[ It's hard to say how much time has passed when Lucifer finally ventures out beyond the palace again. With Elio's condition gradually worsening, he's been standing guard by his bed ceaselessly, the other man's demon servant Terry keeping its distance now, wary of getting in the way. Of what, Lucifer doesn't quite know at this point. Elio's not getting better.
These days, he's mostly just asleep.
Ever since his last attempt to take them past the barrier, only to be slapped back, nearly injuring Elio in the process, Lucifer's simply taken it for granted that the door had been shut, that the power to open it, to leave, had been permanently stripped from him. Hell, after all, has always been a jail. A punishment. And what a fitting punishment for God's only, declared opponent, isn't it, the God that doesn't believe in free will or in choice or in anyone's right to individual happiness? Having to watch the only being he'll ever love waste away without any means to save him and naturally, letting Elio feel it every step of the way, just because he's been so foolish as to love Lucifer back.
But as he steps outside, gaze dark and wings arched behind him, he feels it. The shift. Gasping, he takes off, his wings slapping harshly through the air.
The barrier is no longer locked.
He stares at it for all of a couple of seconds before charging back, head nearly blank from a sudden rush of panic - nownownownow - and the process of grabbing Elio, folding him tightly in his covers and cradling him close to his chest happens in a blur. Wordlessly, he holds him as gently as he can manage and takes off, shooting upwards through ash and falling embers, wings beating rapidly. ]
[ Elio is constantly locked in his mind these days. Although he’s a little feverish and tired beyond belief as a rule rather than as an exception now, which counts for all the time, basically, his condition is less a mental strain and more a physical one. His body doesn’t obey him any longer, restricting his movements to reaching for (glasses of water, Lucifer’s hand) and stumbling to the bathroom (to pee, to shower, washing the sweat away). And while he has to fight, while he has to struggle to perform these actions, his head runs at normal speed, thoughts popping in and out uninvited (if I die, at least I’m where I belong or I’m not leaving him, I can’t). Yes, Elio might be stuck right now, in the realm of Hell and in his own weak limbs, but his mind soars, absolutely. He thinks about Lucifer a lot, Lucifer who won’t make a liar of himself by saying I love you, yet makes himself a promise-keeper by loving him in the flesh.
There’s a greater comfort to that, anyway. Words are just words, as Oliver taught him early on.
The shift feels like nothing to him, his connection to Hell fading gradually, more and more, so all he can do when Lucifer comes barging in from outside, smelling like smoke and lava fumes as he leans in over the bed, wrapping Elio up tightly in his covers, is not to fight it. The other man lifts him up in his arms, the way he can because he’s the Devil and Elio weighs nothing to him, lesser now, even, and Elio rests his head by his shoulder, scarred and burned, blinking tiredly against the moving air as they take off. The palace becomes nothing behind them. Ash and embers, still glowing, catch in his covers but don’t burn holes.
He thinks, something has changed, we’re going up. Then, he realizes that it’s in essence his guardian angel taking him to the heavens and maybe this is the time. It’s now. With a lot of shallow breathing, he frees one arm from his duvet and wraps it around Lucifer’s neck, stubbornly. No, it means. ]
[ The barrier parts with a swiftness that feels new, almost, or perhaps it's simply been too long. Either way, they go up, up, and Lucifer's going so fast that he almost can't think to answer when Elio wraps his arm around his neck and asks him where. They're bursting over the sky, cloudy now, and beneath them, the fog clears within something less than seconds to reveal the ocean, dark and unruly, night time reflected upon its surface in various shades of black. He doesn't pause, not even then, simply takes them over the shore and into the forest area north of Bordighera.
They land in a small clearing close to a stream, the ground crumbling and scorching beneath his bare feet, the air heating up where he walks. It's pitch black around them, the sky clouded still, starless. He comes to a crouch on the ground, keeping Elio safe between his arms, cradled against his chest still. Only then does he speak, his voice gravelly and strange, the shadows resonating with it. ]
Earth.
[ He looks up between the tree tops, his red eyes narrowed in warning, stance tight. Come at me at your fucking peril, it means, but as usual, no one's listening in. That's how these things go. ]
Don't speak.
[ He muzzles Elio's hair with his lips. Everything in his body is on fire, high alert, his flight-or-fight response aching to release itself upwards. Instead, he stays right where he is, speaking against Elio's hot scalp, the ground cold beneath his feet. Slowly, he folds his wings around them, cocooning Elio within them along with himself. ]
[ Earth, Lucifer says and lands, Elio feels it in the way his body gives against the ground. He doesn’t know how long they were in flight, in air, it feels like a very brief moment in time, yet at the same time, it feels like forever, like his skin is freezing cold now due to draft winds, especially his face. Luckily, like always, Lucifer is furnace hot, the grass sizzles and goes sooty beneath him, so Elio turns his face in against his chest. His own hair is being nuzzled. Above them, Lucifer’s giant batwings fold around them, keeping out the night.
