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IT'S IN OUR NATURE
Experiencing the all-consuming fire of anger isn't something natural for an angel. For that God is All, and all the anger He may have felt only devoured one person to ashes.
Yet what's burning, what's fanning Lucifer is something strong by nature. It's a strong, acrid taste reminding him that of the dust of his exile. These are every spear or sword, every fang, every claw that had slashed his skin. This is blood rushing from his extremities to his heart. Almost painful.
Painful. That too.
The stinging sensation on his knuckles after he knocked on the door, the spams in his muscles, flesh crossed straight by a fire that he can no longer breathe, that he can no longer consciously let flow within him.
That is anger.
All natural, not at all natural for what he sees, what he hears.
The Detective's tears lapped by the flames in the hearth revive his, already wild by nature. However, the Devil burns more than anyone else. Burning bush through time.
And to think that he thought he had returned to a less natural, though original, state.
He's no angel.
This isn't an angelic furnace burning within his eyes.
Once Devil, always Devil - 'flames' of incoming hell for the man who dared to hurt the Detective… that's naturally what follows him outside.
-xXx-
Chloe jumps when she hears the door slam. Not as loudly as when Marcus—
She passes her hand over her shoulder offered to the flames. She's cold, for the breeze that just came in through the door and which is only rushing towards her now. Or is it only now that she stops rushing into the void since...
...since Marcus left?
"It's not worth it."
Marcus is right. Complaining isn't worth it, because she's worth it. She's worth an explanation, some respect. She's worth an evening of not whining about how this day has turned as its worst possible version.
In a systematic way.
Her hand moves from her elbow to her sleeve where her fingers mechanically pull the fabric.
It's stupid to just sit here.
She's cold. It's late. He's gone.
Jerk.
She's not sure if she's flaying him or herself. Both?
"I could care less that you're with that insolent-...dullard!"
Chloe shakes her head. She should just... drink the beers and stuff the cake brought by her—
Her 'what', in the end?
He chickened out before he even became anyone in her life.
Worse than Luc—
"He just left."
"Mh?"
Chloe moves her hand down and turns her head towards the kitchen. Trixie's cutting a slice of the cake from this relationship that was taken down before becoming something 'real', 'something' at all. Guilt engulfs her pride, yet both squeeze her heart. What time can it be?
She doesn't recall doing much except feeling sorry for 'all' of 'nothing' could have given between her and Marcus since Bettany's mother, Trixie's best friend, drove her back home. Chloe looks towards the front door, the table where there are still the bags of gifts and candies from her birthday snack. Then towards the window.
It was lighter when he left.
"What's that, sweetie?" Her voice is hoarse, shy in the crackling flames.
The sounds she makes to clear her throat merge into the scraping of the plate on the kitchen counter.
She gets up, sore, exhausted, thirsty from tears that still want to confront the heat of the fireplace, as strengthening the freezing water that splashed her feelings. She should drink. Yeah, drink a lot.
After she'd put Trixie to bed and blame herself for being a bad mother on top of a bad draw.
She bits the inside of her cheek after taking a few steps in the living room, halfway to her daughter who answers, "Lucifer."
"Lucifer?"
Trixie nods, tilts her mouth smeared with chocolate towards the spoon carrying a much larger portion. "He just left."
"Who, Lucifer?"
"Yes. Walked in and out."
Chloe freezes. Frozen to the bone.
"...Detective, I happen to know him better than you do and I know that you can't trust him."
"When, Monkey? I didn't see him. I--"
Trixie's smile is the prettiest and most frightening demonstration of comfort that Chloe could expect. She has shown far more than she should have, more than she wanted in front of her daughter. And, perhaps, in front of—
Trixie gives her a half shrug, licking the back of her spoon. "Dunno. Five minutes?"
"The door… so that w--?" Chloe doesn't finish her sentence, her hand pointing at the door.
Shit.
Her arms find her chest.
Lucifer saw her.
He saw.
She takes a deep breath and rubs her face, she rubs her tears that are no longer really ones. Just damp traces, stripped of the sweet naivety of being worth it. She then runs a hand through her hair, for each lock that wouldn't be in its place, that still might be seen by everyone.
By Lucifer.
But he's not here.
Not anymore... neither is he, Mar—
"Did he say anything?"
