looks at her cell phone again. Lucifer hasn’t seen her various messages.
Are you arriving soon? I’m looking forward to seeing you. I’m taking out the wine, okay?
Hey, where are you? It’s getting really late here. If you’re held up somehow that’s fine. We can talk tomorrow.
Lucifer? Please, if you changed your mind, that’s fine, but don’t just leave me hanging like this.
Fine… I thought that you’d finally talk to me about what’s going on. Seems like I was wrong… Whatever… I’m heading to bed now.
And then came her voicemails.
“Hey Lucifer, it’s me. About yesterday… I hope you’re not doing something drastic again like last time. You know that you can’t just avoid things all the time, right? I’m just… I’m getting a little worried here, cause you haven’t even checked your messages. Please just give me a sign that my partner hasn’t lost it, okay? Will you come around the precinct today? I could really use your help… Bye.”
“Hey Lucifer, it’s me. Again. Seriously, where the hell are you? Did Earth swallow you up or something? Since you didn’t show up, I’m out on a case with Dan. At least call me when you get this.”
“Hey, me again… Are- Are you alright? Sorry, if I’ve been a bit pushy or impatient… I’m just… I was really looking forward to seeing you and… you get me worried, when you do stuff like this… when you completely shut down… I hope that you’re at least listening to your voicemails… Can you please just let me know you’re okay?”
It’s been two hours since her last message.
Still no reply.
Chewing her lower lip, she tries to calm the ache in her chest, tries to calm the unease in her guts, but when another growl rumbles in the sky causing her skin to crawl with goosebumps, she pushes off the window, grabs her car keys and heads out.
She needs to make sure. She needs to know.
She hasn’t passed two blocks when the rain starts to come down in such thick drops, they sound like thundering little impacts on her car. The dude from the weather channel had been right. It is pouring buckets.
Parking the car around the corner of Lux, granted a parking space for her is always held available from Lucifer’s staff after he’d made that an obligation, she rushes towards the overhang of the building’s entrance to get cover. Managing to only get the top of her black blazer damp, she heads straight into Lux and to Lucifer’s private elevator.
And as soon as she stands in the cabin, approaching the penthouse, her heart beats in her throat, her pulse thrumming in her ears.
Fumbling with her hands nervously, brushing through her hair and straightening her blouse by tugging on the lapels, she mumbles to herself. “It’s fine… He’s fine. He’s not gone again… He’s not run off to Vegas… He’s not suddenly married to some weird showgirl stripper. Maybe… Maybe he’s just having some wild party going on. Yeah… Yeah I’m sure that’s it. And he didn’t check his phone at all, because of the music and the drugs and—”
She falls silent as the elevator door’s slide open and she’s greeted by a dark penthouse. The only lights turned on are those of the of the bar and that of the lamp above the piano, but with the lights of the city outside it is all still enough to find her way around.
Stepping into the penthouse, she glances around the living room.
There is no party.
No naked bodies lying across the couch, no food or drinks littering the place. No music blaring from his stereo. The furniture is not covered with white sheets again either, which calms her worries a tiny bit, however, there is still no Lucifer in sight.
“Lucifer?” she calls out into the penthouse that felt worryingly empty and lifeless.
She spots a tumbler on the bar counter with an almost empty bottle of bourbon next to it.
At least a small sign of activity, although she isn’t too sure how fresh it is.
A sudden rolling thunder from outside makes her jump. It is loud. Much louder than she expected it to sound, and when she turns to look back at the wide wall of windows, she notices why that is the case.
One of the sliding windows is open.
The curtains blow into the room and raindrops splatter inside.
Maybe he’s down in Lux and just forgot about the windows, she thinks, trying to rationalise. It might’ve been rattled open with the wind or something…
Deciding to close the window before the rain could ruin his luxurious floor or furniture, she puts her keys and phone onto the bar counter and steps through the living room. On the ground next to the couch, she notices a pile of clothes. Black and white, is what she spots first, then buttons and lapels. It’s a shirt, a vest and a jacket, she realises.
Okay… So maybe he’s down at Lux and he's… topless?
Shrugging off the disturbing thought of wanton women and men clutching themselves against Lucifer, she proceeds towards the open window.
