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The thin white layer of Egyptian cotton does nothing against the bullet. Hitting him straight in the chest the impact makes him take a surprised step backwards into the direction he came from when he dived into the shooters' line. She assumes he's dead before his body hits the ground, although a small part of her - the irrational one - wants him to be still alive, wants the act of falling to still be a conscious one, because it suits him so beautifully to fall like this. He goes down with the elegance of a dancer folding himself together, softly sinking towards the stage floor, death nothing but a sad and beautiful metaphor. Her mind offers her images of the dying swan, uncalled for, and she brushes them aside with the thought that the dirt of the asphalt parking lot is probably ruining his suit.
It won't matter, though, with the white shirt already soaked and dirty, and the improbability of him wanting to wear that suit again. Of him wearing anything again. It takes every little piece of training she has ever received to not run forward and kneel next to him, every bit of self-control she has. It goes against her instinct, but she doesn't move.
She remains ducked against the corner of the house she's taken cover behind and tries to understand where he came from, how he exactly managed to get from right behind her straight into the line of the shooter. Scanning the surrounding rooftops she cowers lower, waiting for the second bullet to come flying so she can discern the direction where the shooter is hiding. Their original target has long since vanished, the suspected rapist making off as soon as the shot had rung out, seizing the opportunity to escape his punishment.
Nothing happens. For long minutes that seem like hours she remains where she is, her line of sight clear onto the small parking lot. There are two red Toyotas, two Nissans, and Lucifer's dead body. Nothing moves.
&
The coroner is someone she's never worked with before. The young woman might have been on the LAPD team for a while, but rotation ensures that Chloe doesn't know everyone from their unit. She arrives with the usual speed, climbing out of the black van with the white lettering. The parking lot is already surrounded by blinking cars and cops, yellow warning tape fluttering in the soft breeze.
A quick handshake with the coroner, and Chloe leads her the few steps. The blood on the asphalt has almost completely dried.
Kneeling down next to Lucifer the young woman gapes inelegantly for a moment, then stares back at Chloe while unpacking her kit.
"Now look at that, juicy. Haven't seen many famous dead guys since I came here. And not many that good looking, either."
The look Chloe shoots her should shut her up, but it doesn't. She continues to chat while checking the batteries in her little flashlight.
"Seems like naming himself after the devil didn't help. What happened?"
It's the coroners' luck that Chloe is numb, left with not enough energy to reach over and slap the woman in the face. Instead she watches the whole procedure, trying to ignore the glances, the way the coroner's eyes rake over Lucifer's unmoving form. It doesn't take a medical expert to understand that the gaping hole in his chest was the cause of death, and the way the young woman allows her eyes to rest on him has nothing to do with professional interest. Chloe has seen coroners look at dead bodies plenty of times before, has looked at dead men and women herself, knows the way the eyes search for evidence, for a lead.
The coroner stares at Lucifer as if she wants to tear his suit jacket off, and then his shirt, nevermind the hole in his chest.
Chloe has sometimes felt jealous of the women and men Lucifer took home with him on the regular, and she's not been too shy to admit it to herself. She never fully understood why, of course, because she could have had him herself if she had just desired so, that had been obvious. It makes even less sense to be jealous now, though, and still she feels a pang. Even though Lucifer would have liked it, would have pushed himself up on one elbow and smiled that damned sensuous smile at the young woman, looked deep into her eyes through her glasses and maybe winked before sweet-talking her straight into his bed. She would have been easy prey, that much was for sure, just like all these women and men Chloe has seen come and go through the doors of Lucifer's penthouse.
She keeps her cool, all the way through the coroner's examination and chatting. Apparently reading gossip magazines is one of the young woman's favourite pastimes, and Lucifer Morningstar had been a regular feature on those pages, in all his dark-suited, black-convertible-riding glory, and she's giddy to get her hands and scalpel on him.
There is only that one moment Chloe nearly flips, nearly looses her composure. It's a tiny gesture, harmless, nothing but another proof for the sick humour coroners generally entertain. When she's almost done the young woman slips her hand under Lucifers' neck and into his shirt collar, and when she pulls back she nods knowingly. When she sees Chloe's questioning glance she smiles.