Chloe hopes both he did and didn't. There's nothing to say about her behaviour, about Marcus'. So many things to say about it too.
"We're done here."
"Stop."
"Stop!"
Trixie shakes her head. "Mhm no, but he looked mad. He didn't even say goodnight," she pouts, her spoon rubbing the center of the plate.
"Mad?"
Chloe's breathing quickens.
"--that insolent… dullard!"
"Pierce isn't Pierce."
"Either that, or Linda's right, and I'm repressing pent-up feelings about you and Pierce--"
Chloe's gaze naturally goes back to the shut door. Her arms, around the cold that seizes her lungs.
Shit.
-xXx-
How... How dare he?
How—
How could he forget the address?
Lucifer passes signs mostly pointing out Amesbury Road as possible next destinations. This scumbag doesn't live far from Los Feliz Boulevard, not so far from Griffith Park either....
Not that street.
The red 4x4 on the other line of the road that nearly destroys his headlight doesn't help his search. He lets go of his phone, grabs the steering wheel with both hands and avoids additional setback.
The last thing he needs is to ruin his car before ruining Pierce's bloody faked 'good man' mask. He should have taken one of Maze's blades with him, after finding out her deceit. Why didn't he?
Right… already stabbed in the back.
"This was my idea."
Betrayal penetrates his flesh, it digs the space between his shoulder blades pressed against the leather seat. It weighs on his wings joints, between what is and what will no longer be.
He'll have to make another detour before driving back to Lux.
Or Maze - given how proud she had seemed of herself - would make revenge easier for him by staying in the penthouse, mocking his credulity.
All the better. Better to remind both the instigator and her cursed, human accomplice simple values. Very simple ones.
Betrayal doesn't fit the Devil.
No one hurts the Detective, never.
Lucifer's fingers sink into the leather of the steering wheel, which cracks.
"The easiest way to spin you out--"
He releases the tension in his hands before pulling the steering wheel off the dashboard.
No need for blades.
There's nothing better than nails to rummage through skin imperfections, to scratch them, to bring them to the surface.
Cain said he tried everything.
Lucifer highly doubts that.
As the 4x4 passes other cars to the blocked intersection, Lucifer slows down his driving and retrieves his phone from under the passenger seat.
That bloody scumbag definitely lives around here.
His numb fingers start typing a text for Miss Lopez.
She'll know.
Pierce, Maze….
They will know what it costs.
-xXx-
Chloe goes down the steps four by four. She doesn't have the patience to wait for the elevator, neither pretends to have the time. She'd almost curse Dan for living on the fourth floor, but he's already a saint by taking care of Trixie without questioning her.
She looks at her watch, certain that she has wasted more time driving Trixie here than directly looking after Lucifer.
But she didn't.
Just ten minutes.
Bless be Dan's proximity.
Damn be Pierce, damn be Lucifer for playing knight and avenge her lo—
"And... you know, I lo—"
Her relational disappointment.
Damn them both.
To make her run in the dark, on her ex's staircase, away from her daughter whom she simply should have gotten to bed earlier than first planned. She could have simply felt guilty about Trixie, about how she thought she mattered to Marcus and not so much to her partner, so self-absorbed that he was only thinking about how he felt.
I mean... who wouldn't sleep for a whole week because of something that an old woman in shock had seen?
If he wasn't so resentful, if he was in his right mind... maybe she could have lived through this personal disaster the way she wanted. By lying on the couch, cursing each other - more one than the other - and by stuffing her face in her fridge.
But no.
Chloe catches her breath at the bottom of the last - first - step of the first floor. She opens the door of the building, that of her car a second later.
No, instead - of what she wants - she has to run after her partner to stop him from—
From doing whatever he thinks he's going to do to Marcus tonight.
Normally, Chloe wouldn't have done anything. Lucifer would never have stormed into her house or left in a hurry either. He'd never have yelled like that at the precinct, would never have lectured her about being with her boss.
He'd probably have given her some advice on how to spice things up.
Under normal circumstances.
He was acting anything but normal lately.
"No, it's NOT because I'm tired, Detective!"
Nothing had been normal between them since...
Chloe's mouth sets in a hard line and she turns the ignition key. Damn be Lucifer to make her feel hope like she matters, like she's worth it. Like 'them' matters.
