Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 66

Sleep consisted of confused, fluttering dreams, some of which were clearer than others, but in all of them, I was consumed by the inherent sensation that I was falling, quickly falling. It was never enough to jolt me awake, and neither was the desperate strive overtaking my emotions, as if I were reaching for something, something I couldn't place, but something I knew that I needed. I never found it, though—I only continued to fall away from it, or into something separate from it.

It felt as though I were sleeping for days, weeks, months, years, an entire lifetime, sucked away from the reality I wished to ignore, or perhaps escape from. I wanted nothing to do with the struggles present in living, and nothing to do with the extension of effort necessary for enduring those struggles, just to earn the worthless reward of continuing to live and doing it all over again; I wanted to remain peacefully falling—in my thousand-year sleep, at least. Perhaps then, I would find what I knew I needed, what could provide to me that safety. It was a bet I was willing to take. Only in sleep, though.

Awakening seemed to drag on in fleeting sequences—I could see flickers of light here and there, in the corner of my vision, but it wasn't enough to fully rouse me. My body was a few billion pounds, weighing down impossibly into a leathery, uncomfortable bed, unwilling to receive the steady signals from my slowly churning brain. My neck was sore, aching profusely in an odd position that I, in my state of shifting unawareness, could not place. I couldn't seem to tell where I was, or how I arrived there, or if I was still dreaming.

Am I moving?

Every so often, I would feel my heavy body jostle slightly, or slide minutely to the side—was I being carried? That couldn't be it. Whatever I was laying on was not exactly warm, and all I knew from being in the arms of another was warmth, protection, security. A foggy disorientation took that place, and I couldn't tell how long I'd been sleeping. There was no accurate way to measure it, since it felt so lagging and sloppy. I only wished I would wake up soon, but only to satisfy my hazy curiosity.

It all came down on me at the brief wonderment about the length of my exhaustion—Chrollo was still gone; I was with Kurapika. As much as I had found it in me to hope, once again labeling the naive ideology as foolish, I hadn't slept away the two months of my lover's departure. In fact, the dreary realization that it had merely been hardly two days since he'd left grew rigidly in my mind, and suddenly, I felt cold. It was always cold without him.

So, where am I?

Am I in a car? Are we still driving?

How long had we been driving? The flitting sparks of light were familiar in the sense that they were natural—had the sun risen? Were we going back to Kurapika's apartment? I still couldn't open my eyes to see for myself, but that must've been the case when I was given an answer almost immediately.

The vehicle lurched to a gentle stop, and the static humming tone of the engine died away. I heard the high-pitched jangling sound of the key ring, and then a muted latch as the car door opened, followed by a hushed thud as it closed. Before I could make another effort to pull away from the lonely clutches of evermore sleep, the door on my side was gradually clicked open, and a stronger pour of misty sunlight invaded the atmosphere behind my eyelids. A lenient hand rested on my shoulder, and then my cheek.

"(Y/n)," a soft voice echoed close to my ear. "(Y/n), wake up. We're back."

My own fingers twitched as the heat from his palm seemed to stir a stronger will to come back to consciousness within me. I lagged my weighty eyes open—they fell a few times, but eventually, I was able to focus on the outstretched arm before me, swathed in a fleecy gray sweatshirt, and the scent of old vanilla and something lightly floral, tinged by a husky undertone. It wasn't the same as what I was used to, but it was nice; it didn't create a warmth inside my freezing soul, but it offered an outside source to the vacancy within it.