Author's Notes:Thanks so much everyone for the feedback! Chapter title credit goes to Nine Inch Nails. Enjoy!
Castaway - The Big Come Down
Cutting a plastic bottle into a workable lock shim is a lot harder than she thought it would be, and she almost ruins the entire bottle in the process of working out the technical details. It takes her four tries to wrestle the plastic into the shape she wants — a bit of an M with a rounded, cylinder-shaped middle instead of a triangular one — and another three tries after that to get that middle prong of the M to be just the right width to fit her prison's lock. Finally, though, she manages to jam her makeshift shim into the fitment.
Clenching her teeth, she pulls so hard on the shim's tabs that her biceps shake.
With a click, the lock pops open.
"Yes!" she exclaims on the coattails of a relieved exhalation. "Yes, yes, yes!"
She bursts out of the cell like a stampeding bull and skids to a stop beside the table, her heart stuck in her throat. Chasing the intravenous line to its terminus at the back of Lucifer's hand, she picks off with her fingernail the surgical tape holding the line in place, and then gently pulls the plastic cannula out of his vein.
A bright-red ooze of blood snakes down his wrist and drips onto the the table with a quiet pat, pat, pat. She presses her thumb to the tiny wound to apply pressure, inspecting the handcuffs at the same time.
The cuffs consist of three rings all smooshed on top of each other — two large, thick rings that encompass his wrists, and a tiny eyelet on top where a chain might pass through, though there's no chain attached, now. The cuffs are metal-colored like steel, but they gleam as if they're an independent light source. The surface of the metal is inscribed with all manner of strange, looping red scribblings, and there are no weld points or keyholes that she can discern. It's as though the cuffs were molded directly to Lucifer's wrists from a molten state.
What on earth? How? More magic, maybe?
She tugs on the cuffs experimentally with her free hand. His bruised, abraded wrists flop with each tug, but the cuffs themselves don't budge or creak or show any signs of structural weakness. Shit. She has no idea how she's going to get them off.
With a stressed glance at the door, she takes a breath.
Later.
The cuffs, they can deal with later. They can deal with everything later, except the escaping part.
The escaping part needs to happen now.
"Lucifer," she says, giving him a rough shake.
He's still out cold, though, and her ministrations only serve to roll him flat onto his back, his body limp and unresponsive. Another shake, and his mouth lolls open, revealing the white tips of his teeth and his pale, slack tongue. The odd angle of his throat causes his breathing to whistle out through his incisors instead of his nose.
"Lucifer?"
Nothing.
She heads to the little fridge by the door, giving Lucifer a moment to burn off the sedatives. She yanks the remaining four water bottles from the fridge, grasping them as a singular unit by the plastic rings binding them together, and then sets the bottles on top of the fridge to be grabbed on the way out.
Turning back to Lucifer, she scoops up his ruined clothes from the floor by the foot of the operating table. She ties his shirt around her waist, and she pulls his waistcoat and jacket over her arms and shoulders to get them out of the way, while still making them easy to transport. She'll help him try to put them on again when he's more mobile, and they have more time.
She glances at the door again, heart pounding. Nobody's been to check on them in what feels like several hours. She can only hope they're all still busy licking their wounds. Or sleeping. Maybe, it's night. She has no idea anymore.
"Lucifer," she repeats, shaking him. When he still doesn't budge, she graduates to slapping his cheek. Over and over. "Lucifer," she pleads, eyes watering. "Lucifer, wake up. I don't know how much time we have."
His breathing is thick and even. Stress tightens her insides into a little ball. Before, she was able to prod him into talking in a matter of minutes, once he'd been awake enough to stare blankly at her. But she has no idea how long it took him to mentally stumble from an unconscious stupor to staring blankly.
"Lucifer," she says. "Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer."
Finally, his eyelids flutter. She keeps bleating his name, frantic, while she alternates between shaking and slapping. His eyelids crack open, but his eyes — normally traps she can fall into and drown — are cloudy and depthless. He peers dully at nothing, his whole body shifting limply as she jars him this way and that.