Preventing him from clearing tonight's shame is the last thing she wants to do, as letting Lucifer get into real trouble once he'd take Marcus' eye out.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Bible rules.
Marcus comes right out the Bible, according to Lucifer. Well… Cain , is it?
Chloe's jaw tightens at the thought of seeing him again. She blinks those absurd tears, inhales the icy burn of rejection between her ribs.
She pushes on the accelerator.
It's five blocks away from here.
Chloe frowns.
Why do all the men in her life live so close to each other?
-xXx-
It's three blocks away from here.
Lucifer has been staring at the same building for twice the time it takes to count the windows on its southern facade.
Twenty-five.
He frowns.
He counted twenty-six windows last time.
No... thirty.
Looks like a glass opening avoids his counting every time he closes his eyes. Blinks. He blinks again, faster, counting twenty-seven windows this time. An optical illusion. The night is so dark that it dismantles any imposing architecture of the city. Wouldn't there have been that line of vehicles in front of him, also on the parallel highway, that he wouldn't have had to close his eyes to welcome complete darkness.
His gaze lingers on the truck in front of his corvette, on the second lane of the highway. It's a big truck. Almost turns him into some tiny, insignificant shadow behind. He chuckles as he sees the iron pipes stuck beneath the door - too long, too cumbersome.
Looks like better torture tools than blades for Cain.
The wait is long, although long enough to have developed a distracting torture plan that would last as long as his recovery. Double pain for the one he'd inflicted to Chloe.
Lucifer taps his foot next to the brake pedal, too far from the accelerator.
The movement is slower, it slows down when he closes-... when he blinks. It's faster when he thinks about what he saw.
He closes and loosens his fist on the edge of the car door, closes his eyes on his tremors.
Flashing lights, booming horn blasts, biting wind.
Red. Red light.
Eyes closed. Eyes open. He blinks and blinks, inhales and exhales, clenches and loosens his fist until his hand falls back on the steering wheel.
The leather is cold, comfortable against his sore back, tensed with controlled sleep.
Oh, he is not sleepy.
Far less sleepy than last week. Tonight is the night that wakes up invigorating normalcy, which hardens his muscles. Just like his gaze hardens as soon as the light turns green.
Foot on the accelerator, wind in his hair, eyes on the road, he turns...
...not knowing why the world is turned upside down after his last blink.
-xXx-
It's the worst day she ever lived. Like… ever.
Chloe groans, her hand up to her forehead. "Fu--"
She gropes around the side of her seat to unbuckle her belt, which burns her neck and shoulder. Great bruises to come….
Just bruises, at least. The cars right in the middle of the pile-up are far more damaged than hers. Her heart skips a beat when she starts to realize what she's just avoided, just because she had let that truck pass before her. Cop reflexes.
Someone's crying. "Oh God!"
"Someone calls an ambulance!"
People are running, getting out of their cars. She should--
She manages to unbuckle her belt and gasps her relief, the back of her skull resting against her seat. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, grimacing. The belt cushioned most of the shock, but helped it a lot between her body and gravity.
She exhales, slowly.
Very slowly.
She should report the accident.
Secure the area. Organize the flowing panic. It's so noisy all at once, after deathly silence - typical effect from car accidents.
God…
She hopes no one's dead.
"He's stuck!"
Stuck? Who's—
Damn it... trying to move anyone without knowing the extent of their wounds would kill whoever was stuck right now.
Chloe opens her eyes and her door, which is barely smashed inward by the car that collided with the other black one. A convertible, maybe. She can't see the roof from there and people aren't giants.
"Move aside…" she croaks first, clearing her voice after that. "Move aside, please! L.A.P.D.! Please, step back and--"
Her eyes stop on the license plate.
FALL1N1.
-xXx-
He fell in the dark.
He's not sure how.
He had been following the traffic, its welcome acceleration for his dormant wrath. Then the darkness, the world turning. His car and body… both knocked and swung against cheaper cars. The truck hit the hardest, it even smashed open his car's front like bloody modelling clay.
His bones cracking beneath sheet metal aren't.
They don't crack in the dark.
They shouldn't have.
As he shouldn't have fallen in the dark. Can't fall sitting and broken everywhere.
Can he?