This was a stupid idea… What was I thinking? He’s surely fine… He’s probably not even thinking about me at all. He probably just doesn’t really want anything more than what we have…
She swallows at the thought. She believes there is more. Feels it. She’s seen it in his eyes. Heard it in his voice. Felt it in his touch. He had paid real attention to her at times and he even put himself into harm's way to protect her and then… then he’s also been so unreliable and elusive.
Frustrating.
Blowing out a heavy sigh, she reaches for the handle of the window but another sound catches her off guard.
It’s a wheeze-like sound caused by the wind and rain falling inside, but just to be sure, she calls out again.
“Lucifer? Are you there?”
The wind picks up and brushes the angled rain with more force against her as she stands in the opened window.
No response comes.
A trick of the senses… or just wishful thinking, I guess.
She gives the balcony in front of her a short glance to see if any of his furniture is in danger of being tossed around, and spots something small and white on the otherwise dark flooring. Intrigued, she steps outside, clasping onto her blazer as she crouches down and looks at the little thing.
It’s a feather. A white feather. Plastered to the wet floor from the rain. She thinks it must be the longest feather she’s ever seen in her entire life. Trying to recall a bird that could fit to the feather, she suddenly hears the unidentifiable sound again, only this time it sounds more like a groan.
Head snapping towards her right, her heart thunders with worry. “Lucifer?!” she calls out once more. “Lucifer, is that you?”
The rain begins to soak her slowly but surely, but she doesn’t care.
Shit… Maybe I’m wrong and he’s not fine at all… Maybe he is having one of those spiralling moments again…
Stepping closer towards the jacuzzi, she frowns.
More feathers in varying sizes are stuck to the wet floor, creating a trail towards the corner of the building. She follows the trail and freezes when she reaches the jacuzzi, her eyes going wide.
Cramped into the tub is a massive, white-feathered wing. Starting at its outer tip, she looks along the arch of the wing. Hesitantly, she makes another step towards it, wanting to see the type of bird the wing is connected to. Her eyes travel along the arch and then sees… nothing. Nothing but a mutilated stump of bone, flesh, skin and blood that drips into the tub.
Bile rises in the back of her throat and the world around her spins.
A wing. A freaking HUGE wing the size of a freaking CAR and it’s got freaking LUMPS OF FLESH on it and WHAT THE ACTUAL F—
“Nnngh…”
Another groan, louder and more distressed, cuts into her thoughts and pulls her out of her shocked daze.
Her breathing hard and fast, she gets a hold of herself. Her instincts, training and helpfulness kick in, pushing aside her shock and nausea, and instead pull her into action. She moves three wide strides around the jacuzzi and freezes yet again when she sees Lucifer lying sideways on the ground.
His face is turned towards her. His eyes are half-closed, his left arm is outstretched to the side and his right one she can’t see. Beneath him there is a dark puddle on the ground, conflating with the rain. He’s shirtless, and spreading out behind him there is another massive wing.
The wind brushes through the feathers, ruffling and bending them. They stand in odd directions and her brain momentarily stops working, her thoughts getting stuck like an old, scratched LP.
Wing. Wing. Wing. Angel wing. Angel wing. Angel. Angel. Angel. Angel. Lucifer. Lucifer. Angel. Angel. Lucifer. Angel…
Her eyes begin to hurt, stinging with tears. She doesn’t understand why.
She stares at him, then over at the wing in the jacuzzi and back at Lucifer.
Wing. Wing. Angel wing. One wing. Two wings. One wing. Angel. One-winged angel. One-winged angel. Lucifer. Lucifer…
L-U-C-I-F-E-R.
Her eyes widen a fraction more as the LP in her head jumps forward.
Devil. Devil. Devil. Devil. Lucifer. The Devil. Lucifer the Devil. Devil. Angel. Devil. Angel…
She loses her balance and stumbles two steps backwards, but manages to grip onto the edge of the jacuzzi railing to brace herself and somewhat guide her fall. Landing on her knees, she stares at the glistening wing stump in the tub.
A gasp and sob blurt from her, and a hand subconsciously covers her mouth.
His wing. That’s HIS wing. He’s an angel. The Devil. This is HIS wing. Lucifer’s. It was on his back. Now it’s not.
She turns her head back towards him and blinks. Warm tears stream down her cheeks as more realisations settle in.
Blood. Blood on the ground. He’s bleeding. He’s hurt. Lucifer is hurt.
And her body jolts to action once again as if it’s been given a kick start. Pushing herself back up, she collects her limbs and rushes over towards Lucifer.