"Lucifer," she says, shaking him. "Lucifer, please, wake up. Please, wake up. Please. We have to get out of here. We have to get out of here now."
Another minute crawls by at a glacial pace before she sees some amount of substance return to his expression. Not much, but …. He swallows. His eyebrows knit, and he says something — not a word, just an utterance — in a weird tone that makes it sound like he's got caramel stuck between his teeth.
"Lucifer," she says in her best Mom-means-it voice. "Wake up."
Her sharp tone seems to break through his fog a little. "'Tective …?"
"Yes," she replies, nodding. "Yes, can you sit up?"
For a too-long moment, he stares at her with a 2+2=? blankness. Like he didn't parse her words at all.
"Can you sit up?" she repeats.
"… Up?"
"Yes," she says. "Sit up." He squints at her. "Up, Lucifer. Sit up."
"I'm … lying down."
She can't help the frustrated bluster of breath that falls from her lips, but before she can snap at him, the cuffs clink, and he makes an aborted little flop against the table. His biceps shake as he tries to pull his arms apart. One of his wrists weeps fresh blood as the sharp, unpadded metal edge of the cuff cuts into him.
He gives the blood a disturbed look. "What's …?"
"I'm sorry," she says. "I don't know how to get them off." She directs a stressed glance at the door and then back to him. "Please, can you sit up?"
With a groggy nod, he tips to the side and tries to push up from the table on his elbow, but the cuffs mess things up. She jams her arms through his armpits, locks her hands behind his shoulder blades, and yanks him upright. He makes a sick sound as he leans forward to rest against her.
"Lucifer, I know you feel like shit, but we have to go."
"… Kay," he says faintly against her.
With a tiny, pained sound that makes her insides twist, he slides off the table. When he gets his feet underneath him, his knees buckle a little, and he collapses forward onto his elbows with a heavy thunk that makes the whole operating table shake. Panting, he blinks like someone knocked him stupid, and he's still seeing galaxies.
"Lucifer, we have to go," she prods him.
But all he does is stand there, half collapsed, breathing roughly.
"Lucifer," she repeats, wrapping her arm around his waist. "Come on. We have to go."
She yanks him away from the haven of the table edge. A discombobulated syllable of panic coils in his throat. He grips her shoulder hard enough to bruise, like she's the only thing keeping him from collapsing into a heap of gangly, awkward limbs. Though it kills her to wait longer, she gives him a few seconds to gain his bearings. Then she tries to drag him farther. He stumbles. His breaths rasp laboriously, and his fingers tighten even more against her skin as he shakily tries to right himself.
Tears of pain and frustration spill from her eyes. Jesus fuck, his grip is a vise.
"Lucifer, please. We have to go. They're going to hurt us, if we don't move. I don't …." She shakes her head in desperation at his vacant, confused look. "LUCIFER. PLEASE."
"I'm … cold," he rasps. His whole body is trembling.
"I know," she says, eyes finally spilling over. "I know you're cold. We'll fix it as soon as we get out of here. Please, Lucifer. Please."
He swallows thickly, his face ashen. "My head is … pounding," he says in a whispery, woozy tone, like he's less than an inch from blacking out.
"I know. I'm sorry," she says, rubbing his naked back. "But you have to move. Please, move. I can't carry you. You're too big. Please, Lucifer." She's babbling at this point. She knows it. "Please."
He glances quizzically at his bleeding hand. "What did … they give me?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter right now, anyway."
He swallows again. He looks like he tasted rotten eggs. "It isn't … good."
"Lucifer, the quality of the high your kidnappers gave you isn't important."
She tugs on him, leaning all her weight into the motion. He takes a wobbly, precarious step before he stops again.
"You're … crying," he says, swaying on his feet.
She doesn't find it prudent to mention that he's probably bruised her shoulders to the bone. "Please, I can't carry you, and they're going to hurt us," she says. "We have to get out of here, now. They might be coming back soon."
"But you're—"
She shakes him for all she's worth. "LUCIFER, I DESIRE YOU TO MOVE. NOW. COME ON."