"...ifer! Oh'y...od!"
As his chest rises, his heart seems to fall further down, unattached to hold it in place. Convulsions seize his abdominal muscles and the inhaled breath is shortened by a hoarse cough.
His heart comes back to its place, though. Strong beat. Strong pain ensues.
"--all...bulance!"
"Sir, c'n y-...ove?"
"Th's doesn't...ook good."
Noises and words made a breakthrough in the darkness and pierce his skull, which already seems to be pierced with pain given the blood he tastes in his mouth and feels on the tip of his nose. But these aren't the biggest breakthroughs.
Further down. Down his shoulder.
The left one. Breakthrough by impalement.
His left eye - the only one that doesn't prefer thick blood to the smooth darkness of the previous fall - follows the visible metal before the jacket, the shirt, then the flesh preceding the leather of his seat. The long pile is a straight line between Devil and lorry. The other pipes have, at least, spared what's left of his convertible. All scattered on the ground, across the wheels of another car, too.
He has time to notice that its mustard-yellow hue is the worst hue to choose for a car before a shadow blocks what remains of his sight since his 'Cyclop' condition. "--ifer."
A hand under his chin touches his throat soon after.
He frowns the only eyebrow that doesn't risk to split open on more blood for puzzled expressions. The hair around the face, half of a profile... not mustard-yellow. It's blonde. Familiar, recognizable blonde. "De'ct've?"
He hasn't finished groaning the last letter that his head is falling backwards, his heart pushed by pain to the bottom of consciousness. It's a global explosion. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It remains in his shoulder, it winds around his left leg for a long time, which he's surprised not to have felt before that moment.
The Detective's voice grows quieter. "D'on't… m've! Stay...s'ill, okay? Help's...n the way, Lucifer."
Move?
Who's bloody moving here?! He's not. He has to move to breathe, though.
"Slow...b'eath. Slowly," Chloe encourages him from—
From where? Where is she? Her voice sounds from everywhere. Noise is everywhere.
What is she doing here?
"W't the hell w'r...inking by driving in your state?! You were s'...-osed to rest at your place!"
Oh, he'd like to laugh. He'd like to breathe without choking on his next attempts. "Can't sleep with--" Bloody Hell, this is only air! Not bricks! "...w-without sh'king… cursed s-snow gl'be."
"You're talking about Marcus, right?"
Breathing in his tenth brick, Lucifer opens his only valid eye. The Detective's gaze questions him more, stronger than the words before. She's crouched on the ground, her arms folded on the edge of the driver's side door, so calm around the chaos caused by the accident, the ambulances shouting their saving colors. The firemen are getting closer, noisier.
Maybe because Lucifer only sees red, one eye out of two. With the other, the only eye that matters, he only sees her. That question alone. "He h-hurt...y'u," he whispers.
She pinches her lips. Always when she wants to blame him for something she secretly approves, something she can't openly admit. Like when she appreciated that he stole - on her terms, just a necessary borrowing for him - Pierce's massaging chair to ease her sore back last month.
"And now you're hurt," she replies shakily.
He'd shrug if one of his shoulders wasn't impaled at the moment. Anyway, he must not move.
Come now….
Getting hurt for her or getting hurt because of her….
The difference is small.
-xXx-
"Hey, stay awake!"
Chloe refrains herself from shaking him like the cursed snow globe he was quoting a minute earlier. But seeing his eyes close - his only open eye closing for more than a few seconds - makes it all the more difficult for her to hold back the tears that hoop her eyelids.
All the more difficult to hold back the fear, the guilt; so much more difficult than the frustration for his chivalrous rush.
Destructive.
His car is quite close to destruction, that's for sure.
Her partner's unique eye opens, the feared drowsiness into his iris. "M'ke up your d'mn...m-mind, Detect've…."
Oh, how she misses the liveliness in his voice, in the way he moves - even the crazy one heard and seen hours ago. But he doesn't move, to her request. He's quiet, against his fiery nature.
Her hand moves towards him again, hesitant at first, she then passes her thumb over his cheek. Right under that eye, opened enough to see his irritation.
A tiny spark in the shadow of unconsciousness.
"You should've slept before, you dummy," she whispers.
