Beyond the Grave [ILLUMI X CHROLLO]

[ 12 ] Liar Liar Pants On Fire

Lucifer's wings?

Illumi scrambled for purchase against the nearest table. He slumped onto the stool and his head slipped into his hands.

Chrollo was now pacing the floor. "Illumi, you cannot stay here. Pride is going to be so furious, and with his wings gone—Oh my God. Oh my God—"

Illumi stared into the distance. All of the hope and eagerness he'd brought with him before Itadori's feet crash landed.

"But... his wings are stuck in Hell, right? How far can he go?" Illumi asked.

Chrollo dropped his hand to stare vacantly at Illumi. His eyes drifted, wary. "The wings are only trapped by celestial gold. It... may not be able to leave this universe, but one of its wings was missing. I never heard of Lucifer's wings being damaged like that..."

"They weren't damaged when I found him," Illumi whispered, quietly. Shame made it nearly impossible for him to meet Chrollo's eyes, but he did so with a mock air of confidence. He shrugged. "I think it happened when we got here."

"You—" Chrollo's violet flush surged back only this time, it was all encompassing and colored with rage. "You used a celestial's gift to get here?!"

"I don't know what the fuck that means!"

After the long and agonizing silence of Chrollo making them both drinks of what appeared to be galaxies, Chrollo returned to the table under the light of a domed, glass ceiling. In the process of fixing up their drinks, a tornado blew through and swept the feathers into a bag that was then cinched by a ribbon. The paintings on the walls were all cast over with sheets and the one Itadori had nearly dropped was straightened and covered.

Against the walls, museum-grade storage pallets vanished entirely from sight, stocked to the brim with artwork dividers. Everything Illumi could possibly look at was abruptly hidden from him, all except for the one thing he couldn't stop staring at.

Chrollo.

"You had a shot at an afterlife of freedom and you came here." The words escaped Chrollo in a sneer. He held Illumi's drink out of range the moment Illumi reached for it. Chrollo pointed a finger off of his own glass to pin Illumi with it. "You didn't recognize the similarities between Pride and Lucifer's wings?!"

"How was I to know his wings weren't, like, thrown in the trash or something?" Illumi muttered.

Chrollo choked on something akin to a knife. "The trash!" he rasped in horror. He set Illumi's glass down and joined him at the table. Their knees brushed when Chrollo's chair was dragged closer.

Illumi's entire body was on fire from Chrollo's proximity alone. Where Pride had sparked adrenaline and intrigue, Chrollo fostered the want inside Illumi that he'd denied for five years. And now, in contrast to the muddled grey world Pride had pitched him into, he wanted to lick Chrollo's galactic blush, swallow it, and—

Chrollo's cadence didn't waver even as Illumi's brain wandered. It was clear then, to Illumi, that Chrollo couldn't read his mind either.

"Sin was a part of the celestial body before the war," Chrollo explained. "They control the elements, matter, light, gravity. Lucifer's wings are the Sun. Throwing them out isn't even—That's completely out of the question. This entire solar system would cease to exist."

Illumi hesitated to take a drink. A thought stopped him at the rim of the glass, one that brought him back to catholic school where latin was drilled into him. Lucifer was a dead giveaway.