Chapter title credit goes to Marina & the Diamonds
Castaway - Immortal
Birds sing from the treetops as a cool, wet gust slaps at her face.
She sits on her knees on the porch, hands steepled in supplication. The voice from last night has been silent ever since she laid eyes on the cabin, and she doesn't know what else to do.
Please, help your brother. Please. I know you want to help.
She's never been one to pray. She always found the concept futile. Why ask a void for help?
But prayers don't go to a void. They aren't directionless flailing.
Please, help him.
They go to living, breathing recipients who could be listening if they wanted, but don't care enough to bother.
And she didn't think, before, that words like "extra" could be applied to binary states like futile, and yet, here she is, feeling the "extra" futility like someone tied Lucifer-sized free weights to her ankles and yanked on them until she face planted in the dirt.
Please, hear me. Please. Anonymous sibling. Amenadiel. Raguel. God. Anyone.
Hot, angry tears pulse down her cheeks as almost-black cumulonimbus clouds roll overhead. The sunrise was muted — almost suppressed — by an angry cold front tumbling over the horizon. The temperature dropped what felt like fifteen degrees overnight. And the leaves and pine needles rustle as the trees snap and writhe in the wind.
Please.
Anyone …?
Exhaustion simmers behind her eyelids, and every time she closes her eyes, the world around her feels like it's oozing. She didn't get any sleep. Stuffing one's face with food — particularly crappy processed food like hot dogs — after days without eating anything, is a fast-track ticket to an upset stomach, and she feels wretched. After Lucifer woke up enough for her to help him into bed, she vacated, not wanting to disturb his much-needed rest.
Please.
The porch floor is cold beneath her knees. Hard. Uncomfortable. Her stomach quivers precariously, though she hasn't given it anything to fuss about except water since last night. Her tongue pulls into the back of her throat. She swallows against rising nausea. Again, again, again.
Please.
But no one is listening.
And he's going to die.
He's dying right now. Back in the bedroom while she's out here. Begging for the impossible.
The rain begins to patter down in fat, relentless droplets. And then she can't hold her turmoil in anymore. She launches toward the creaky porch railing to heave over the side.
Her eyes hurt from crying. Everything hurts as she stumbles to the kitchen sink to rinse out her mouth. With a sniff, she cups her hands under the faucet, dragging a mouthful of water to her lips. She stares into the back wall, swishing the water between her teeth as the faucet rushes. The glass tile backsplash seems to split in two, doubling as her eyes lose focus. Rain pelts the roof.
She doesn't know how long she stands there, floating out of body, before she manages to give herself a shake.
The blankets on the bed in the master bedroom are pushed into a crumpled heap at the foot of the mattress, and the room is empty. Her heart leaps into her throat, and her lungs push out all of her air. But then she realizes the thunder of the rain pouring down overhead has additional layers to it. A deep, throaty gurgle. Like water sloshing through pipes. A whooshing sound. Like a rushing faucet. A soft hum. Like an exhaust fan.
She looks left. The bathroom door is shut. A faint yellow strip of light fills the space between the door and the scratched oak flooring. How he mustered the energy to walk to the bathroom by himself, she doesn't—
A raucous crash fills the space behind the bathroom door.
"Lucifer?" she snaps, closing the gap between her body and the door in two reaching strides. "Are you okay? Do you need help in there?" When he doesn't answer right away, she makes a fist and raps beside the knob with her knuckles, each impact making the door shake. "Lucifer?"
"… 'Tective?" The word is woozy and disoriented and faint, like his consciousness is wafer thin and crumbling.
She doesn't wait for him to invite her inside. A cloud of steam tumbles to freedom when she pushes open the door. The rush of the faucet crescendos to a roar. Heat wafts against her face, and her skin turns damp in moments.
Lucifer is sitting on the lid of the toilet, trembling, pale, naked, his body perched a bit like the Thinker, save for the fact that his chin is cradled between both hands, not resting on one. His left wing sprawls across the floor like a drab, gray rug, stopping just short of the doorway, and his right wing is crammed between the back edge of the toilet bowl and the tub. The trash can is tipped over. The shower curtain is sprawled haphazardly over the tub and floor, getting doused by the faucet. One end of the curtain rod is jammed into the tub, and the other end is sticking up at a diagonal in mid-air like a spear. His soiled clothes rest in a forgotten pile by the sink.
