Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 90

"I dream of you
Almost every night.
Hopefully,
I won't wake up this time."

Freaks - Surf Curse

My heart rate accelerated slowly, and then all at once, wildly beating against the knowledge of what was happening too quickly, shoving too much blood through my veins and forcing a tingly sensation to bloom outwards from my arms and legs and into my fingertips. I could feel his aura projecting studiously, icily in our direction, controlling the grip of the chains which left my lover suspended and defenseless, and I could feel every hateful emotion that was attached—contempt, fury, agony, torture.

Confliction.

I hadn't turned around, and I didn't wish to, but for more reasons than simply laying my eyes upon the face of the one who had become the bane of our love. I didn't want to depart from where I knelt, clutching to Chrollo's weakened form, nor did I want our kiss to end—such a seemingly trivial end would only signify the end of the single real experience I had ever lived, the end of the heart that had mended mine, the end which took the form of a brutal knife thrusted through the glass walls that had protected the place where he'd pulled my broken, scarred body close to his night after night. And even beyond that, I was unsure of how my own panic would affect me, or how concrete my acceptance had become towards deciding not to kill Kurapika, because right then, every bone in my body was shrieking at me to viciously drain the breath from his lungs.

I can't. Chrollo will die.

Those words were so violent, so actively stripping me of every power I'd built myself up to have from the moment I escaped from those who'd stripped it away to begin with. But how could I fight against them, if they were true? Was I to be helpless once more? Vulnerable and unable to defend the one gift I had been allowed on this vile plane of existence?

My breaths quivered and shook shallowly as I eased the passion of our connection. Our lips remained brushing together, the quiet, forlorn ghosting of a once-promised always, and I could feel the gentle breeze of his sigh as it mingled with my tears, hardly drying the dampened skin of my cheeks and around my mouth. I felt the lingering warmth of his body, but I stayed close enough to avoid looking into his tranquil eyes—my nose grazed his, and my fingers flexed defeatedly on either side of his face, ruffling the hanging locks of hair around his ears and temples. My shoulders trembled by the force of every exhale; my pulse raged on, frightened, as I waited for an action to be taken.

"(Y/n)."

Kurapika's voice rang out clearly in the stagnant silence of the stone room, bouncing off of every boulder and pebble which littered the floor and reverberating in cracked, anguished fragments, as though he were the one witnessing a tragedy, or a volatile wrong. But there was still the same maddened fury that plagued his aura simmering within the breath of his tone—I stiffened at the sound of it, and my heartbeat spiked further, sending a stronger shudder to my already unsteady, guarded posture. Chrollo was unmoving, calm.

"(Y/n), get away from him," Kurapika demanded lowly, nearly a crumbling, shocked whisper now, blinded with rage from what he'd seen upon entering and unable to spare any of the love he'd so adamantly professed to me once before.

I couldn't find it anywhere within my mind and soul to care about the fact that he'd witnessed us kiss. A fresh spring of noiseless tears welled in my eyes as I gradually leaned back, losing the diaphanous glow of Chrollo's lips against mine—my widened gaze flickered back and forth between his dark irises, desperately searching for some kind of protest, or a wordless approval for my wish to keep him from the promise of death, but there was none. His expression reflected just the same as it had done hours ago, hours which cruelly felt like a span of mere minutes. It was a peaceful deadpan, unworried and clement, emotionless apart from the one unspoken reassurance I never imagined I would see from him.