XX #2
The moment he said it out loud everything clicked, and the panic made sense.
His tail tightened again, the heat and tension and fear burned into his leg.
Blood trickled down his limb onto the floor from the pointed end digging into his skin.
With the cocktail and the anxiety, though, he couldn’t feel it.
Gabe and Bub shared glances before the archangel turned back to the prince. “I think that’s a fair assessment. What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t… know.” Lucky curled in on himself, his horns scraped down the front of Gabe’s shirt as he did. “I can’t do anything, because he… he can’t stay. It hurts, Gabe. It hurts. I can’t have him, I can’t—” he hiccuped— “can’t want him. But I want him.”
“Why?” Bub asked with a sense of genuine curiosity and concern. “You’re a damn Prince of Hell, you’re bound to him at the soul, you can—”
“He’s not dead,” Gabe interrupted quietly. “And he’s a saint.”
“Oh… fu—uh, fudge. The King isn’t going to like that,” Bub mumbled.
“He doesn’t know…” Lucky whispered.
“And we’re trying to keep it that way until Charlie’s body recovers enough to get him home.”
Bub nodded in understanding.
Lucky whimpered. “My head hurts.”
“Sit down. You’re freezing,” Gabe ordered.
Lucky shifted. He winced as the pain started to register in his long limb, his tail loosened its grip and he pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“He needs to go. We need to get him out of here. I can’t… I can’t handle this,” Lucky said.
“Two months in that medical facility with improper care did a number on his poor body, though,” Gabe rightfully reminded him. “Recovery is going to be hard on him, he’ll be miserable and alone—”
“Gabe,” Bub interrupted, eyes shifting between the Heavenly body and the prince.
“Your point?” Lucky snapped.
“Perhaps talking with Charlie would be of benefit, to both of you,” Gabe said calmly. “You’re playing God, to put it plainly. He’s unaware of what’s happening, his purity is fading, he seems to be fine here with you—”
“You think damning a priest to Hell is better? An eternity where every single one of my family members wants to eat him? Or throw him into the Pits? He won’t get his gold halo! His wings! The things he deserves! No, absolutely not,” Lucky said.
“How selfless of you,” Gabe noted.
Lucky’s lips parted to respond but he opted not to.
“Perhaps you should finally tell him the truth, then,” Gabe continued.
“Why?” Lucky asked.
“Because he deserves the truth. His body is stable, if not a long way out from normal. We’ve both seen the reports.
The only thing keeping him here is his connection at the soul to you.
Something you’ve made worse by developing feelings and lying to him.
Perhaps telling him that he can go home will let him do so.
You need to scrub the imprint from his soul.
He believes he’s dead, and you’re feeding that belief.
If you are that selfless, if you truly want to fix your mistake and know it’s not going to work, let him go.
You’re only hurting the both of you more and more with each passing day.
And I think you know that, Lucifer. I think you’ve known that for a while. ”
Pain rolled through Lucky’s chest. Gabe was, as usual, correct.
Blunt but absolutely correct. That thought had crossed his mind, too.
Yes, he’d reaped Charlie’s soul, but he wasn’t dead.
He had no claim or hold over it, but his emotions had complicated things and held on tight to the mortal’s afterlife.
He knew he needed to do right by Charlie, in every way possible.
He needed to get him home, get him back to his body, to his long life and his sainthood.
He needed to let his little priest have the chance to fall in love with someone better.
A nice human who wasn’t a selfish asshole who had spent thousands of years partying and sinning to fit into the ideals of what their family had demanded.
Charlie deserved Heaven, and Lucky was forever doomed to Hell.
They couldn’t be together, and he understood that the heartbreak stemmed from that.
The deep rooted truth that it would never work had broken through the soil of this relationship and suffocated the little bloom of hope he’d built for something more than a life of checkboxes and duty.
Reality was a weed that overran his small field of dreams, and the tiny patch that hadn’t shriveled up yet was on its way to a wintery end.
Lucky would end up alone, just as he feared.
His best friends would leave once he lied and said he was fine, and go about their days holding hands and being happy.
Without him. Charlie would leave him. Even the stupid hellhound would leave him.
He’d spend his time in his big office, looking at the handwriting on those boxes remembering the brief few weeks of his long life that were filled with annoying trivia facts and sunshine and freckled cheeks and a gap-toothed smile.
“Lucky?” Bub asked.
“It’s not worth it,” Lucky mumbled. He used the food-covered table behind him to pushed himself up.
“The truth?” Gabe inquired, almost accusingly.
“Trying to be happy,” Lucky replied as he turned to leave, tail dragging sadly along the ground behind him.
“Hey, Lucky,” Bub said worriedly.
“I’m going to get caught up on my files. Put whatever you want on my tab,” he said as he walked out of the suite, leaving the demon lord and the archangel standing in worried silence.