"I …." He swallows, directing a blank, stunned look into space.
"Hey," she says gently, careful to step over his crumpled wing. "Lucifer, what happened?"
But from his shell-shocked expression … he doesn't know. "I … tripped?" he says without confidence.
She glances at the wreckage, heart constricting. His uncertainty suggests he blacked out. Not just tripped. Between the wet swelter of the steam and his flagging fortitude, he must have left the world for a moment, only to return in a different place.
She leans across the tub to turn off the water.
"No, no," he says, reaching for her with an icy, featherlight grip. "No, I'm …." He loses his place in reality. "Bhis." A pained sound catches in his throat. "D-dirty."
His face and wrists are caked with dried blood, and his arms and sides are covered in a fine, dark coat of dust particles and sap. His normally straightened hair is matted through and tightening into frizzy curls. His stubble is an outright beard — not carefully cultivated five-o'clock scruff anymore.
"I just need to fix the shower curtain," she assures him. "And then I'll help you get cleaned up."
"… Oh." He relaxes, lowering his trembling hands.
She picks up the metal curtain rod.
He stares into space with a glassy, drifting-away expression as she fixes the rod and the curtain, trying not to let the lump in her throat overwhelm her, but memories coil in her mind like barbed wire. Trixie keeps laughing and laughing as she attempts to hold his hand. With a miffed expression, he whips out his handkerchief to smite all remnants of her sticky fingers from his skin. Tree sap and dirt might as well be a million Trixies. Of course, he'd crawl off his deathbed for a shower. Of course, he would.
The plastic curtain snaps in the silence as it falls back into place.
"Do you think you can stand for a while if you have the wall to lean against?" she says, blinking back tears. Her tone sounds thick and wavering, even to her own ears. She takes a shuddering breath and another. He doesn't need this shit. But nothing cleanses away the ache expanding deep in her chest.
When he doesn't reply, she prods, "Lucifer?"
He blinks. "Hmm?"
"Do you think you can stand for a while if you have the wall to lean against?" Or should she try and find a chair that will fit in the tub? She doesn't relish the thought of ruining any of their unwilling host's furniture, but ….
"M'okay," he murmurs at last.
She gives him a dubious look, but decides to give him the benefit of the doubt. She pushes the curtain toward the wall, bunching it up, and then turns the faucet back on. Steam curls up from the water.
As the seconds crawl, she freezes there, in that space, in that moment, with him sitting inches away from her, naked. The falling water fills the silence with a whooshing sound. Self-consciousness tightens around her neck like a noose. This is not how she pictured this. Ever.
She directs a stressed glance at his pale kneecap.
Out of the corner of her eye.
He's not going to say anything. Of course, he's not. He's not even going to look, not with the sort of carnal intent that would embarrass her. He feels like shit. He can't even see straight. Literally.
Closing her eyes, she takes a deep, fortifying breath, and then she peels off her filthy shirt. Her soiled jeans. Her nasty, rank underwear and bra. She adds her socks to the grody pile last, and then kicks them all to the side by the molding.
Damp air laves her skin.
Silence stretches.
She presses her hands to her mouth, but it doesn't help. "Oh, God," she moans between her fingertips as a tidal wave spills over her, and everything she's been holding back tumbles out at once. "Oh, God." Her lower lip trembles as she adds, whispering, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean to—"
"It's all right," he says.
She hiccoughs. "No, it's not. I'm naked right in front of you, and you're not saying a word, and it's wrong." She blinks, tears streaking from her eyes. "I didn't expect it to feel so wrong." She sucks in a breath. And another. And another. "Everything feels wrong."
The toilet lid clanks as he struggles to rise, but he manages. His body looms large and shaking next to hers as he shambles into her space. His broad shoulder brushes hers. His pale chest slides into view. Then he lifts his arms. Over her head. She feels the cold cuffs settle heavy and low across her spine as he pulls her into his arms. With a grieving moan, she presses her ear against his chest and slings her arms around his waist. The steady pounding of his heartbeat fills her ear through his breastbone. His nose mashes into her hair. His breaths are strained and rasping, like just that much movement exhausted him, but he's here. And he's present. For her.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry. This isn't supposed to be about me."
"Of course, it's about you," he replies softly with a disapproving cluck of his tongue. "Don't be
bloody silly."