In the darkness, Elio looks up at him, the way his red eyes are gleaming. ]
Don’t leave me here, Lucifer. [ Of course don’t leave me here can mean many things. Don’t leave me here, not alone. Don’t go. You’re here now, but for how long. Elio’s voice feels thick and vulnerable in his throat, like everything else on him currently, it feels so fucking tired, and it’s difficult to say which one he means, maybe all of them at once, because he’s greedy. Lucifer has taught him how.
It happens accidentally, mostly, how tears are suddenly trickling down his face, warm and wet against his dry, cold cheeks. Sobbing quietly, he dries himself off against the bright radiance of Lucifer’s upper chest, dark red skin, scarred and burned. The hard outline of muscle. Softer slope of shoulder. Elio tightens his hold around the other man’s neck, harshly, desperately. Lucifer won’t break, Lucifer is strong, after all, Lucifer won’t die, unlike... ] I want to go home.
[ Home meaning, Hell. Home meaning, where you are. ]
[ Elio feels small like this, smaller than ever, but not in any way related to size or spirit. No, it's another thing entirely, something to do with how big the trees feel around them like this, how broad the shadows seem. The black sky further up, stretching outwards, endless. He thinks that maybe they're both comparatively minuscule at this very moment; he remembers standing up for the first time since his Fall, his skin burned to a crisp, his feathers little but ash and soot, and he'd looked up at the barrier further up, at the realm stretching around him on all sides, its huge silence swallowing him up.
Yes, this is the same.
So when Elio starts crying, burying into him and clinging with what little strength he's got left, Lucifer holds him close and stays where he is, as he is, because there's very little else to do. He never wanted Elio to fall, not like this, to hit the ground and to feel abandoned once again, like he hasn't suffered enough. He never wanted any of that.
It's the same, old story.
Eyes smarting, he nods and breathes Elio in, that sweet, surprisingly deep personal scent of his settling in his body like a particularly important kind of oxygen. It'll have to be enough, for now, but it obviously isn't so he keeps breathing, keeps inhaling him, just to stay fooled for a little longer. ]
I know, my darling.
[ Lucifer doesn't tell him of course or you will or I won't, mostly because he doesn't know anything beyond what's happening right this moment, that Elio is still breathing in his arms, that the air is fresher here, cool and crisp. It feels better somehow, and not just for the obvious reasons of this being Earth as compared to, well, Hell.
He senses the forest reacting to them slowly, in stages, something drawing closer through the undergrowth, birds landing in the tree crowns further up. They'll come as close as they like - for now, Lucifer simply sits, curved in around Elio, keeping him protected with his wings as well as the rest of him. ]
[ The other man embraces him, from all sides at once, arms around him, upper body bending in, wings wrapping around them like a tent. Elio cries against his shoulder, sobs and breathes too hard and yet, not as hard as earlier, the air here feeling thinner, easier to swallow, chew. His body feasts on it. Elio lets his tears cleanse his skin for ash and soot. There's relief to it, to just being allowed to feel, the way he's always been allowed and encouraged to do with Lucifer. Lucifer doesn't want him swallowing down anything but his cock, normally. He doesn't want him to bite anything back, right? Nothing at all. No feelings, definitely no cocks.
When he leaves, because he'll leave, his lies by omission say as much, that is what Elio is giving up. Which is to say, everything. Absolutely everything.
He doesn't hold it against Lucifer, because he understands and for the first time in many, many years, he curses the fact that he does, that he sees it from an outside perspective, too. Neither of them have gone into this completely willingly, if it had been a choice? They'd have chosen differently, they'd found another way, whatever it would take, they were desperate then as they're desperate now.
No, Elio was blessed and Lucifer was punished, the two pieces belonging together. Elio a gift and Lucifer its recipient. The strange and mysterious ways in which God operates. Dad, Lucifer would say. Father-in-law, Elio would elaborate.
As far as Elio can tell, neither of them are going to Heaven, though, so there's only this. The quiet, the sound of the wind in the trees, the forest around them, Lucifer breathing, in, out, in. Slowly, his arm around Lucifer's neck relaxes, collapses back into his lap.
For a little while longer, he keeps on crying, then he falls asleep, as the Devil had told him to from the beginning. ]
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no subject
These days, he's mostly just asleep.
Ever since his last attempt to take them past the barrier, only to be slapped back, nearly injuring Elio in the process, Lucifer's simply taken it for granted that the door had been shut, that the power to open it, to leave, had been permanently stripped from him. Hell, after all, has always been a jail. A punishment. And what a fitting punishment for God's only, declared opponent, isn't it, the God that doesn't believe in free will or in choice or in anyone's right to individual happiness? Having to watch the only being he'll ever love waste away without any means to save him and naturally, letting Elio feel it every step of the way, just because he's been so foolish as to love Lucifer back.
But as he steps outside, gaze dark and wings arched behind him, he feels it. The shift. Gasping, he takes off, his wings slapping harshly through the air.
The barrier is no longer locked.
He stares at it for all of a couple of seconds before charging back, head nearly blank from a sudden rush of panic - nownownownow - and the process of grabbing Elio, folding him tightly in his covers and cradling him close to his chest happens in a blur. Wordlessly, he holds him as gently as he can manage and takes off, shooting upwards through ash and falling embers, wings beating rapidly. ]
no subject
There’s a greater comfort to that, anyway. Words are just words, as Oliver taught him early on.