“Lucifer? Lucifer, hey?!” Her voice is loud and thick with fear.
He doesn’t respond, his gaze seeming droopy and distant.
He stares at nothing.
Kneeling down beside him, she reaches for his cheek, feeling it wet from rain and it strikes her just how cold he is. Her heart squeezes with added worry.
He shouldn’t be this cold.
How long has he been lying here?!
Forcing the thought aside, she moves her fingers to feel for his pulse. His eyelids flutter the tiniest bit in response.
The pulse is there, weak, but also not the weakest one she’s ever felt.
A little tingle of relief eases the spike of her adrenaline-fueled body, but it is given another brutal injection when she sees his back.
On his right shoulder there is a massive open wound. Flesh and bone shine through a field of blood. The thick crimson trickles out of the wound like a waterfall, runs down his back sideways and dissipates in the puddle of water on the balcony’s floor.
She fights against the dizziness the sight causes her, forcing her mind to stay focused, to function.
She lets her eyes travel to his left shoulder. The wing there twitches and trembles and it makes her stomach churn. Then she sees the base where the wing seems to be connected to his back, but there’s blood seeping over his skin and it’s hard to actually see the connection.
This isn’t right. Nope. No no no no no no. This is NOT as it should be… her mind screams, shaking her to the core.
“…’em ‘way!” she hears Lucifer drawl weakly, followed by him grunting in pain. “T’k’ ‘em off!”
“Lucifer?” she tries again, focusing on his face, trying to shut out what she just saw. “Hey…” Gently taking a hold of his face again, she brushes the wet curls from his forehead. She probes him with her eyes, trying to get his attention, but his eyes don’t focus on hers.
“Off…” he presses out in a heavy sigh, breathing hard. “… ’s not me! Off! ’m not his ‘ng’l!”
He’s not making sense. She is sure he is delusional and in shock, most likely.
“Lucifer… you… erm…” Panting through her own distress, she glances toward his back, but quickly focuses back on his face. “You’re bleeding really badly…”
She feels stupid. Stupid and tiny and completely out of her area of expertise.
Lucifer groans and huffs weakly, his right arm coming forward into her view. His fingers are cramped around something metallic and in the dim lights and drizzling of rain she’s pretty much soaked in by now, she cannot make out what it is. Only when his palm opens and his hand reveals more of the object does it click.
It’s one of Maze’s weird, curved daggers.
She swallows. The blade and his hand are covered in blood.
His arm lifts towards her but feebly drops down again and, with a wet thud, the dagger clanks to the ground.
She stares at the dagger, stares at the blood and her eyes snap to his back.
He… He did this… He did this to himself… Holy SHIT… Oh my god… Oh my capital G-God…
“Off!” Lucifer presses out in a rasp, his wing twitching, fidgety. “N-No w-wings… N-not h-his… N-not… angel…”
Her vision blurs at his words, his stuttering nonsense finally sinking in as a coherent wish with the silent fall of tears dripping to the floor.
He wants the wing off. He wants ME to CUT his remaining wing OFF. He doesn’t want the wings. Doesn’t want to be an angel…
Her heart clenches as she hears him sob. His eyes are blood-shot and puffy.
He’s devastated, she realises with yet another drop of horror. He’s so devastated about the wings, that he actually was in the process of cutting them off of his back. He was doing this to his own body, enduring the pain because it meant he could get rid of them.
Her stomach turns again. She looks once more back and forth between the dagger and his back where his wing is oddly twitching and trembling. When she stares at the base, where the wing and his shoulder blade are covered in blood, she finally realises why it moves in such a disturbing way.
He’s already partly cut into it and now the wing is hanging by a thread of just a few inches of flesh.
She’s seen a lot of gruesome things in her career. Many horrifically maimed and disfigured murder victims. She knows when too much damage has been done and it is obvious that there is no saving it. A limb that is hanging by a thread like Lucifer’s wing is simply not able to be fixed.
Because how could it? She’s hardly able to wrap her own mind around the fact that her partner is an angel and the actual Devil. How could a team of doctors at a hospital deal with the wing of an angel? Would they even know what to do? Would their minds not turn into a pretzel upon seeing Lucifer like this? Hell, she wouldn’t even know how to get him out of the penthouse in the first place. It’s not like she can drag him into the elevator like this.