Her thumb smears more blood on his cheek than it washes some out, to the corner of his lips, this grimace of pain. He frowns, the deep cut across his right eyebrow releasing more crimson furrow on his closed eyelid.
"'m'not... Daniel," he moans before the first paramedic puts his bags next to her and demands his full attention.
He's not like Dan, that's true. She knows.
She does.
She also knows that he's more seriously injured than she has first assumed, the paramedic's gaze dispels any doubts about it. He told them his name, but-- Billy? Rony? Whichever it is, the way he's looking at Lucifer's most visible wounds, how he seems to see more than she does… that encourages her not to move either.
She should. She may hamper their efforts, shorten God only knows how much time's left before her partner's state declines for good. Partners, yes. That's what they are. Both injured. She should clear the way, help the police keep the curious out of the highway, and maybe warn Dan about the situation.
She should, yet she won't.
Lucifer's gaze makes her freeze on the spot. She no longer feels the shards of broken glass from his windshield, which has been shattered by the pipe stuck in Lucifer's shoulder - such tiny diameter provoking heavy damage. She no longer feels the pain of rejection; such pathetic pain, even more terrible after what happened here.
And soon, it feels as if the pipe runs through her, too.
Through them.
Partners.
Plastering a smile on her face, Chloe holds his gaze. "Come on... you're not gonna let your father win now, mh?"
She can't find that rebellious spark in the dangerous shadow that spreads in his open eye, and somehow, she wishes it could gain enough ground, give the illusion that everything will be all right for him.
But Lucifer has a knack for only being serious when he shouldn't.
The exception that confirms the Devil's unique nature.
"T-th't...b-bad?"
Her silence confirms the serious fear that weighs on his already thready pulse.
He's smiling.
He's smiling.
"Doesn't matt-...er," he continues. His voice slips, stumbling between his noisy breathing and the noisy movements of help around them. "Not my… Fat'r's manip'l'on."
Chloe isn't so surprised that he isn't himself. She's surprised that Lucifer finally gets it. Only now.
"My Father, He's manipulating me. He's making me do things that I would never do!"
Lucifer not believing he is being manipulated is unnatural.
"Not...H-His. Som'ne...lse."
That sounds more like her partner. She does her best not to smile, to forget that his is nothing but grimaces of pain, which is contained by tactical approaches from the paramedics and firefighters who can't shut up about 'stripping the front's car' or 'prying it'. Neither seem safe, nor fast enough for taking care of his crushed leg, the first emergency before his impaled shoulder.
"Someone else? Who?"
"M'z…."
Chloe doesn't get it first. After these two whispered letters, his next words make more sense, "Stabb'd me…-n the b'ck."
Stabbed.
"Maze?"
Chloe wonders how in the hell she can link Maze and stabbing moves that easily in her mind.
Lucifer doesn't nod to confirm, concerned - or too far gone, she's sure - about not moving as requested. Yet, the fleeting gleam around his pupil answers her plenty.
"What do you mean?"
She feels bad - oh obviously 'less' bad than him - to see color being drained out of his lips, coloured blood brushing the corners of his mouth. Some of it drops from his chin to his collar. She feels nausea rising in her throat, for all the red that had been poured down there - drop by drop, second by endless second to get him out - and had drastically changed his shirt color.
White to blood-red, almost black where the drops end up around the stuck pipe, in his dark blue suit jacket.
She feels bad about forcing him to talk, to stay awake and pretends to be able to chat in so… so 'his' ways, although the present situation is far more dramatic than their last one.
"I CAN'T SLEEP!"
But it's the right thing to do.
But he pinches his lips so hard. "Teams u-up w'th… Ca-Pierce."
"Team? But--"
Chloe doesn't understand. Maze seemed... she-- Things were going better between them lately. She had even encouraged her to trust her feelings. Teaming up with Marcus? Why would she do that? For a moment, Chloe wonders if Lucifer's state is already too 'bad' for him to keep a clear head.
Marcus and Maze have no reason to team up, except professionally.
Did Lucifer live such as one too many betrayals?
"You hate that I'm with him."
Lucifer is many things, including an overgrown man-child sometimes. Often.
Maze is... from Chloe's point of view, it's like some sibling relationship of sorts. Maze never spoke of her family and Lucifer... well, the few siblings that still visit him never support him, so it seems. There's a loyalty between them both that she'll never really understand, neither describe properly - as it should be, for how strong their weird bond seems to her.