The magic words, it seems, because he starts to shuffle step under his own power toward the door.
She snatches up the bottled waters with her free hand as they pass the fridge.
Their egress is a slow, laborious, nerve-racking process. She worries that their captors will come back any moment and ruin her escape attempt again, but … they don't. When she and Lucifer reach the doorway, he rests against the wall, panting thickly, his eyes scrunched up, like he thinks he might throw up.
She dares to take a peek into the hallway, only to blink in surprise when she makes a grab for the doorknob, and her hand swipes empty air. Then she looks up, and the door itself is gone.
It's just … gone.
All that remains is a blank wall.
"What the fuck?" she says.
He sniffs. "Hmm?"
"The door …." She presses her hand against the wall where she knows the doorknob was. She doesn't feel a thing but rough, painted brick. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "The door was an illusion?"
"No," he croaks. "The wall is." He inches forward, placing a shaking palm against the wall. The handcuffs clink as they bump into the bricks. "Close your eyes."
"Okay." She squeezes her eyes shut. "Now, what?"
He mutters something in the lyrical language. There's a brilliant, searing flash of light, so bright that the blackness provided by her eyelids brightens to fleshy pink, and then the fleshy pink brightens to immaculate white. When the holy flash-bang sparkles fade moments later, she opens her eyes to see the door shimmering slowly back into view like she's on some kind of acid trip.
At which point Lucifer promptly leans forward and vomits all over the re-revealed doorframe. He hasn't eaten in who knows how long, and all that comes up is bile. He sniffles wetly, shaking, miserable as he wipes his lips on the bare skin of his arm.
"Can you keep going?" she says, worried.
His long pause before his pained, breathy, uncertain, "… Um," makes her stomach flip-flop.
"Lucifer, we're gonna die if you can't," she tells him point blank, "because there's no way in hell I'm leaving you behind with these sadistic creeps."
"But—"
"Not happening."
"I don't … feel right."
Her chest constricts. "I know." She bites her lip, not sure what to do. He looks like shit. She squeezes his shoulder and then sets the water bottles back on the floor by his feet. "Wait here, okay? I'll scout ahead."
He seems only too happy to oblige as she steps into the hallway to map their escape.
The hallway is featureless and gray and cold and smells of wet dirt and mildew. Like some kind of basement. The first few doorways lead to other rooms without other exits. The last door at the end opens onto a concrete staircase. Her eyes widen as she gets a look at the switchback steps they'll have to climb. Fourteen steps in all to the next floor. Lucifer barely has the coordination to walk right now. How in the hell are they going to get up that?
She darts up the staircase to see what lies beyond. On the landing, she finds two doors. One is unlabeled, but over the other hangs a bright red-and-white sign that says: SORTIE.
Sortie …?
She tests the "SORTIE" door, half-expecting some kind of alarm to blare, or maybe another fun illusion trap to snare her, as the door swings open. But nothing happens, and the only sound that follows is the moan of the hinges, and then birds and crickets.
Balmy, fresh air wafts against her face. Pinkish, partly-cloudy sky and thick green coniferous woods bisect the world beyond the door. A tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire separates the clearing surrounding the building from the woods, but Lucifer should easily be able to wreck the fence. Should. Assuming she can even get him that far.
She glances warily at the pinking sky. Sunset or sunrise? She has no idea. Either way, that can't be good. If their captors were asleep overnight, they'll be waking up soon, and they'll probably do a morning prisoner check. And if the day is ending, they'll probably do at least one more prisoner check before going to bed.
She turns on her heels and runs back to Lucifer.
She has no idea how they're going to get out of this.
But they need to.
And so they will.
She's two strides from the operating-room door when she hears the distant echo of voices in the hall, floating down the stairwell she just vacated. She bursts into the operating room like someone hit her with a cattle prod. Lucifer is where she left him, leaning against the wall, his eyelids drooping, his breaths thick and rasping like he's sleeping on his feet, though there's a new puddle of vomit at his feet. He gives her a dull look.
"Get back on the table!" she hisses at him as she yanks the door shut behind her.
