Castaway

Carry You

Chapter Note :

Chapter title credit goes to Ruelle. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to leave feedback!

I feel I should reiterate what I said in the notes of chapter one: Please do mind the tags on this story. Stuff gets... pretty real. I have no hesitations about rating this story mature. That being said, I do promise to put my toys back on the shelf in perfect condition.

And lastly, thank you so much to everybody on my Twitter and Tumblr who responded to my requests for potential "random conversation topics," and for lists of mythological creatures.

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"It should have been left bloody well alone," Lucifer says, panting as they plod through the endless sprawl of trees. "Have they learned nothing from the previous attempt?"

She shrugs. She isn't much for the Star Wars franchise, but it's ubiquitous. Trixie had been a little bit too young to see The Force Awakens in theaters, but she'd begged and pleaded to see The Last Jedi, and after some discussion, Chloe and Dan had taken her to the theater for a joint movie night. A rare occurrence after the divorce — seeing movies as a family of three. She remembers the cheers of the audience. The bass so loud that it vibrated in her chest. The smell of popcorn.

God, what she wouldn't give for a tub of popcorn laden with butter and salt right now. Or for her only serious consideration to be whether to allow Trixie to watch a PG-13 movie. Or to wrap her arms around Trixie's spindly little body and pull her close ....

"I didn't think the new ones were that bad," Chloe rushes to say, trying to shove the thought of Trixie away, back into the box in her mind where she puts the stuff that's "too much." Her immediate situation — hunger, thirst, exhaustion, mortal peril, all on a clock rapidly ticking down to zero — is already "too much." Way too fucking much.

"Detective?" Lucifer says with a frown, looking vaguely in her direction.

She takes a breath, re-centering herself. "Fine," she says. "I'm fine. Just ... thought too hard for a second."

"Ah," he says. "Yes. I confess I've ... been doing that as well."

A lump forms in her throat. "You're a lot better at hiding it than me."

"It's a cultivated skill," he admits quietly.

They share a look. His gaze doesn't meet hers so much as drift aimlessly along the curve of her shoulder. Which is .... "So," she says a bit too sharply. "Star Wars sequels?"

"Yes." He nods, fumbling back onto the conversation's track. "Yes, the first was a shameless, money-grubbing rehash with nothing original or creative about it," he continues, rolling his eyes, "and the second was ...." He scoffs. "I don't even bloody know what to say about the second one except that it was ruinous."

"I liked the part where Luke was like ... astral projecting or something."

For a moment, only the sound of his heavy, struggling breathing fills the silence.

"Are you all right?" she says, clenching her fingers into tight fists.

But he waves her concern away. "I'll admit—" he says, the words faint at first. A raspy-sounding cough chuffs from his lips, and then he continues with more gusto, "—the director made a somewhat passable attempt at foreshadowing in that scene."

"It was cool when he made that face after the smoke cleared, and then he brushed off his shoulder, and he was like ... 'meh.'"

"Yes, but the escape sequence preceding it destroyed the continuity of the entire series."