Castaway

In the end ....

Chapter Note :

Posting a little early so I can sleep in :D Enjoy! (Just in case there's any confusion, despite the title this chapter is NOT the end, but it is the end of Lucifer POV ;p)

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He isn't awake at first, so much as aware that he isn't asleep. His body is folded at the knees and waist, and all of his feathers and toes are smashed up against something cold and solid. His cheek is pressed against something warm and ... less solid. The warmth wraps around his shoulders like a wreath.

For the first time in days, he isn't shivering. His chest doesn't ache as it fills up with a gelid, unrelenting void. Breathing doesn't feel like a wrestling match that he's losing. He's left only with enervation so thick and pervasive it's caught in every sinew and bone, sticking like taffy between each plodding heartbeat, filling up his mind with cotton.

A soft rumble fills the space around him, making the surface below his body shiver in place. A metallic popping sound drowns out all but the vibrations, though. The steady bursts of, "pop, pop, pop," sound like someone is making ... popcorn in a pot? No. No, like ... a downpour striking a tin roof. Rain. Heavy. And there's music. Barely audible over the clamor. Classic rock. Off to the right. A radio—

A raucous thunk blots out the music and the rain as the world jounces underneath him. His hip slips off the edge. Edge of what? A brief panic bursts inside him like an overladen water balloon striking bricks. He'll fall. He'll fall off .... But then the wreath tightens around him, and he's safe.

"Maze, watch it!"

"What? The shocks on this thing are shit."

"Maybe, if you drove a little slower—"

"But that would take longer!"

"It might also get us there in one piece."

"How is that any fun?"

A sigh blusters through the air somewhere above him. Something warm cups his face for a moment, lingering. And then it wanders to his hair, pulling through the strands.

He doesn't remember making a sound, but the warm thing moves back to his face.

"Lucifer," says a soft, disembodied voice. "Lucifer, are you awake?"

He's too tired to do more than flutter his eyelids. He gets a brief, blurry glimpse of color. And a strip of light. Like sky. And her. Chloe. Even in the flat, kaleidoscope of nonsense that his eyes are telling him exists in front of him, he can identify Chloe. Chloe, who was dead. ... Was she dead?

A breathless not-word splutters in his throat.

"We got the cuffs off," she whispers as the warm thing strokes his cheek. "You're free. You're safe."

Free. Safe. Alive.

She is.

Relief is a bonfire he has no fuel to sustain.

His consciousness is sinking. His limbs are lead. He has nothing left.

Awareness fades.

●◊●◊●

Someone sets the world on a tilt-a-whirl. Something hard and unyielding digs into his ribs. His eyes drift open. Through the blur of his eyelashes, he still can't make any sense of what he's looking at. A leg? A boot? And a speckled texture, like pavement, moving beneath. He's wrapped in something warm, but constricting. It's preventing his arms and wings from succumbing to gravity. And his head feels full.