There's also a special bond between her and Lucifer.
"He's just a friend."
She'd had less time for him, so did Maze apparently.
"You're the reason he won't take me home!"
Everybody was letting him down.
"We're done here."
Chloe let him down.
But not him, never.
She wishes he did, though. She regrets he didn't. Why did he have to stay so 'loyal' to her? To the point of risking his life?
She doesn't deserve this.
It's not worth it, for what he's going through here. For months.
A firefighter speaks to her, "Ma'am, step aside."
Her gaze meets the power saw he's holding. Her breath quickens. Lucifer becomes agitated between hood and pipe as soon as she moves away from him. He grunts while moving his uninjured arm towards her, his eye wide open on her hesitant retreat behind the firefighter.
He's talking to Lucifer, but she doesn't hear anything about it.
She only hears her partner's request in the fleeting sparkle within his gaze.
Stay.
She doesn't hear what the firefighter says next, but feels his hand on her arm. "…-lease, make us room to do our job, Ma'am--"
"Detective," she simply replies without taking her eyes off Lucifer, off his eyelid weighing on the gleam below.
It must not disappear.
She can't let Lucifer down now.
"He's my partner, so I stay with him. Just tell me where to sit to leave you enough room."
-xXx-
It's not about the face.
It's about the eyes, what's behind them.
Behind each of Lucifer's actions, there is a look.
His Father's cold eyes for the rebellion that followed. How he never stopped struggling - both physically and verbally - against the judgement of his family when his Mother had averted hers. His repeated gateways, repeated no matter how his elder brother beat him back to Hell, for the empty eyes of the demons who were serving him. Seeking to satisfy humans' desires, dying gleam replaced by fear. Later.
Much later, much lower.
Actions contrary to best natures, one might say.
However....
However, the Detective's look—
Someone close to him is crying, "We're almost there!"
Almost what, almost where....
He hasn't moved an inch, it's the bloody world that keeps moving; fast, too slow sometimes. The pain has moved. Almost unbearable. There - through his heart.
Maybe because they moved - butchered - what's left of his corvette to free his leg.
Cruel and stupid irony, really.
He who isn't allowed to move while the rest of the world is swaying him however it wants, for vague 'almost'.
Not the Detective, though.
Her eyes never left him for a single moment. He looks at her, under his eyelashes, with his 'almost' closed eye.
Almost, nothing more.
Because her eyes, her two eyes, are his missing fire to hold on, the guilt he fears if he ever gives up. He can't disappoint her again.
"Stay awake!"
It's now, for every moment spent holding on this single look, that Lucifer wants to follow the idea first, his golden rule last week and a tacit, unbending deal from now on.
He will not move his consciousness backwards.
It will not move backwards either.
Oh, he'd like her to move so. He wouldn't heal faster, would lose consciousness as soon as he'd stop looking. Even so, he hates knowing her more hurt than he actually is, because of him. Breaking each of Cain's ribs, any other bones left afterwards… it still wouldn't be enough to hurt him as much as he hurt the Detective. She wouldn't have been more hurt.
It would just have been like cleaning dirt under his shoe. Because, what he'd wanted the most for Chloe, free choice…. it had backfired at them both. Whatever his opinion about the 'dirt' might be was no concern of her. Nothing he ever did or thought should have been her concern.
It's like going back to square one, yet not moving in his ruined corvette, yet not letting darkness gain his natural place.
He chokes on a bloody grin.
If he wakes up in Hell, both eyes wide open on bloody ash... it would prove that there is no angel to fear in the devil he's been acting for so many millennia.
No acting.
He is who he is.
Fire, anger, the contrary of any look.
"Don't say that." Chloe's speaking to him again, eyes blurred by the extra pain he's putting her through.
The only part of his forehead that is willing to wrinkles.
"You're gonna be fine. We're gonna get you out of here," she says.
Oh.
Yes, one way or another, he would get out of this unfortunate situation. In that physical body or its immortal replica locked down far below. He doesn't linger over the fact that his thoughts turned to unnoticed aloud ones are hardly a sign of 'fine' conclusion. He focuses - besides the Detective's unwavering gaze, who's been kneeling by his side for hours… feels like hours - on what will come after.