"Yves Saint Laurent, my guess was right. Pity they don't make their shirts bullet-proof."
There's enough of a smirk in there, enough of an indication that Chloe should ask herself why her civilian consultant wasn't wearing a bullet-proof vest while chasing an armed criminal - but the bullet didn't come from there, he wasn't armed, there was someone else, or was there? - that Chloe has to bite into her tongue until it hurts like hellfire to not allow her knuckles to connect to the nose of the coroner.
Instead she just gets up and walks away, feeling dizzy from rage and the pain of something breaking inside her. She turns down the invitation to stay for the autopsy with as much fury as if it were her mother on the table.
&
The death of a member of the police force or any directly related person always results in a mandatory leave for any involved police officers, and Chloe is no exception. She finds herself banned from the LAPD offices for two weeks following the incident - she nearly gags when someone uses that word now, but that's official language, and a death is just an incident - and the strange glances everybody bestows on her the one time she shows up are enough for her to hightail it out of there again. Everybody knew who Lucifer was, of course. He breezed in and out of the office, chatting, charming, alienating people every step of the way. He was impossible to overlook, and everybody knew he was there for Chloe Decker, for no reason that anybody understood but that she was blonde and he a playboy keen on anger.
Everybody smirked when she got stuck with him, and now everybody wonders if she shot him herself, or if it was an accident, or if he took a bullet that had been meant for her.
Her grief makes her silent, withdrawn into herself. It renders her immobile, unable to think, her mind nothing but a blank canvas, ready to replay those moments. She sees the bullet flying again and again, she can almost feel the impact, the moment it tore through flesh, firm muscle, tissue, coronary arteries. From her angle behind the wall she never saw his face, but she can just imagine it, and her mind is cruel enough to supply images. She sees him fall, again and again, that elegant motion of the body folding into itself, the dancers' sway before the music hits.
He was a great dancer, that she knows. She's seen it, in some of those nights she spent perched on a bar stool in Lux, always an eye out for the murderous beautiful bar tender Mazikeen that she's almost afraid of, if she were afraid of anyone. She's danced with him, too, but only once or twice, and not for long. She's not a bad dancer herself, as good as any girl with hips and years of dance class under her belt, yes. But he's not only a good dancer, he's an exceptionally good dancer, and she's seen him prove it on his own dancefloor again and again. Watching him dance with a Brazilian samba dancer whose career apparently got a nice boost after she spent a night with Lucifer almost made Chloe reconsider a few of her decisions, watching him move with the ebb and tide of the fast paced music, leading his partner confidently, moving with far more rhythm than she'd expect of what she still thinks is a random British guy with delusions and a few mental issues and a lot of money. He dances with powerful confidence, and the song isn't even done until the next woman throws herself at him, and he changes partners again and again.
She has to stop thinking of him in present tense, and it feels like she's suffocating, every use of the past tense verbs punching her into the stomach.
The only mercy she has been granted is that Trixie isn't in LA. It's the summer vacation and she's gone for two weeks, visiting with Dan's parents on their ranch, enjoying the summer with the animals and under the care of her grandmother who makes glorious apple pie and always keeps red CoolAid in the fridge. Initially Chloe was thankful for the free time to wrap up a few old cases, deal with paperwork and maybe go out a few times. Now she's only glad she doesn't have to explain to Trixie right away that Lucifer is dead because of her. Or rather because he was stupid and reckless and walked into the line of the shooter and took a bullet that wasn't meant for him, and she hadn't done what she was supposed to do and protect him. Protecting people, it seems, just isn't her forte.
&
On the surface she functions. She cleans her house and restocks the pantry. She does the laundry, irons all of Trixies' underwear and her own shirts. She puts fresh sheets on all beds and dusts off the bookshelves. She goes to her kickboxing class in the morning and for runs at night, and in between she wanders around LA, but only until she sees a gossip magazine the coroner for sure reads with a lovely paparazzi shot of Lucifer's dead body on the ground and she wants to punch something or someone. But there's nothing and nobody close who could take a hit without her loosing her job.