He blinks sluggishly. "Hmm?" And then his preternatural senses must kick in, because understanding floods his gaze. Swallowing, stumbling, he turns back to the operating table. She wraps an arm around his waist to help him balance.
"My suit," he rasps as he's climbing onto the table, cuffs clanking and scraping as he struggles to pull himself up. "My suit." The bloodstains from before smear like finger paint underneath him.
She frowns. "What about your suit?"
He paws at the Egyptian-cotton knot formed by his shirtsleeves, which are tied together near her bellybutton. "Are you … s'posed to be … wearing it?"
"Shit," she says. "Thanks."
She yanks off his ruined jacket, waistcoat, and shirt, and dumps them back onto the floor in a heap where she found them, only to remember the vomit. She glances wildly around, hoping for a ream of paper towels, a rag, something, but she sees nothing. Nothing.
She grabs his waistcoat and uses it to make a few haphazard swipes at the doorframe and the floor, getting rid of the visible stains, though nothing will fix the acrid smell. Then she tosses the waistcoat back onto the ground by his jacket and his shirt.
"Gimme your hands," she snaps as she grabs the intravenous line dangling from the pole beside the operating table.
Lucifer shakily holds out his wrists, and she stuffs the line underneath to top cuff, pinching the end between his skin and the metal. If the kidnappers actually get close enough to inspect him, the jig will be up in heartbeats, but from a distance, she hopes the line looks like it's still inserted into the back of his hand. She releases the cuffs, and his hands fall limply to his side, the metal clinking against the table. His eyes are already closed.
She dashes back into her cage, pulling the door shut behind her, and adjusting the padlock so it's open but not askew. She kicks the wreckage of her lock-shim-making session behind her bucket, out of sight of the door, just in time.
Baritone's face looms at the narrow corrugated glass window over the doorknob. The knob turns, the latch disengages, and he takes a hesitant step into the room. Her heart thunders in her ears as she notices the water bottles by his feet near the doorframe.
She forgot about those.
Don't look down, she prays in his direction. Don't look down. Don't fucking look down.
"What is that smell?" he blurts, nose wrinkling up the second his whole body is inside the room.
Fuck. Um. "I threw up," she says, giving her bucket a regretful glance. She hopes he's not far enough inside the room to pinpoint that the smell is coming from the doorway itself.
"Oh," Baritone says, meeting her eyes. "Sorry."
She clutches the bars and glares at him without speaking.
"Need anything?" he actually has the gall to ask.
My gun, she wants to say, so I can shoot you. "What time is it?" she says instead.
He glances at his watch with a frown. "'Bout 9."
"At night?"
He nods and then gives Lucifer a wary look. Score one for archangels who kick like asteroids — Lucifer seems to have scared Baritone almost straight, because after he takes one more step into the room, he comes to a full stop, well out of Lucifer's immediate strike range, and well out of direct line-of-sight of the I.V. Lucifer lies still, breaths rasping and even, like he's in a deep slumber. Hopefully, he didn't actually fall asleep.
She stares at Baritone expectantly.
For a few moments, he stands by the doorway, peering around the room. At which point, he seems to convince himself that nothing is amiss. He turns on his heels and walks back into the hallway, right past the water bottles stacked on the floor. The door shuts with a thump, and the latch clicks.
She starts counting in her head, intending to go to 500 before she resumes their escape attempt, just to be safe.
She makes it to 142 before Lucifer sniffs and mutters tiredly, "He's … gone."
She blows out a breath of relief.
"Good," she says. "Let's get the hell out of here."
The steps, as expected, are a nightmare. Between dragging herself, Lucifer, and the water to the landing, her body aches like she just walked away from a car crash, and she's so out of breath she's seeing white-hot spots whenever she closes her eyes.
Lucifer is even worse off. The stress of exertion combined with the drug hangover is brutal, and he stops again to vomit on the crushed gravel outside the door that says "SORTIE."