Her eyes focus again as her mind comes to a logical but very bitter conclusion.
Lucifer is bleeding out on his balcony with his half-severed wing twitching on his back. He’s in tremendous pain and he’s desperate. He clearly needs help and she’s the one here with him.
Her hand trembles as she reaches out to the feather-shaped dagger and for a second she pauses, surprised how even the seemingly simple dagger now has more meaning than before. Fingers wrapping carefully around the handle, she scoots to his side. With her free hand, she brushes the back of her fingers against his upward-facing cheek. “I’m sorry, Lucifer,” she murmurs with a shaky voice. “I guess this will hurt again, but then they’ll be all off, okay?”
She watches him for a reaction. He shivers all over and his lower lip trembles.
But then she catches him doing a small nod.
Leaning into his line of sight, she sees his gaze shifting onto her, focusing, sharpening, and then, pushing through utter exhaustion, Lucifer manages to give her a long, heavy blink.
It’s enough for her to read him.
“Okay… Please, Detective… Please do it… Thank you… Thank you so much…”
Nodding back at him, she offers an understanding, thin-lipped smile, before she sets her attention back on his twitching wing.
Free hand reaching out to the feathered appendage, she gently touches the lower arch, gasping at the feel.
So soft… It’s like petting a young bunny or kitten… only… softer…
Carefully, she lets her fingers wrap around the feather-coated bone until she has it in a light grip.
Her heart is thundering so loud it’s drowning out the actual thunder in the sky.
Slowly, she bends the wing, looking at where the wing bone morphs into Lucifer’s shoulder. A long cut into the tissue connecting the wing to his shoulder gets revealed in the pool of blood. There’s muscle and sinew and bone and she has to squeeze her eyes shut for a second to not be overwhelmed with nausea.
She files away the gruesome sight and instead lets her mind focus on the importance of her actions. Lucifer needs help. She needs to function. For him. Breathing in and out, she manages to keep the sickening feeling at bay and her physical control steadies her hand.
Leading the blade to the cut, she can see it’s about another 6 inches (~15cm) of soft tissue she has to slice through in order to separate the wing from his shoulder. She’s relieved she doesn’t have to cut through bone. How has he even done that?
Her left hand tightens around his wing, holding it still. She aligns the sharp edge of the dagger and, with power she hopes to be enough to get through the muscle and cartilage, slices into the existing cut.
The sound of her cut gets drowned out by the harrowed scream that breaks free from Lucifer’s lungs. It’s long and exhausted and utterly hoarse, and her stomach churns anew from both horror and guilt.
Staring down at his back, she watches in an odd reverent moment as the wing drops to the ground behind Lucifer, white feathers soaking in rain and blood. The blade drops from her hand with a dull clank. She slides on her knees, next to Lucifer’s face, suddenly feeling so out of breath it’s as if she’s just finished a marathon, and she realises she’s crying, but she can’t stop herself.
“Oh god, I’m-m so s-sorry, Lucifer. I’m s-so sorry. So sorry,” she utters again and again, bloodstained fingers brushing over his cheeks in attempts to both comfort him and herself.
Oh god… What the hell have I just done?! What the… What… Oh god…
Brown eyes, swimming with emotions, look up at her. Blinking once, he gives her a grateful look before his eyes fall closed again, his head hanging slack in her hands.
“Lucifer? Lucifer?!” Her hand reaches for his pulse point, wet fingers slipping on wet skin.
She pauses, focusing, trying to hear beyond her own thundering heartbeat.
Thump…
Thump…
It’s weaker than before, she realises immediately, and clenches her teeth hard in silent self-flagellation.
“Okay… okay… weaker, but not dead,” she reasons with herself, trying desperately to not freak out any more than she already has. Carefully placing his head down, she looks over at the penthouse windows. Thankfully Lucifer’s whole front of the penthouse basically consists of glass windows and -doors and at the edge of his bedroom and living room there are actually two doors, one leading into each room.
Pushing herself to her feet, she rushes to the door leading to his bedroom, and due to her partner not caring about personal security at all, she simply uses the handle of the door and swings it open. Looking back at Lucifer she pauses. He’s pretty much motionless. She doubts he will be able to help drag his body, so she figures she needs some other sort of support to manage the Herculean task of getting him inside.
