It’s a strange sensation, having to reacquaint oneself with their own body. Familiar but distant, like meeting an old friend after years apart, or remembering how to ride a bike, but stranger, because Natalie has to contend with the knowledge that somehow her body had operated without the whole of her soul for weeks, that there are aches she doesn’t remember and memories she made while not entirely present.
She’s still trying to orient herself, still trying to shake off the vague disconnect between her body and soul, still trying to make this angel help him because clearly he’s hurt, when he crashes into her, sending the both of them tumbling to the ground, chest to—
Chest.
The breath leaves her all at once, both from the force of him and from the shock of the collision. He buries his face in her neck, trembling, muttering something about a dream in a voice more fragile and vulnerable than she’s ever heard him, and here’s yet another thing she has to contend with, because this is such a far cry from the Lucifer she knew.
He’s hugging me? He never hugs me, she thinks to herself, tears springing to her eyes, because he doesn’t—or he hadn’t. This was the same man, the one who blanched at any signs of affection, who flustered himself when she so much as tried to hold his hand?
She wraps her arms around him, feeling the warm stickiness of the blood coating his back, and she worries again.
“I’m here,” she assures him, and carefully, so carefully, she probes along his back, checking for open wounds, making sure he really was fine, even as she voices the question, because her neck feels wet and not just from the sweat dampening his hair, and he’s still shaking, and his fingers dig just hard enough into her skin that she’s sure there will be small, fingertip-sized bruises, and she doesn’t trust that whatever he answers will be enough, not until she sees for herself.
His blood begins to crust under her nails, and her breath hitches as she grazes a long, gnarled scar running alongside his spine, and then a matching one on the other side, until common sense and his lack of a reaction tell her they’re old. How old, though, and from what? Those hadn’t been there before.
“Are you sure this blood is dry?” she asks anyways, because there’s just so very much of it, “you’re not wounded?”
“I’m not injured, girl,” he says, tugging her closer, as if afraid she’s going to slip through his fingers again. She finishes her exploration of his back, content that there was nothing that needed urgent attention, and finally lets herself relax against him, letting the thrill of him being in her arms outweigh her concern.
She had missed him. Clearly he had missed her, too, and she didn’t know how often she would get this, if this hug was a one-off and he’d go back to being his normal self once he gave her the chance to get on his nerves again, so she was going to savor it.
“More importantly,” he continues, then pauses to cough in a way that has her worry spiking again, “you’re out… you’re finally out.” He pulls back a little, and frees her from his grip, raising his arms to cup her face in his—
Hands.
She turns her head for him instead of making him do it as he takes his turn to examine her, grinning widely through her tears him to show him that she was fine, that she was unharmed and whole and so very glad to see him again.
“I’m out!” she echoes cheerfully, and she feels his thumbs on her cheeks, swiping at tears that haven’t fallen yet. There’s a tension in his hands that resonates against her skin as he holds her close to him, but his shaking begins to subside, and there’s a warmth that begins to bloom in her chest that matches the overwhelming heat of him. He was her best friend, and while she knows words have never been his strong suit, the confirmation that he cares as deeply for her as she does for him is nice.
There’s a solemnity that she glimpses in his expression though, a seriousness she wants to banish in light of such a happy occasion, and she laughs again, breathlessly.
“Hey, hey!” she chides, leaning closer, trying to meet his eyes. “No more of this gloomy stuff. We should celebra—“ He moves fast.
She had forgotten how fast he was, when he wanted to be, and she barely gets the rest of the word out before he can muffle it with his—
Lips.
Her eyes widen reflexively, but it takes her brain a moment to catch up, to realize what’s happening.
Lucifer is… he’s… kissing her?
It’s over before she can process it. Her breath leaves her all at once again, the moment he pulls back. But his hands fall away from her face and he drops his head back to the crook of her neck, slumping against her in exhaustion. If he knows that he’s shocked the living daylights out of her, he doesn’t show it.
“Sure,” he mumbles into her skin, as her mind still reels, her heart still races, her lips still tingle, “we can celebrate.”
She’s still processing how to be in her own body again, and the sudden tumble of conflicting emotions makes her feel like she’s breaking apart. Surely… surely this couldn’t be her Lucifer? Surely he didn’t know what he was doing? Surely he couldn't know what that meant?
But she has no other explanation, and as she lets her arms fall limply back around him, she can’t deny that it certainly feels like Lucifer. As she tries to sort through all the what if’s and the but’s, she can’t deny that it hadn’t felt… wrong.
For the first time in her life, she doesn’t know what to say, but the weight in her arms is hard to ignore, even in the middle of a crisis. She looks down at the top of his head, feeling all the new heat in her cheeks, and there’s a part of her that claws its way through the mess, the fiercely protective part of her, that wonders what, exactly, had happened while she had been gone.
She wonders at the scars she’d felt on his back, at the change in his behavior, and beneath the stark, flustered shock, Natalie begins to burn.
decided to redo this picture that i drew of ipos and sheila because…..yike…… it’s cool to see how much i’ve progressed with art over the past year though!!!
HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!!!
Wanted to do a bit of a throwback to one of my OTPs to end out the year, and what better way than with these two cuties watching fireworks <3
This year has certainly been a year but I’m definitely looking forward to 2018 with a positive outlook and can’t wait to show you guys some projects I’ve been working on!!
Thank you guys so much for your continued support and I’m optimistic to see what 2018 will bring! =)
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