Panting, she turns away to give him a little privacy, as they stand in the white halo of the lone halogen lamp hanging over the doorway. The formerly pink sky is now a deepening blue-black, and glittering stars litter the space above like broken glass across a blacktop, along with a brilliant full moon.
"I … don't suppose … you could fly us out?" she whispers tensely between breaths. "I mean, I hate to ask, but …."
The answering sound of retching behind her makes her cringe.
She has no idea how long it took her to get over her initial nausea, but it certainly took her more than a few hours, which is all he's had, and she had the benefit of resting, which he hasn't had at all. Worse, he hasn't had the opportunity to rehydrate, either, so his head probably feels like it's got a gong is going off on repeat inside of it.
"Lucifer?" she says hesitantly.
A wet sniff fills the silence with the crickets. "I'm afraid … bending the laws … of physics … is a bit … beyond me … at the moment."
She takes a breath and blows it out. Okay, then. "So, that means we're walking."
"Yes," he croaks. "For now. Apologies."
"Hey, it's not your fault," she assures him.
'Bout 9, Baritone said when she asked about the time, which means it can't be much later than 10:30 or 11, now. She hopes this means that she and Lucifer have all night to get a head start on their captors. That Baritone or whoever won't check on them again until morning. The further into the cover of the woods they can get, the better their chances are at staying hidden until they can get help.
A shaking hand grips her shoulder.
"Ready?" she says, turning to face Lucifer.
He swallows over and over again like he's trying to quell a tsunami, but he nods, and he stumbles along behind her as she guides him to the fence. Luckily, as sick as he looks, he's still asteroid strong. He makes quick work of the fence, rolling it up from one of the poles like a carpet to allow her to slip through with their water, and allowing it to unfurl back into place with a clang once he's floundered through as well.
In a matter of yards, a bed of pine needles softens their slogging footsteps, and the thick forest envelops them. Crickets sing, and a cool wind rustles through the pines. An owl hoots mournfully in the distance.
"You should go ahead," he says between wheezing breaths once the kidnappers' compound is out of sight beyond the trees. "Go on."
Her heart constricts. "Excuse me?"
"As soon … as you're out of range … the rest of this bloody sedative … will wear off. I'll catch up. Maybe, I'll be able to fly us home." He sounds far more hopeful than certain, which is … troubling.
"I can't leave you alone in the dark three feet from the hideout of the people who want to kill you for parts!" she snaps back at him, a harsh whisper. "We'll get separated. And it's not like we can run around screaming Marco Polo at each other when they might be looking for us."
"Chloe, I'll find you," Lucifer insists, his dark eyes glistening in the moonlight.
The water bottles slosh, and the plastic rings dig into her wrist as she folds her arms. "How?" she says. "Do you have some kind of angelic navigation-by-night power or something?"
"This isn't nighttime to me," he replies. "It's just time. I can see perfectly fine."
"For half a mile?" she says, gaping. "Seriously?"
"I don't lie," he reminds her gently, giving her a tired smile. "And if I do somehow lose sight of you, I'll still be able to hear you walking. Your shoe tread is quite distinctive in a space with zero population."
"Zero population?" she says. "Really?"
He nods. "Unless you count our kidnappers."
Fuck. "So, we're not finding help anytime soon."
"Not unless you proceed ahead and allow me to recuperate in the meantime."
A lump forms in her throat. She doesn't want to risk separating, but …. She glances into the forest. Into the ominous darkness beyond.
The cold light of the full moon outlines the rocks and underbrush and fallen tree trunks in gleaming silver. Even without his assistance, she'll be able to navigate well enough not to fall flat on her face. And the idea that they could, potentially, be home in minutes, rather than having to endure an all-night trek through who-knows-what is … tempting.
Still ….
His fingers splay against the small of her back, and he gives her a gentle push. "Go, darling. I promise, I'll catch up. You've my word."
And Lucifer is nothing if not a man of his word. That much, she can believe. "Okay," she says, frowning, "do I stop at some point, or …?"
"Just keep going," he says. "The more noise you make, the easier it will be for me to find you."