Rushing into the bedroom, she heads for his bathroom. She grabs one of the black sauna towels in his shelf on the side and rushes back to Lucifer’s limp body. Spreading the towel out on the wet ground, she takes a hold of his wrists and wiggles his upper body, face downward, onto the towel. Once she’s done she repeats the process with his legs and his lower body although half his legs still extend out over the edge.
Great, even a sauna towel isn’t long enough for this man’s ridiculously tall size.
Finally, with him positioned on the towel as well as she can manage, she takes a hold of the corners by his head and pulls hard.
He’s like a bag of wet sand mixed with bricks, and she’s out of breath after pulling him halfway through the door to his bedroom. Grunting and panting, she pulls him further, his legs dragging along the floor. Her wet shoes squeak as she makes her way past the bed, into the small corridor in the back and into the adjacent bathroom.
It feels like an eternity until she manages to position him inside the shower on his side and not have him sink in on himself or slide to the ground. When he’s stabilised, she feels her muscles sore and strained, but is glad she made it so far. Wanting to check on his condition, she takes another look at his back and her eyes grow wide in surprise.
What the… Is that… Are they… No no no no no no, that can’t be… that just can’t be…
She grabs a washcloth from the rack and soaks it in the sink, before carefully squeezing the warm water out of the cloth above Lucifer’s shoulder blades, making it wash some of the blood away and giving better sight onto what lies beneath.
Where barely ten minutes ago she saw raw flesh cut open, she now lays eyes on two massive wounds that aren’t bleeding any longer and are coated by a very thin layer of healing tissue.
Holy shit… How in the WORLD is that even POSSIBLE?
Swallowing hard, she carefully brushes over his healthy skin around the wounds, when suddenly Lucifer’s body shifts and his upper body leans against her. Stopping him from dropping any further, she sets him back slowly. With his wounds seeming to heal by the minutes, she takes a moment to try and think what she can do.
I can’t bring him to a hospital now either… They wouldn’t even know how to treat him. He told me that his blood is different. I hadn’t believed him back then. I’ve even tossed away the proof of him being not human… God, he really never lied to me, did he?
She fights back tears at the realisation and reaches with her free hand to his face, brushing a stray, sticky curl from his forehead.
Right… I can’t fix him up, but I can try and make him more comfortable.
Lucifer is still shivering and he feels even colder to her touch than before. Warming him up is something she can try to do, she figures and gives his back another glance, making sure that the large, crescent-shaped wounds on his back are looking more or less good enough to be cleansed with a gentle rinse of water.
After a five-minute struggle to get Lucifer out of his drenched slacks, she carefully cleans his body of blood and sweat, and hopes that the warm water will also help him heat up a little. She keeps an eye on his face every now and then. His look is still dishevelled, exhausted and distant overall, but she does notice that he’s not grimacing in pain anymore, which seems like a small victory she’s all too happy to take.
Once she’s done cleaning and towel drying him—she did blank out a tiny bit during his manly parts—she finds herself confronted with another thought. Dragging his dead-weight to the door had been one challenge, but dragging him back to his bed and lifting him onto it would be a whole other.
Gently taking a hold of his face, she levels herself down to his height as he’s still sitting on the ground, pleading for his eyes to focus on hers. “Lucifer? Lucifer, look at me.”
Weak eyelids flutter open and pools of dark brown jitter in their search until they focus on her.
“Hey…” she offers in greeting, smiling warmly. “Listen, I need your help here. Do you think you can stand and walk to your bed, when I help you stay steady?”
He blinks, again and again, and for a moment she fears he’s about to lose consciousness and drop onto his side again. But then she sees him swallow and wet his lips with a tired brush of his tongue. “Yes,” is all he says, his voice hoarse and breaking with a heavy exhale.
Another minute passes as she watches him breathe in and out with his eyes closed. At first she wonders if he had simply totally forgotten what he had just signed himself up to do, but when he opens his eyes and lifts his arms towards her, she realises that he had merely taken his time to brace himself for an endeavour that was most likely going to cost him a lot of energy.
Leaning down, she slings an arm around his waist and helps him to wrap one long arm of his over her shoulders. With combined forces, she helps him stand and she’s glad that their path is an even one, without any turns to take or any steps to climb towards his bed.
His steps are smaller than usual, she notices—an odd thing as she had become so used to his insanely wide strides with his ridiculously long legs. It takes them another five minutes to arrive at his bedside, where she tries to ease him down slowly, but as he shifts his weight towards the bed, he simply collapses onto the silken sheets, groaning.