"But—"
"Death is rarely about the dying." He kisses the top of her head with cold lips. "And for whatever it's worth, to me, you are a vision. Always."
Which only makes her cry harder. Ugly cry. With snot and drool and zero dignity.
He doesn't comment. Not on the tears, or the snot, or the drool. Definitely not on the loss of dignity.
For all the snark he possesses, he employs none of it, now.
"I don't want you to die," she says in a broken whisper. Again. She's said it too much.
"I know," he replies, world-weary.
She sniffs. "It isn't fair."
With a sigh, he tightens his embrace, pressing close.
He holds her in a timeless space, sheltering her as she grieves.
The shower fails to warm him.
Even under the relentless, hot spray, his skin is cold, and he won't stop shivering. The surge of strength he mustered to hold her, to comfort her, has petered out, now, and he leans against the wall, passive and bleary-eyed. His massive wings don't fit together in the tub. One rests behind him, limp and lifeless, the tips of his bladed gray feathers soaking in the sudsy water. The other hangs over the side, sluicing water onto the bathmat in dousing sheets.
She starts with his hair, first doing her best to pick out all the pine needles and twigs and bits of leaves that have gotten stuck, and second, massaging a generous, golf-ball-sized dollop of shampoo into the tangled mess, not once, but twice. He's so tall that she has to stand on her tiptoes, her feet sloshing through the water collecting at the tub floor as she presses up against his back. She shifts left and right and left again to reach everywhere, trying not to trip on his wing. Thankfully, the shower has a detachable nozzle, so she's able to move the spray around by herself, rather than requiring movement or work from him. Her arms ache from stretching by the end.
He doesn't speak. Not for a long time. Not until she's kneading conditioner against his scalp.
"S'nice," he murmurs so quietly she can barely hear him over the spray. A heaving sigh racks his frame, and then he stills, save for his worrisome trembling. He sounds almost drunk when he slurs, "No one's ever done this."
She frowns. "No one's ever done what?"
He jerks in place like her question woke him up from a doze.
"Lucifer?"
He doesn't reply. Like, perhaps, in the grips of languor, he admitted something private. Like ….
Oh.
Her heart constricts when she realizes what "this" is.
Washing his hair. Not for some sex game or … whatever … but for closeness. To be warm. To care for and to cherish, skin to skin.
No one has ever cherished him.
In her eyes, he's always seemed like such a font of experience. He's seen every depravity humanity has to offer. Every lie. Every vice and sin and kink. Every inch of his skin has been debauched by scores. He's debauched them in return. His life is a rich, lush symphony of carnal pleasure.
But he's a barren wasteland of spiritual neglect.
A terrible irony for an angel if ever there was one.
She aims the spray at the back of his head, pulling her fingers softly through his hair, since he seems to like that.
She would be lying if she said she didn't linger far longer than required, cherishing.
The minutes bleed away, lost in the roar of the water.
"Are they dead?" she finally has the nerve to ask as she rubs the washcloth down his dingy feathers. "Your wings, I mean. They look …." She swallows. None of the feathers twitch like they did the last time she handled his wings. She has yet to see either limb move independently since they showed up again, unbidden. Both feel frostbitten to the touch, they're so cold. "They seem dead."
"No," he says. "They're … too heavy. I don't have the raw musculature to …." A pained smile tugs at his lips as the breaths rasp in his chest. "I can feel your hand."
She strokes a soft edge of a secondary feather with her thumb. Even soaked, even dingy gray, his wings are still lamb's-ear soft. "Does this feel nice?"
"Yes."
She wanders to the bulging muscles where his wings meet his back. Muscles that are overworked by limbs they're not meant to lift. Muscles that must be screaming at him. She rubs the washcloth gently against him. Against the soft seam where tiny velvet feathers become skin. Then she presses. He almost trips, loosing a bark of pain that makes her stomach twist. The cuffs clink against the wall tiles as he adjusts, pressing a palm flat to hold his slumping weight.
"Sorry," she says, almost biting her lip bloody. She'd meant to massage him, not maul him. Stupid. So stupid. "I'm sorry. I thought it would help."
"It's all right," he says faintly. Glassy-eyed, blinking, he thunks his forehead against the wall.
Gun-shy, she moves away from his wings. Instead, she drags the washcloth up and down his heaving side, feeling the bumps of all of his ribs, and the little valleys between. His jerky, sucking inhalations slow over moments. His eyelids dip.