His wings are back.
This time will be different.
So much so that he hadn't slept for days, that Maze turned his sensical thoughts against him.
The situation in Hell will be different.
Should he come back on Earth?
This possibility pierces his shoulder and takes his breath away. He loses his sight without closing his eye. On the contrary.
Stay.
He remains blind for more time than he can live, once again jolted between two thresholds of consciousness, his word within an inch - no, within an eyelid - of being broken. Blind, the Detective's order overtakes his other senses. The word touches, burns his skin. It smells like metal, fresh blood and sweat. It can be heard everywhere, in a single voice, multiple ones - unknown and the louder voice of the person who matters the most after him.
No.
No, that—
That's Maz's words.
There is no 'after' Chloe.
"I'm…-ere!"
Fingers that press his. He flinches before he remembers not to move, to just look at the Detective. His half-blind sight comes back slowly, not fast enough. But he can see enough of her face, her hair brushing the blood on his lips. He looks for her gaze without seeing it.
Going towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
Looks like it, more or less.
The narrow tunnel of his consciousness maintained by a spark, the fire that holds him in place.
Chloe squeezes his hand. So hard.
He tries so hard not to move that he starts shaking. So hard.
He clenches his jaw, but doesn't let go of her gaze - vague, clear. Single light into darkness, single stillness in time that moves, everything that moves around, above him.
Blood flows from his eye.
The Detective wipes it off, he doesn't see any fresh stain on her red hands, though.
Red with dried bl—
How long has it been since—
It's not blood. Just a tear.
"...r at the hospital. H'ld on...ay?" Chloe reassures him.
Hospital?
He was in his car not long ago...
How lon—
He didn't close his eyes, didn't break his word.
"-orated left shoulder, blood pres--"
He looks at her, sees the world change behind her. Moving forward. White. Walls.
"Let's get him to the O.R.!"
He only moves when the Detective is pushed out of his field of vision. His only valid arm looks for her, his fist collides with someone's chest, screams and other noises ensue. He pulls on the mask that muffles his grunts of protest. Bloody suction pad he crushes with trembling fingers.
"H'ld him!"
"Easy, pal!"
He can't stay without her, can't close his ey—
"Lucifer-... Lucifer, look at me!"
He freezes, finally feels the Detective's hands on his cheeks, beyond sweat, tears and pain. Beyond the terror that has gripped his heart, panicked beats in his chest. It's far beyond that. It's an unnatural feeling.
Opposite to his word.
Chloe's gaze burns his, it burns all signs of rebellion. He's out of any sorts of body responses.
"It's okay, it's over…" she whispers. "You can sleep now, everything is gonna be okay."
"We're done here."
And he lets go, passes his past wrong moves. He walks straight towards the darkness.
-xXx-
From the only sense that had kept him awake, there are the four others that bring him back.
He feels his strained, bandaged muscles. He smells antiseptic and, more importantly, cheap coffee. He can hear himself breathe, and so can he with someone else's.
The sight is the very last to come.
Thus the last shall be first.
First surprised to open his eyes, he closes them again before the Detective expresses hers and turns off the light. The last to open them again, his partner's first words are the last he expected to hear. "Well, isn't that a napping Devil?"
He snorts, then groans. "Is'th… all you've got, D-Detective?"
"Don't tempt me," she warns him, sitting at his bedside, warm cheap coffee taken from the table beside his pillow.
He smiles. "It's in my nature."
She smiles as well. "So I've heard."
"What are you doing here, it's-...." He stares out the window, feels his shoulder testing his fluctuating immortality while he looks at the night outside. His eyes, already half-closed, come back to hers; baggy, tired eyes. Blurred by steaming coffee. "It's late."
She nods and shrugs shortly afterwards. "Booth would do the same."
She pinches her lips so as not to laugh.
Here's that sparkle in her gaze...
He coughs, unable to laugh without risking to rip the stitches from his shoulder muscles. "Act'ly, he'd l'cture'm a...out my reck'ss'driv'ng.…"
Senses moving backwards, his eyes are shut for long seconds when he hears Booth's last words. Right before he smells her perfume, then her hair. Right before her lips brushing the corner of his. "The night is still young."
Well... Bones would disagree.
It's in his nature.