Nodding, she twists a bottle of water free from their four-pack and loosens the cap for him, since she doubts he'll be able to do that one-handed. "Here," she says, foisting the water bottle at him. "Sip on that. Slowly. Or you'll puke again."
"Yes, Detective," he says with a jovial wink as he takes her offering.
They share a look. Doubt gnaws at her, but ….
"Go," he prods.
With a deep breath, she turns, and she heads deeper into the woods.
Alone.
Time stretches into something meaningless as she claws her way through the dark. The trio of remaining water bottles slosh in time with her strides. Underbrush slaps at her face, leaving sticky streaks of sap behind on her skin. Sweat creeps down her neck and spine. Her lungs are burning, and her eyes feel gummy with exhaustion as a cold, gnarled pit of worry twists in her stomach. Why hasn't he caught up with her yet?
She can run an eight-minute mile without struggling.
She can walk a mile in about fifteen minutes.
On uneven, poorly lit terrain like this? She figures thirty minutes for a mile. Maybe forty.
But she only needs to walk half that distance to get far enough away from him.
Which means twenty minutes, if that.
She has to have been walking for more than twenty minutes, right?
But he promised. He promised he would catch up to her.
The pines rustle in the wind, and she pauses, craning her head back. The tree canopy is a thick, needle-filled carpet overhead, but stars still poke through here and there. The sky is black. Not purple like it is over L.A., but black like ink. Translucent white tendrils fill a thick vertical stripe of the blackness. The … Milky Way?
With a disquieted blink, she peers back into the woods. She's never seen the Milky Way before. Not outside of the Griffith Observatory. Which is … ominous. Her thoughts drift to the door that said "SORTIE" instead of "EXIT." And the fact that the sky didn't get dark until well after 9 p.m.
But she pushes that amorphous worry away in favor of a more immediate one.
Lucifer.
Maybe, he just needs time. She never asked him for specifics on how much faster he burns off drugs when she's not around. She only knows that her absence accelerates the process.
A twig snaps behind her, and she whips around, squinting into the darkness. The moonlit, creaking outlines of the trees look a bit like skeletons dancing in the shadows. A shiver that has nothing to do with cold runs down her spine.
"Lucifer?" she calls warily into the darkness.
No one replies. Another twig snaps to the right. And then another farther in the distance. Deer, maybe? Bears? She hopes not bears.
Another twig snaps.
… Demons? supplies her irritating little voice.
With a lump in her throat, she keeps walking, and the pit in her stomach widens.
She knew this was a mistake.
She knew—
"It isn't bloody working," he says, almost a snarl, as he falls into struggling, stumbling step beside her.
Her heart climbs into her throat, and she can't stop the startled squawk that flies loose from her lips. "Lucifer!" she snaps.
"What?" he says, panting. "I told you I'd find you."
"It's been like forever!"
"Yes, well," he says, looking away. "I didn't specify a time limit, did I?"
The water bottles fall to the ground with a slosh as she closes the gap between them. "What," he says, not really a question so much as a surprised exhalation. He tenses up as she snakes her arms around his waist, trapping both his bound hands and his unfinished water bottle between their bodies. Plastic crinkles as she mashes herself closer to him. As close as she can go.
"Detective," he says, sounding bewildered, "what's this for?"
"Shut up," she rasps as her eyes water and spill over. She presses her cheek against his chest. The struggling whistle of his breaths echoes against her ear. "I was worried."
"Oh," he says quietly, the syllable rumbling. The tension drains out of him like water from a sieve. The cleft of his chin sinks against her crown as he slumps. He sighs like he just found ocean air after months in a basement. "I'm quite all …." He trails into silence for a moment before settling on, "I'm … here."
I'm quite all right, she's certain he was going to assure her. Except he bailed out.
Why?
She rubs his spine, feeling the bumps of his vertebrae sliding underneath her fingertips. His back is slicked with sweat, and he's trembling. Worse than before. His skin feels like a used dishrag: wet, cold, scuzzy. He never feels cold. Normally, he's a walking radiator.
You do understand that I'm the divine equivalent of a nuclear reactor, yes? he said.