She drives past Lux on accident, and it's boarded up, closed for good. She had tried to tell Mazikeen about Lucifer's death herself, but the bar tender seems to have vanished into thin air, leaving other employees with a note and nothing else.
Someone has put a few candles and flowers on the sidewalk, as people do when someone the newspapers wrote about dies in an accident, or a fire, or a hailstorm of bullets.
Her lips are perpetually bitten open, blood constantly in her mouth. She refuses to cry, but she doesn't know why. She wonders who is going to organise the funeral, if anyone of the family Lucifer always spoke about so bitterly will show up and claim him, at least in death. She hasn't heard anything yet, though.
The evenings and nights are the worst. She can't keep herself busy forever. There's always that moment when the thoughts come flooding back in, when she sinks down on the sofa in front of the fireplace and tries not to think or scream or cry. So she turns to the true and tried MorningstarMethod (trademark, obviously) and takes to her liquor cabinet. She knows it's wrong, that she shouldn't bottle up her emotions, that she should talk, maybe to Dr. Linda - who already tried to call her about twentyfive times, every day, probably offering just that help - but she can't. Instead she clings to the crystal tumbler - too obviously a gift from Lucifer - and the bottle that came with it. She's not too bad with liquor, but having eaten almost nothing and being upset she's blissfully drunk within seconds.
It's not productive, and it's certainly not elegant. She remembers Father Frank dying in Lucifer's arms, his rage and grief afterwards, and then his solitary figure at the piano, pouring all his sadness and fear into music, turning the gruesome into something beautiful. She doesn't have that kind of class, or talent, or piano, so she simply stares at the empty fireplace and turns up some music and bits her lips and knuckles and then, finally, dissolves into a sobbing heap.
&
The knock on her door brings her back to consciousness. It's long past midnight, and if she were sober she wouldn't open the door. But she isn't, so she does, the gun feeling save and heavy and reliable in her hand.
In the faint shine of the porch light Lucifer stands, his hands buried in the pockets of expensive suit pants, white shirt gleaming, suit jacket impeccable. He's smiling brightly at her, eyes glittering in the dark, looking shaven and rested.
The gun makes a loud noise when it hits the floor.
"Good evening, Detective. Bit late for a visit, but I saw your light was still on."
She has turned her porch light off, she's sure of it, but that's her least concern. Her head spins around itself, dizziness gripping her tight. She holds on to the doorframe, the warm wood comfortably real under her hands.
Lucifer continues to look at her with that slightly cheeky smile, wide awake and impossibly alive. She blinks. Twice. But he's still there.
"Do you feel quite alright? You seem awfully dishevelled."
He seems genuinely concerned, beautifully pronouncing his vowels with that prim British accent in his voice. She brushes her hands over her face, rubs her eyes, and then opens them again. He's still there.
"You - "
She stabs an index finger in his direction.
"You are dead."
His smile brightens.
"Ah, Detective, I thought we had spoken about that. Immortality, do you remember?"
She shakes her head furiously, upsetting her sense of balance further.
"No, no, no. You are dead, I saw you die. You can't, this can't - "
Sudden fear surges thought her, clenches her throat.
"What are you? Go away, whatever you are. Leave, now!"
She hears her voice go shrill, loosing its confident pitch. With a shooing motion she tries to wave him off, lets go of the doorframe, and looses her balance. Stumbling forward she keeps on shrieking. The floor rushes closer at alarming speed, but the impact never comes. Instead she finds herself caught, carefully but with enough strength to assure her that he can easily carry her full bodyweight. In her rising panic she struggles against his hold, his long fingers wrapped around one of her wrists.
They continue their swaying for a few short seconds, her panic more and more overwhelming, until she feels him releasing her wrist. But instead of letting go he takes her hand and pulls it under his suit jacket, places her palm spread flat against his chest, and it takes a second for her to calm enough to feel what he wants her to feel. Underneath her spread fingers a steady heart beats, and she can feel warmth radiating off his body.