The shift feels like nothing to him, his connection to Hell fading gradually, more and more, so all he can do when Lucifer comes barging in from outside, smelling like smoke and lava fumes as he leans in over the bed, wrapping Elio up tightly in his covers, is not to fight it. The other man lifts him up in his arms, the way he can because he’s the Devil and Elio weighs nothing to him, lesser now, even, and Elio rests his head by his shoulder, scarred and burned, blinking tiredly against the moving air as they take off. The palace becomes nothing behind them. Ash and embers, still glowing, catch in his covers but don’t burn holes.
He thinks, something has changed, we’re going up. Then, he realizes that it’s in essence his guardian angel taking him to the heavens and maybe this is the time. It’s now. With a lot of shallow breathing, he frees one arm from his duvet and wraps it around Lucifer’s neck, stubbornly. No, it means. ]
Where are you taking me?
no subject
They land in a small clearing close to a stream, the ground crumbling and scorching beneath his bare feet, the air heating up where he walks. It's pitch black around them, the sky clouded still, starless. He comes to a crouch on the ground, keeping Elio safe between his arms, cradled against his chest still. Only then does he speak, his voice gravelly and strange, the shadows resonating with it. ]
Earth.
[ He looks up between the tree tops, his red eyes narrowed in warning, stance tight. Come at me at your fucking peril, it means, but as usual, no one's listening in. That's how these things go. ]
Don't speak.
[ He muzzles Elio's hair with his lips. Everything in his body is on fire, high alert, his flight-or-fight response aching to release itself upwards. Instead, he stays right where he is, speaking against Elio's hot scalp, the ground cold beneath his feet. Slowly, he folds his wings around them, cocooning Elio within them along with himself. ]
Sleep.
no subject
In the darkness, Elio looks up at him, the way his red eyes are gleaming. ]
Don’t leave me here, Lucifer. [ Of course don’t leave me here can mean many things. Don’t leave me here, not alone. Don’t go. You’re here now, but for how long. Elio’s voice feels thick and vulnerable in his throat, like everything else on him currently, it feels so fucking tired, and it’s difficult to say which one he means, maybe all of them at once, because he’s greedy. Lucifer has taught him how.
It happens accidentally, mostly, how tears are suddenly trickling down his face, warm and wet against his dry, cold cheeks. Sobbing quietly, he dries himself off against the bright radiance of Lucifer’s upper chest, dark red skin, scarred and burned. The hard outline of muscle. Softer slope of shoulder. Elio tightens his hold around the other man’s neck, harshly, desperately. Lucifer won’t break, Lucifer is strong, after all, Lucifer won’t die, unlike... ] I want to go home.
[ Home meaning, Hell. Home meaning, where you are. ]
no subject
Yes, this is the same.
So when Elio starts crying, burying into him and clinging with what little strength he's got left, Lucifer holds him close and stays where he is, as he is, because there's very little else to do. He never wanted Elio to fall, not like this, to hit the ground and to feel abandoned once again, like he hasn't suffered enough. He never wanted any of that.
It's the same, old story.
Eyes smarting, he nods and breathes Elio in, that sweet, surprisingly deep personal scent of his settling in his body like a particularly important kind of oxygen. It'll have to be enough, for now, but it obviously isn't so he keeps breathing, keeps inhaling him, just to stay fooled for a little longer. ]
I know, my darling.
[ Lucifer doesn't tell him of course or you will or I won't, mostly because he doesn't know anything beyond what's happening right this moment, that Elio is still breathing in his arms, that the air is fresher here, cool and crisp. It feels better somehow, and not just for the obvious reasons of this being Earth as compared to, well, Hell.
He senses the forest reacting to them slowly, in stages, something drawing closer through the undergrowth, birds landing in the tree crowns further up. They'll come as close as they like - for now, Lucifer simply sits, curved in around Elio, keeping him protected with his wings as well as the rest of him. ]
no subject
When he leaves, because he'll leave, his lies by omission say as much, that is what Elio is giving up. Which is to say, everything. Absolutely everything.
He doesn't hold it against Lucifer, because he understands and for the first time in many, many years, he curses the fact that he does, that he sees it from an outside perspective, too. Neither of them have gone into this completely willingly, if it had been a choice? They'd have chosen differently, they'd found another way, whatever it would take, they were desperate then as they're desperate now.
No, Elio was blessed and Lucifer was punished, the two pieces belonging together. Elio a gift and Lucifer its recipient. The strange and mysterious ways in which God operates. Dad, Lucifer would say. Father-in-law, Elio would elaborate.
As far as Elio can tell, neither of them are going to Heaven, though, so there's only this. The quiet, the sound of the wind in the trees, the forest around them, Lucifer breathing, in, out, in. Slowly, his arm around Lucifer's neck relaxes, collapses back into his lap.
For a little while longer, he keeps on crying, then he falls asleep, as the Devil had told him to from the beginning. ]