This is what I do when I should be working on other fics.
"Girl," he says and there's something in the way he says it, as though he's been holding his breath this whole time, some imaginary weight pressing down on his chest, and this is the first time he's been able to breathe in his father knows how long.
There's a hesitation in Lucifer's eye as they lay on her bed, a good distance apart, and Natalie doesn't know how to answer him. The unspoken question now that she remembers him again lingers on his tongue.
Do you remember it?
She does.
She remembers dying. Well, not the actual dying part. The pre-dying she supposes. Of being sick, and the itch and scratch of the overly starched sheets and the way even in the midst of sleep she could feel the fluids build in her lungs, the slowly rising tide to drown the life out of her.
Ironic that she'd drown in Hell as well.
And yes she remembers Hell.
The meeting of that thing. The embodiment of Hell itself. The anti-Lucifer that uses his form to trick her. To kiss her.
Remembers seeing his soul, the cracked and weathered parts of him and how she's most likely the only person to see God's beloved then scorned son as a broken and battered child. Just as lost as she is sometimes.
Remembers waking, and the look on Lucifer's face. The intense relief that he'll deny now, but was too overwhelmed to try to hide then.
Remembers not remembering, and the way his countenance falls when she calls him that.
Monster.
The word and the look and the near audible break in his heart is a wound to her heart too.
There's a burn in her eyes and she takes a shaky breath. A warm hand cups her face, and Natalie realizes that her vision has blurred with unshed tears. She chokes back a hiccuping sob and a thumb gently brushes away the stream that's trickled down.
It's then that she remembers the hints of salt and puffiness around his eyes as he hosed the two of them off. Like he'd been crying. Lucifer, Satan, the Morning Star, the Adversary, crying. And whatever suffering he said he'd gone through.
For her? To bring her back? What had he…
And for all of his complaints that she's a brainless air head, Natalie puts two and two together. Whatever it cost him, cost him more than he'd wanted to give and she would bet her soul that it has something to do with the wounds on his back. Until he confirms it though she'll cling to the desperate hope that she's wrong. Even if he told she'd never know what he did for her, she'll wheedle it out from him later.
For now she grabs onto his arm, fingers curling around his bicep, and pulls herself closer to him on the bed.
"Natalie?" he says, pressing his forehead against hers. It's the closest that she's allowed him to come since she's woken. and that fact isn't lost on him.
"You're a marshmallow," she says, lips curling into a smile for the first time since she's woken from the dead.
"Fuck you," he says softly like a prayer.
He lets out a halfhearted growl at her huffed laugh and closes his eyes. Lucifer reaches across her body to grab a blanket from behind her. He throws it across the two of them. She hums in response, scooting closer to him as though the heat of his body will calm her shaking, and he obliges her, wrapping his arms around her.