It is that steady drum that guides her back to sanity. She falls silent for a moment, feeling nothing but his presence, panic slowly dying away. Then the sadness kicks back in, together with the alcohol, and she slumps against him in a heap of tears and uncontrolled shudders. Keeping one of her hands solid against his chest he wraps his free arm around her, supporting her gently. She doesn't see him look up for a second, questioning gaze fixed to the stars above him, before resting his chin on her head and waiting for her to return to accountability.
&
Much later he is perched against the armrest of her sofa while she stands in the middle of room. She has blown her nose, combed her fingers through her hair and collected her gun from the floor. The door is closed and they stand in the warm glow of her living room, and he still looks alive.
The first rush of panic is gone, but she makes sure to chase any sense of relief from her mind. She's drunk, utterly, it's long past midnight, and Lucifer is dead. Has been dead since three days, actually, and rising from the dead was not in the catalogue of things he always bragged about being able to do.
She ponders the facts - the soft light, the smiling man, the alcohol in her system, and comes to the only possible conclusion.
"I am hallucinating. You, of all things."
One of his eyebrows arches up, amusement ghosting over his face. The smile stays solid, but it is soft now, as if death or Chloe's imagination have robbed him of some of the abrasiveness.
"What makes you think so, my dear?"
She shakes her head.
"Because you are dead, obviously. I saw the coroner shine her light into your eyes, and you were dead. The bullet. Here."
She points towards her own chest, and he nods.
"Why, yes. But, as I said, I am immortal. I think considering I just presented you with the perfect evidence you now have to admit that I might have been right."
The small laugh is out of her mouth before she can stop it. "No, no, Lucifer, that's not how it works. Because - " she waves a hand in a flourish, mocking his own gestures - "you are just an illusion. My illusion."
He blinks, and tilts his head to the side. The light tints his skin with a soft glow, and his eyes seem positively black in contrast. Then there's that spark again in his face, clear indication that he likes where this is headed.
"But then, my dear Detective, if I am your illusion or hallucination, why am I here, hm? Why would you hallucinate me, from all the things you could have?"
His voice is low and soft, luring her in. Warmth spreads through her stomach at the same time as her heart painfully contracts. Her vision is suddenly clouded again, tears blurring everything.
"You are dead because I couldn't stop you from moving straight into the bullet. I didn't protect you. And - " Her voice suddenly breaks. She coughs once, twice, fighting for composure. But why try? She's alone in her living room, talking to the fire place, if she's honest with herself. At least nobody can see her.
" - and I didn't protect you. And I should have. God, I'm so sorry."
He watches her with a sigh, then shakes his head slowly. "No, no, that's not how this works. There's nothing to be sorry for." He reaches out again and this time she doesn't shy back, immediately taking his hand and holding it. His skin feels too real to her touch, frighteningly so. She has never hallucinated before. Maybe she's dying of alcohol poisoning.
"Now, don't cry again. There's nothing to cry about, trust me. I also did not come here to hear you whine and complain about your own inadequacies."
Confused she blinks. She isn't sure if the grief has coloured her memory just a little bit too rosy. Lucifer has always erred on the side of being a total asshole, but she hadn't expected her very own illusion to follow into its real counterpart's footsteps that faithfully.
"You're not?"
He snorts, rather ungracefully if she admits, and gets up from the armrest. He stands in front of her for a second until she realises that they are still holding hands.
"No, and if you'd loosen your deathgrip on my hand I'd show you."
She looks down at their interwoven fingers, and unwillingly allows him to slip free. He pulls back immediately, and shrugs out of his suit jacket. The tightness in her heart slowly fades, leaving her more room to breathe. She still isn't sure about the amount of reality she's experiencing right now, but at least so far he has been mostly in character.
And if she's hallucinating Lucifer why not hallucinate him stripping?
Because that is what he is doing. Folding his suit jacket and placing it over her sofa armrest his nimble fingers immediately get busy unbuttoning his shirt. She's gaping, she knows, and suddenly the image of the coroner staring at his lifeless body on the ground slams back into her memory. She forcefully pushes it away, but the pain remains.
"What - what are you doing?"