"Does this feel good?" she says, sick with hoping.
He nods.
She drags the cloth up and down his body in steady strokes, scrubbing all the grime and sweat and displaced gore away. Time sharpens again only when she has to step out of the tub and over his wing to work her way around to the front. She scrubs his arms, softening her strokes as she nears his abraded wrists, washing all the blood away, until only dry scabs remain.
"Do you …?" She clears her throat, proffering the sudsy washcloth to him. He can reach the rest by himself. If he wants. Even with his hands bound. "Um."
With a quaking breath, he picks himself up off the wall and wraps his shaking fingers around the cloth. She turns away to give him a bit of privacy. The rasp of the cloth and the rush of the water fill the silence as he finishes up, claiming one last bit of willful independence for himself.
"Is there another?" he says softly behind her.
"Another what?"
"Cloth."
She frowns. "Um." She pushes the shower curtain back to inspect the stack of towels she brought in from the linen closet. There's also a small stack of washcloths. She grabs a soft purple one from the top of the pile before closing the curtain and ducking back underneath the spray with him. "Yeah." She lathers it for him, since he can't do that one-handed, and then holds the cloth over her shoulder for him to grab.
There's a wet slap as he drops the old washcloth onto the floor of the tub, and then he takes the new one.
What she doesn't expect is to feel the cloth rasping against her spine.
"Oh!" she blurts, water sloshing as she flinches toward the spigot.
A pause. "Is this … all right?" he says.
"You don't have to do that."
"But is it all right?"
Tears well in her eyes. "Yes. It's … yes."
He settles the washcloth against her back again, massaging all the spots she missed in her haste to worry over him. His touch is gentle. Or weak. Or gentle. She prefers to think gentle. The lump in her throat expands.
He steps all the way into her space. "There's a safe," he murmurs beside her ear. "In my library. Behind the leftmost bookshelf. The passcode is 12042007."
She blinks. "That's … Trixie's birthday."
"And?" he says, stroking the back of her shoulder with the cloth. She can almost hear his smile. "It's easy to recall. And no one who knows me would ever guess it."
She swallows. "I know you."
"And would you have guessed it?"
"No."
"Precisely."
She frowns. "I thought you said you have an eidetic memory."
"I do."
"Then why do you …?" Realization slides in. He doesn't need for the combination to be easy to remember. He wants it to be easy to remember. For her. "I …."
He presses his lips to her temple. "Inside the safe is a small leather-bound black book," he says against her skin. "All of my account numbers and passphrases are listed in it, along with the number of the attorney I have on retainer. All of the keys and titles to my properties are in the manilla envelope. My ledger is in the safe as well — that's the larger book. You might need to hire a translator for some of it."
"Your … l-ledger."
"For favors," he confirms.
Her stomach flip flops. "Lucifer …."
"When you get home, I want you to have it. All of it. My attorney has your name. There shouldn't be any trouble. All right?"
"But—," she's quick to say. Quick to protest. She turns around, water sloshing as she shifts to face him, to look into his dark eyes. The warmth and earnestness in his tired gaze is like an axe to slice her open at the seams. He's never been cared for before, no. And he's never cared, either. This is the flip side of that same coin. His last chance to fill in the gaping, tragic blanks in his life. The ache in her throat is a hurting, stabbing throb. "Okay." She swallows, blinking back a fresh wave of tears as she nods. "Okay. Trixie's birthday. I'll remember."
"Good," he says, and the conversation ceases once again, though the silence isn't awkward.
His breaths are raspier, his fingers less sure as he resumes his ministrations with the cloth. His weight presses onto her more and more with each stroke. He's tiring.
She closes her eyes and pretends they're on a beach somewhere, the warm salty air billowing around them. Trixie is there, and she's laughing and laughing, and Lucifer is lying on a towel in his swim trunks, an adonis in repose, basking in the rays of the sun he created.
Come in the water, Mommy! Trixie will say.
I'll be right there, baby, Chloe will reply, rolling into Lucifer to kiss him. Want to come, too?
I'm not a bloody fish, he'll say.
She'll shrug, grinning. So? And then she'll stand up, showing off her favorite blue bikini.
He'll grin like a shark, rising to his feet to follow her into the waves. Astute point, darling.
As fantasies go, it's mundane. And a bit out of character. And perfect.
They stay in the shower together, dancing in imaginary waves, until the real water gets cold.