The worrying pit in her stomach widens to a chasm. "What did you mean when you said it's not bloody working?" she says.
His weight seems to sink against her even more. "I mean I still feel like Maze decided to beat me to death with the blunt end of her boot," he says. "Really, how do you stand this?"
"Stand what?"
"What's the bloody fun in drinking if you feel like this the morning after?"
She laughs. She can't help it. "Welcome to humanity, Lucifer."
When he doesn't reply, she backs up to gauge his expression. A few days ago, the moonlight made him seem otherworldly. Today it makes his pale face look haggard. Lines of stress pinch the corners of his eyes, which still seem a bit glazed. Stubble forms a dark swath across his face. His shoulders are bowed with an unseen weight.
How much of himself did he spend to catch up with her?
"Do you need to rest?" she says, frowning. It's probably safe to rest, now. She hopes.
He gives her a hollow smile. "No." But I really bloody want to, he doesn't add. "Shall we continue?"
He pushes away, not giving her a chance to reply. The pine needles scrape under his dragging footsteps as he plods past a tilted sapling. The leaves of the tree quiver as his bare shoulder brushes them. She grabs the water bottles and follows, eyeing him warily as they lumber into the night.
Her feet are solid blocks of pain, and she kind of wishes her nausea would come back, because in the absence of nausea, her stomach rumbles like an earthquake that won't cease. She can't stop thinking about cheeseburgers. And french fries. And chocolate.
She licks her lips.
When they get home, she's taking Lucifer to HiHo Cheeseburger, and she's going to order the entire menu. Screw calories. Trekking through the wilderness for eight years has to be worth a burger or seven and a chocolate shake, right?
Lucifer collapses against a tree trunk and slides down to the ground, pulling bits of bark and moss and dirt with him as he goes. His now-empty water bottle spills from his lax fingertips.
"Lucifer!" she says, dropping to the ground beside him. Sticky pine needles spread beneath her.
He pants noisily, like there isn't enough oxygen in the universe for him. The sky overhead has shifted from black to midnight blue. Like sunrise is imminent. Have they really been walking that long?
"I don't know … what's wrong … with me," he says in a wavering tone.
She laughs nervously. "Um … try being violently kidnapped and sedated, and then walking for a zillion miles."
When he doesn't reply except to let his eyelids droop shut, she bites her lip, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. He still feels like a cold, wet dishrag. "Are there drugs that affect angels?" she says, frowning. "Without astronomical-sized doses, I mean."
"Poisons, yes," he says faintly, almost like he's drifting out of body, "but they're not … of Earth."
"Well, maybe they drugged you up with one of those, then? So … getting away from me wouldn't help?"
The ominous silence that follows her question says he doesn't think so. But what else could it be?
"Lucifer?"
"I'm … cold," he admits in a quiet, barely-spoken tone that makes her heart clench.
It's summer. They've been walking for miles, and the air, while cool from lack of sun, isn't cold by any means.
She's warm enough to strip naked and still feel okay.
Frown deepening, she shrugs out of his jacket. The kidnappers cut him out of his clothes, ruining them in the process, but … with his hands still bound, the fact that his garments are ripped up might be a boon.
"Here," she says softly. She unties his shirt from her waist and drapes it across his heaving chest. Tying the arms behind his neck and the tails into the farthest belt loops she can reach, she turns the shirt into a sort of bib. Then she helps him pull the jacket over his back and shoulders. The coat rustles as he shivers underneath it. "We should have done this sooner."
But Lucifer hadn't stopped. Not once.
His head thunks against the tree trunk as he tips it back, and she can't resist the urge to brush her fingers through his sweaty hair. "S'nice," he slurs, leaning into her touch.
She swallows. "Is it?"
"Hmm," he mutters, neither condemnation nor agreement. Just … exhaustion. So thick and cloying he's overcome with it.
She curls up against him, horrified to realize she can hear his teeth chattering in the quiet. She presses closer, wrapping her arms around him, rubbing his sides with her palms to drum up friction. "Is this warmer?" she says.
But he's already asleep, and he doesn't answer.