He pauses at the third button, blinks at her innocently and allows himself a grin that tends towards the side of leering.
"Am I not your very own hallucination? Apparently I'm just doing what you want me to."
She needs a moment to remember to close her mouth and sincerely hopes that the heat in her ears remains invisible through her long hair. Of course she's always thought him hot, damn him, like almost every human being with a pulse did. That doesn't mean all she can think about is him naked, though. Especially not now.
His exaggerated sigh and headshake return her to reality.
"A joke, Detective. I want to show you something."
He continues his work, slips out of his white shirt with the grace of a seasoned stripper and drops it on top of the suit jacket. She catches a glimpse of the label in the collar, but she can't read it. A part of her desperately wants it to be any brand but Saint Laurent.
Then her attention is caught by something else, because Lucifer has stared her down, and then, smugly, turned around. She stares at his back, broad shoulders over slim hips, muscles visible under his skin. He's built like those damn Greek statues, just slim enough to not become utter beefcake, long muscles instead of bulk. She stares at his back until he clears his throat. He's expecting her to say something, but she doesn't know what.
She traces the line of his spine down from his shoulder blades once again, wondering about the correct anatomic names of all the small muscles connecting to his spine when it hits her.
"Your scars are gone."
When he turns around again the smile on his face is triumphant. Only then she notices that there is also no impact wound on his chest, no sign of the bullet ever having been there.
Her head is racing, and as she sometimes has the bad habit to do she voices her thoughts.
"They are just gone - of course, if you are my hallucination, you wouldn't have them. I was so shocked to see them, so it makes sense. Thinking that your father would do that - "
But he cuts her off. "He didn't. I brought that upon myself, do you not remember?"
She nods, absentminded piecing together whatever is left of her logical explanation for him. For all of this.
"Yeah, you said that you had Maze cut off your wings - "
Stopping dead in her tracks she suddenly sees that strange glow on him, a sudden softness in his features, something so utterly foreign to him that it makes her stumble over her words. She still manages to pick up the thread and continues.
"Wings? You said you got rid of them, because you realised what they symbolised, and - "
The remaining pieces of her logic slip through her fingers like wet soap in the tub.
"I don't understand."
The smile is still on his face, and the glow that has now reached his eyes. He nods.
"Obviously. Which is why I will show you. And - " He stays silent for a moment, and then nods to himself. " - you cared. You weren't the only one who saw the scars, but you were the only one who cared. And I thought - " In a very out-of-character moment he's searching for words and maybe he really is her illusion, after all, because Lucifer Morningstar has never once searched for words in her presence before.
" - I thought you should see."
She doesn't understand, but he quickly glances to his left and right as if to see if he has enough space, and then there are feathers everywhere.
&
There is the story of the doubting Thomas on her mind as she cards her fingers through the feathers, thinking about the disciple who didn't believe in Christ until he could put his fingers into the man's wounds, see the blood, feel the pain and understand.
She doesn't quite have blood on her fingers, but the softness of the plumage under her fingertips and the emotion it causes her come close to the panicked reverie Thomas must have felt. If he was ever real. If anything was ever real, if that right now is real. If there is really that man in her living room who suddenly sports a twelve feet wingspan, mother of pearl coloured feathers, soft and warm.
Sometime between the first and the last sip of whiskey she has lost her mind, she's sure of it. That's the only thing Chloe counts for real now. Otherwise nothing makes sense.
She has inspected the wings, the places where they are attached to his body - no, not attached, growing out of it, part of it like his arms and legs are. They aren't just a prop, nothing even close to the cosplay items she thought about. She can feel the blood circulating through them, feels the shivers rippling through the feathers, the constant slight movements. She sees the slight shift in his stance, now accommodating the weight and width of his wings, steady, confident. If he's saying the truth, if this whole scene is not an insane scheme of her grief-crazed mind then that's what he has always looked like. This is him.
It takes a lot for her to step back. The wings seem to call for her, and she almost needs physical force to remove herself from him. He only smiles knowingly, presenting himself to her curious glances without hesitation. He's never been shy, offering his body to anyone who wanted it, trading it for favours easily. She has an inkling that it's a different story with his wings. There was something in the short hesitation before he allowed her free reign over them that told her that this is special, a privilege she'd better not abuse.