He has trouble getting out of the tub. By the time he's leaning against the wall, panting but somehow still upright, his wings dripping all over the floor, he can't even lift a towel. His body trembles underneath the terrycloth as she helps him dry himself.
"I forgive you," she blurts. Suddenly, though the words feel self-evident, they seem important to say.
The thick steam cloys around them. He frowns. "For … what?"
She gives him a wavering smile. "For everything you think I might be mad at you about."
"That's quite a lot, you know."
"It just … isn't important," she replies, before he can protest further. "Okay? I forgive you. Forget about it. All of it. I mean it."
"But—"
"None of it's worth holding a grudge over," she adds before he can protest further. "I get that you had your reasons. I don't agree with all of them, but I know that you never wanted to hurt me. I would have said it earlier, but …." You mean … the cuffs don't just weaken you? You mean, you're actually dying? She takes a shaky breath as the memory hijacks her mind's eye. "But I got … distracted."
He doesn't seem to know what to say to that, and so he says nothing, but he heard her. He understood. And that's what's important.
She lets him have his space.
While he sits on the toilet lid, preparing for the short trip back to the bedroom, she heads to their host's master closet to fish out a clean pair of sweatpants, boxers, and socks for him, and a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt for her. Whoever their unwilling benefactor is, he's considerably more rotund than Lucifer, if the gaping waistbands of his clothes are any indication. The boxers won't even stay up on Lucifer's hips, and she gives up quickly on trying to make them work. But the sweatpants are soft and warm, and, save for being about four inches too short at the ankles, seem to fit Lucifer just fine once she pulls the drawstring tight. She's swimming in the borrowed t-shirt, and she has to tie the waist of the shorts in knots by her hips to hold them up, but they're far more comfortable than her dirty, soiled jeans.
"Hand-Me-Down Chic, the Mortal Peril Collection," Lucifer says.
She frowns. "Huh?"
A wan smile ghosts across his face. "Just considering … what to call the runway show."
Her borrowed shorts choose that moment to fall to her ankles. She snorts, unable to curtail the unexpected burst of humor. He tilts his head, regarding her warmly.
"There we are," he says.
"Where?"
He brushes her lip with his thumb. "You've a lovely smile."
"Oh." Blushing, she lets her smile widen. "I told you I like your sense of humor."
He kisses her forehead. "You did, indeed."
He sleeps curled up in a blue comforter in the recliner by the window, his wings draped over the armrests on either side, while she changes the sheets for him. The clouds roll overhead in the sky. The day is dark and drab and gray. She opens all of the windows in the bedroom, letting in the sound of the birds and the breeze and the leaves and the soft patter of the rain. She leaves a glass of water for him on the end table by the chair, just in case, and then she sits on the edge of the bed, watching him breathe. The clock on the nightstand says it's 9:45 a.m. Barely halfway through the morning. And his breaths are labored, now. Even in sleep.
More tears well in her eyes when she wonders, given the rapidity of his post-forest-fire decline, if he'll even see sunset.
She swallows back the sudden swell of grief when she realizes he's looking at her.
"Hey," she says, scrubbing at her wet eyes with her knuckles. "Do you want to go back to bed? The sheets are clean."
"No," he says.
"I opened the windows for you," she babbles. "There's some water on the table, too."
"Thank you."
She blinks, and a new swell hits. She's a rock at sea, being bashed by wave after wave. She can't keep anything at bay, anymore. "I don't know what else to do for you," she says in a small, cracking voice. "I … I don't know."
He regards her for a long moment. All of his former energy seems to be gone, now. Whatever he mustered in the shower must have been the last of it. His eyes drift shut. "You could sit with me, if you like," he murmurs.
She clutches up tents of the bedspread between her fingers. The chair is large, and there's a wide gap between his hips and either arm of the chair, but— "I won't smoosh your wings?"
"No."
She slides off the bed and walks over, just as a wet gust of wind unfurls through the room. The air smells of petrichor. One of her favorite scents. Inhaling, she lifts up the blanket and curls up beside him underneath it, trying not to put too much weight on his feathers.
A wavering smile pulls at her lips as she reaches up to run her fingers through his hair. Usually, it's slick and straight, but, now, it's soft. And curly. Not a little curly, either, but wildly so. She wonders how much time he spends every morning wrestling with a flat iron.
"I don't think I've ever seen you completely without product," she says.