Arms moving, he shifts his large frame to a more comfortable position, namely onto the side with his face turned towards her. He draws his knees in, curling himself up into a foetal position, and his eyes gaze tiredly into nothingness once again.
Distant… He’s totally… distant… she thinks to herself with a heavy heart and tears threatening to well in her eyes. She pulls the covers over his legs and hips, up to the height of his shoulders, careful that the fabric doesn’t make contact with his back. In response, he curls up more, grabs the hem of the cover and pulls it tighter around himself, looking almost as if he is making a cave for himself to hide in.
She takes a moment to just sit there on the edge of the bed, close to him, reaching for his head and gently caressing through his half-dried hair that now lays in wild curls.
Distant… but innocent… and vulnerable… her mind drifts and she glances back to the balcony where two angel wings lay butchered off of his beautiful body, splattered with blood—one cramped ludicrously into the jacuzzi and the other spread out on the floor, plastered onto the surface from the sheets of rain spraying it.
A cold shiver runs through her core.
Am I going to Hell for this? Cause… Hell seems to be a thing now.
Swallowing thickly, she closes the balcony door and heads over to Lucifer’s walk-in-closet. She browses through his different shelves to get an overview on where everything is and quickly finds a shelf in the far back corner with some very Lucifer-atypical sweatpants and casual long sleeve shirts. Grabbing herself one of each, she makes her way back into the bathroom, rids herself of her rain-drenched and blood-smeared clothing and warms herself up under a hot shower.
She grants herself ten minutes under the tropical-rain shower head, dries herself off and slips into the comfortable but also far too big clothes from Lucifer’s closet. While she can wear the shirt almost like a dress, for the sweatpants she has to turn up the legs’ ends and tighten the waist with the elastic band.
When she returns to the bedroom, she finds Lucifer still shivering under the sheets. A quick check with a palm to his forehead reveals he’s icy to the touch.
Not good. Not good at all. Can angels die from hypothermia? Lucifer can die, right? He died before. I’m sure I’ve seen him dying in that warehouse after Malcolm shot him. He saved Trixie and me… He died for us.
“Please don’t die again,” she mouths, her strangled throat tight with emotion, brushing her hand from his forehead to his cheek before she gets back up on her feet.
He needs warmth, lots of it, so she decides to provide as much as she can.
Rushing back to his closet, she picks up as many blankets as she can carry—Seriously though, why does he have so many in the first place?—and layers them carefully over Lucifer’s shivering frame. “There… I hope this will help.”
His eyelids flutter a few times, brows furrowing and nose scrunching as if he’s in pain again, only that he doesn’t groan this time. “P-Please,” he stutters in a whisper, eyes shifting to look up at her without turning his head.
“What?” she asks back softly, wondering why suddenly her heart starts racing and her stomach feels all fuzzy.
He wets his lips again, his brown eyes swimming with emotion. “D-Don’t leave.”
The fuzzy feeling in her stomach stirs into an antsy whirlwind. She stares back at him, surprised and moved, and suddenly she feels that hope again.
That hope she had felt when he had left the message. That hope for him to open up about himself, hope for him telling her the truth about what he was trying so desperately to keep hidden from her. Hope for them to grow and hope to become… more.
“I won’t,” she hears herself whisper back and it almost breaks her heart seeing him release a sigh of relief at her words.
His eyes drift from hers again, tiredly losing focus and as they fall shut, she can see the pile of blankets on top of him sink in as his body relaxes. His trembling calms down somewhat and for a few more minutes she keeps watching him, making sure he’s alright and asleep.
When she feels he’s far enough off into dreamland, she walks to the other side of the bed and slips beneath the sheets and blankets, too, leaving a gap between herself and him. Rolling onto her side, she faces his back. Her mind drifting in exhaustion, she reaches out, lightly touching her fingertips to the nape of his neck.
He twitches, but otherwise doesn’t react.
“I’m so sorry,” she mouths, her whisper trembling as her vision blurred from fresh tears. “So sorry you were hurting… and I’m so sorry I didn’t believe you…”
Shifting deeper into the pillow and curling up into a ball herself, she closes her eyes. Not even a minute later, she drifts off from mental and physical exhaustion, dreaming of severed angel wings, blood-stained hands and a Devil crying out in pain.