"So." She clears her throat, and he grins attentively, shifting his weight a little bit, the movement rippling through the feathers. She forces her eyes back on his face. Is this how it feels for men to not stare at her chest all the time? She has to work on this.
"Yes?"
She nods, pointlessly. "So you're an - angel?"
He looks at her with all the pity she'd normally reserve for a particularly slow five-year-old.
"No, my dear Detective, I am an archangel. That's not quite the same, though I do not expect you to be familiar with heavenly social order."
Well, but she has read the bible. Or at least some parts of it.
"But you said you're the devil."
Folding his arms in front of his still naked chest he shifts his weight again.
"Think of it more as of a job description. Ruling hell is what I did for the past millennia, but an archangel is what I am."
Of course, being the Prince of Darkness would just be a job to him. Like managing a nightclub in LA, or being a cop. Just that being a cop wasn't really just a job for her, and being the devil might not have just been that, either, but he doesn't seem willing to admit that.
"Right. So you are immortal."
He nods again, and she continues. "But I shot you. And I saw you bleed. And die."
Spreading his hands as if asking for an excuse he looks as if he would start to pace if he could, which he can't, because although her living room is quite big it hardly can accommodate a man with that wingspan whirling around in it.
"A glitch in the system, nothing to worry about. I am fully restored to all my former glory. Well, almost."
Searching for a flaw on his person she scans him thoroughly, raking her eyes over his body with a gaze that would normally make her look like a predator looking for prey. He bathes in her curiosity like an actor in stage light.
"What's missing?"
The grin is back on his face and she somehow likes it more than the softness she's seen earlier. It reminds her more of the man she knows and, well, likes.
"I used to glow more, hence the name. But I guess you can live without my divine light brightening your life."
It could have been a joke, but she isn't sure.
"Lucifer means bringer of light?"
Nothing about him indicates he's joking, which is quite out-of-character.
"I had a different name back then. But yes, that was what I did."
Without thinking she points at the lamp in the corner. "You brought the light?"
There's a rustling of wings and he nods.
"I put the stars into the night sky."
She wants to giggle at the strange poetic tone, but then she suddenly realises that he means it, and that something about him suddenly indicates that he's telling her the truth and that she's looking at something ancient and powerful, something she will never understand.
There is nothing she can say, because the gap between what he knows and has seen and is - if this is real, of course, only then, but if it's not he's an illusion so it doesn't matter - because that rift between them is large and suddenly growing, and she needs something to hold on to.
That something turns out to be his wings, and before she knows it she has closed the distance between them and silently asked for permission. With his consent she's combing her hands through his feathers again, feeling their softness, the constant ruffling. Their beauty is astonishing her, comparable to nothing she's ever seen. Her hands run over the arches and dips of the wings, tracing their outlines, the places where they emerge from his body. The feathers are all of different length, some made to support flight, others for warmth and filling in the body of the wings. She's never felt anything like it before, and her head is swimming from something she can't quite describe.
But there's one thought that pops into her mind again and again, and she can't help but voice it half buried in his feathers.
"But you said - the bible said - why did you fall?"
She feels him stiffen for a short second, his every move palable even in the smallest feather, every single one that much a part of him.
"I wanted too much."
There are thousands of layers and meanings in his answer, but she understands and presses herself further into him. "But we all do." He nods, and she feels it without seeing it.
"But you're human. You are all fallible, you were made that way. I wasn't supposed to be."
His voice his suddenly rough, darker than before. Her hands continue their work, and she suddenly picks up on the small shivers running through his body with her caressing of his wings.
"But you are?"
Slowly she runs her hand down the length of his right wing and follows the involuntary small shudder going through his body, finally realising that she's causing him physical pleasure to a degree she hadn't expected.