"Hmm," he says, tipping his head to kiss her fingers. "Is it to your liking?"
"It's a lot less austere," she says. "Very handsome."
"S'good."
Her eyes water. "I think you're very handsome."
A smile tugs at his lips. "Do you?"
Nodding, she presses her forehead to his, closing her eyes. His skin is like ice. The raspy, tired sound of his breathing fills the silence. She slips her fingers to his chest, touching him with her bare palm. She traces his sternum with her thumb, trying to memorize every feature. Every sinew. Every sloping muscle.
"Is this okay?" she whispers.
"Yes." He sighs like he just laid himself out on the beach in her fantasy. "Touch me all you like."
She wanders to his left nipple, toiling until it tightens into a pert little point, and then to his right. A soft rumble of enjoyment catches in his throat. She runs her palm down his side. Across the flat plane of his stomach. Over his navel. The rasping shh of skin on skin fills the silence. The blanket crinkles as she delves. At first, she only intends to offer comfort, body to body, breath to breath. She only intends to lay on hands. But her desperation and her grief are kindling. And his body beside her is the strike of the match.
She leans in and presses her lips to his.
His eyes fly open. For a moment, he seems bewildered. His dark gaze searches hers. And then a bone-deep, hungering desire slides in, pushing out some of the fog loitering in his expression. The kiss becomes reciprocal and then some.
"Please," he rumbles against her.
"Please … what?" she teases. "What is it you desire?"
He laughs a little. "That's my line, darling."
"I'm stealing it."
"Oh, are you?"
"Yep," she says. "Try and stop me."
Another laugh. "Well, that …." He kisses her. "That is definitely not my desire. Rob me blind of it if you wish."
She drags her tongue against the tips of her teeth, smiling. "You haven't answered my question."
"About what it is that I desire?"
She nods.
The silence stretches for a moment as he peers into her eyes.
"You," he admits softly. "I desire you."
"Ditto," she replies, a bare, hungry breath.
The cushion squeaks as his weight shifts. Just a little. He picks up his hands like he forgets they're bound. Like he wants to twist toward her. To wrap his arms around her and pull her down on top of him. A wince crosses his features, and an irritated growl vibrates in his throat. She kisses him again, letting impulse shift her into straddling his thighs between her knees. Like he wanted. Well. Like she thinks he wanted, anyway. The comforter slides down her back and falls off the chair, surrendering to gravity.
"This is still okay?" she says.
He nods. "Consider this my blanket consent to you having your wicked way," he replies, a humorous glimmer in his eyes. He reaches up to stroke her face. Her hair. And then he swallows, offering a downward glance to his wrists. And then downward still. To his lower body. "Though I'm not certain how much I can contribute."
"You're here, aren't you?"
"In this moment, quite."
She smiles. "That's all I want right now." That's all she wants forever, but she can't have it.
She kisses his lips, and time and space drift away. She can't forget that he's dying, but she can make the fact small. She can sit it in the corner and put it in timeout while they play in their bubble together.
He smells like fresh cut soap. She clutches his head, holding him to her. His breaths buffet her body as she tastes him. His mouth. The faint salt of his newly clean skin, and the mint of their benefactor's toothpaste. Lucifer's a willing, avid recipient, as his tongue slides against hers.
She plunges her hand beneath his navel. Beneath the loose waistband of his sweatpants. Touches him. Cups him. If he were healthy, she'd be worried that he wasn't interested. But he isn't healthy.
"Apologies," he mutters breathlessly against her. "I can honestly say that's never happened before."
She shakes her head. "I don't mind. Does this feel good to you?"
"Oh, yes."
"Then it's good for me."
The swept-into-her-whirlwind look he gives her is heartrending. "Yours is my favorite light," he confesses, looking up at her. He strokes his thumb along her cheek. "So much better than anything I could ever make."
The ache in her chest burgeons. "That's not possibly true."
"Well, I don't lie, darling."
She kisses him once, twice, again, before lowering to his sternum. She presses her ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat and his soft, discombobulated moans as she strokes him. The stars in his eyes shine like diamonds as he comes apart in her hand.
In that moment, he doesn't hurt, and he isn't tired. In that moment, he's happy.
With her.
He's happy with her.
And she watches, rapt, memorizing every piece of him.
She'll keep the picture in her mind's eye for whenever she needs it.
Always.