Letting go of him is difficult, but she manages just so. She walks around him, careful not to brush into his ever so slightly moving wings. Then she stands before him, silently looking up for a moment. Looking at his face it's obvious that her careful touching hasn't been without its effect, and she wonders why it has taken her so long to pick up on it. There's a slight blush on his high cheekbones, and his eyes are half-closed. For a moment she's a bit disappointed that angels apparently don't purr, though he looks as if he might if she just continued to bestow all of her attention on his wings.
But he hasn't answered her question yet, and while she looks up she wonders if she can ever drink herself into this state of mind again, and if yes, how bad that would be for her health and her life.
He has to clear his throat twice to finally speak, and when he does his voice seems to have dropped to a rumbling, coarse whisper.
"I am."
Then he reaches down, gently pulls her in and kisses her.
&
She wakes slowly in the first light of the morning, pressed against six foot of lean muscles and warm flesh and protectively wrapped into the most comfortable feathery blanket she's ever slept in. She's never felt safe like this before, but then she's never slept folded into the wings of an angel. The mere thought sounds like the title of a terrible cheesy popsong and she surpresses a sleepy giggle and curls deeper into the embrace. He mumbles something in his sleep and adjusts himself around her, finding a more comfortable position.
For a brief second curiosity wins even over her sleepiness, and she carefully frees her head to look up at him. The view is just as she expected, his eyes closed, long lashes dark against his soft skin. It suddenly seems unfair to compare him to anything or anyone, because being made by the prime creator lends him an unfair advantage over anything that came later. If his story and that whole bible thing is true, of course, but explaining those wings is indeed getting more and more difficult.
He is relaxed in his sleep, a small smile on his face, warmth radiating from his flesh and feathers. For a brief moment she wonders if what she is seeing is his true form, or if there is some aspect he can hide from her. What does he look like when he's in heaven? And when he's in hell? She has seen glimpses of his red eyes, a terrible vision in a mirror, so if that is part of his true form, what is this?
If he can hide his wings - and he can, she's seen it - what else can and does he hide?
But than maybe there are things humans like her will never understand.
It feels impossible for her to wrap her head around the idea that there is a world she has never imagined. She feels as if a veil has suddenly pulled back and she's seen glimpses of things she could never even imagine. If there are angels and archangels and demons what else could there be? What monstrosities, what incredible beauty is there, in this world and beyond? And she can't even wrap her head around the idea of making a five-tier-cake with white frosting and sprinkles. How is she supposed to suddenly understand the balance of the whole universe?
The air seems suddenly thin, and she breathes a bit too quick.
Then she feels one of his hands flat against her back and his voice, thick with sleep, mumbling into her ear.
"Do not worry about these things. Breathe, in and out. You don't have to think about this. But do read the story about the tree of knowledge sometime. It's very educating."
She feels him laugh silently, and then a kiss pressed onto her forehead.
"Sleep. It's very early."
He's gone back to sleep immediately, satisfied relaxation in every inch of his body and wings. Listening to the steady beat of his heart underneath her hands she slowly relaxes as well, gently sinking back under the surface of sleep.
&
Hours later the sun is bright and harsh in her face. She's buried in her pillows and blankets, her hair in her eyes. Blinking against the intruding light she stretches carefully, expecting to be hit with a hangover that she surely deserves. But there is not even the shadow of pain in her body, no headache, no uneasiness in her stomach.
Then the memory of the previous night hits her like an out of control truck. She bolts up in her bed and looks around. The room is clean and comfortable, all cream colours and brightness, and he's gone. There's no trace of any living soul besides her, and with that realisation she sinks back into her pillows. So it was an illusion, after all, nothing but a hallucination of her mangled brain, her grieving soul and half a bottle of Scottish whiskey.
Sadness sinks like lead into her body, grips her heart and makes her want to bury herself in her bed forever. With her vision already blurry from the tears forming she looks around one last time, and sees the book on her nightstand. She is in the habit of reading in bed, but surely not the bible, and she can't remember putting a bookmark into that particular passage. Reaching over she tugs the book from the nightstand, and it falls open in the very early passages, speaking about the word and the light, and the bookmark is soft in her hands, warm and comfortable, a long feather coloured in beautiful mother of pearl tones.
It still doesn't make sense, of course. But at least, it seems, there's hope to have.