Rory (badasswings) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-12-14 11:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ₴ inactive: aurora morningstar, ₴ inactive: lucifer morningstar |
But then she ended up in Vallo. There was no Heaven or Hell to come and go from. Whatever came after life in this world was not something Rory had access to. That had been okay at first. Chloe had been here, she could still see her mom when she wanted, and so she didn’t have to grieve for her, not really. She could put it off.
Not anymore. Chloe was gone, and Rory had no way of visiting her. She had to deal with things the human way.
Except she didn’t really know how. This was never a reality she had been faced with even though she was raised by a very human mother. So she turned to the only person she could think of. Lucifer.
It took less than a minute to go from her floor at Lux up to Lucifer’s penthouse. She stepped off the elevator shortly after the notification of Chloe’s disappearance hit the network. “Dad?”
The unfortunate drawback of being celestial was never maintaining a good buzz for long. Liquor in small doses had about as much potency to Lucifer as apple juice to a toddler so while his habit of taking a flask everywhere may have been one of an alcoholic, it was merely a fondness for the taste. However trying to get good and drunk in these situations were a lot less fun. There were at least seven bottles rolling around and Luci Jr wouldn’t even get up from his bed to try and smuggle one off to wherever he kept hiding his toys. The hellhound even knew.
Lucifer leaned back against the small bar in the penthouse’s main living area as he set his phone to the side and appraised the near empty bottle in his other hand. Upon notification of Chloe’s disappearance the anger and feeling of loss settled in, Lucifer still not sure how to cope. He could blend in with humanity quite fine but when it came to actually having reactions to loss and heartbreak like one of them, well, he didn’t know how. Only in the last several years had he acquired relationships where he actually began to care. The devil’s heart grew several sizes and all that.
Now here he was deeply, deeply in love with a singular woman who may never return given the ebb and flow of the place. But as he slid back into that particular train of thought, the ding of his phone alerted him to new texts. Sabrina. Somewhere in the building Rory. His daughters. Chloe may have been the love of his life but she was Rory’s mother and that kind of relationship was different, he knew from experience.
Lucifer knocked back the last of the bottle but the unopened ones sitting beside him were returned to the shelf. He started picking up the empty bottles and setting them on the counter in an attempt to clean up. Wallowing was something he could no longer afford when he had people in his life, people who depended on him in times of need. It was...it was selfish of him. Something he had no problem with in the past but didn’t sit well with him now.
His attempt to clean up was only partially done when the elevator dinged to let him know of an arrival. Lucifer’s mind whirled in the lessening liquor haze to say something comforting but that had never been a strong suit of his. He was honest and sometimes honesty wasn’t what was needed in the moment. Instead he held up his arms to her, silent but open.
It was a new feeling, heading toward her dad for a hug or any level of comfort. It had happened all of twice so far in her life, starting first with taking down Le Mec, and then when she was finally sent back to her own time. But both of those times hadn’t been this crushing. No one she loved had died.
She had expected the bottles, Rory didn’t pay any attention to them. But she had no idea how this was going to go. Only recently she had found out that Lucifer loved her mother as much as her mother had loved him. He was in the same boat as her, in a way. Chloe was still young in his time, but he could see her when he wanted, and when it was time for her to go, death would never be a barrier between them. They were both faced with a shit reality.
There had never been a shit situation that the two of them had to navigate together. It was always her mortal family she got through it with. But when Lucifer held out his arms she found herself walking into his offered hug without evening thinking about it.
“Dad.” she spoke softly, half muffled by the hug. But she really had no idea what she wanted to say. What was there to say? Sorry? Everything sucks? It wasn’t fair? Those were all already known without being said. Nothing was going to fix this situation, or make it less shit. So she squeezed him a bit tighter, a few tears falling from her eyes and into his shirt.
Lucifer wrapped his arms around Rory tightly when she came to him, a hand resting against the back of her head. Rory was older than her physical appearance gave way to but in that moment he could only see a child whose mother had been taken from her. Chloe may return again, he hoped she would, but therein lay that Rory might have to convince her of being her daughter again, that she might not know her at all, or at worst may not know either of them and not take Lucifer’s word that Rory was who she said she was.
“I am sorry,” he murmured softly to her, choosing the old standby. Worn and used up but no less true. He was sorry. “This is the second time she has been here and the chance is there she will return again.” It was the truth strictly speaking from his observations of people coming and going in Vallo. As far as personal belief went, he didn’t want to get his hopes up but he didn’t want to take Rory’s down with his. “I would ask how you are and will listen if you want to tell me but I believe I have an idea.”
Mortality wasn't a new concept, but having to view it as mortals did was, and Rory didn’t know how to verbalize the thought that was running through her hand. Chloe was gone. Mom’s dead. As if verbalizing it made it any more true than it already was in her time. Rory made a small noise that may have been something like an agreement to his offer, but she didn’t say anything immediately. Instead she hugged him just a little bit tighter, not quite ready to let go yet.
She took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself enough so her voice didn’t shake when she did actually speak the words. “Mom’s dead.” it only half worked, “Just before I landed here, I was with her when she died. I told her she didn’t have to miss me because I’d see her on the other side.” But there was no other side that was open to angels here. Now she had to miss her mom, and Rory didn’t know how to do that.
Rory’s words served to send a pained lance through an already broken heart. Chloe’s dead. His daughter bore that on her shoulders and arrived to find her mother alive and well only to have her taken away again. For all his pain, what she faced was unimaginable. He never had the relationship with his parents that Chloe had with Rory. His arms tightened around her more. Nothing he could say or do in that moment would make it all right, make it hurt less. He wasn’t sure he wanted to give her a temporary solution when facing the hurt seemed to be the only way either of them would come out all right.
“We are still back there, you and I. Unaware of this place and our existence in it. We still see her every day, whenever we want,” Lucifer said softly, “which means we are still with her there and she with us. However that is cold comfort when we here are the ones who miss her greatly.” His only hope was that in by telling Rory that, she could find some comfort in knowing that Chloe would not be alone there. “It is incomparable as well but you still have me. I will not go anywhere as best I can.”
Rory appreciated his attempt to offer some form of comfort. It was all he could really do while they were here. He was also (hopefully) right. If she was in both places, then she was still able to see her. It was unfair this was not something she was capable of here. It made her hurt, and it made her upset, but there was no one to take that out on.
It was a feeling of being lost. She had no idea what she wanted to do, what she needed, how she was supposed to deal with this, or what came next. She was lost. When she was lost, she went home. Her mom was home. With that option gone, she was here now.
Eventually she let go of his grip on him, pulling back slightly to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. “Is it cool if I hang out here for now?” She didn’t want to be alone, but also knowing how much Lucifer loved Chloe, she didn’t really want to leave him alone either.
“Well I only have several thousand kinds of whiskey but I suppose if you can deal with that you are more than welcome to stay,” Lucifer replied dryly. In a way having Rory to look after helped distract him from his own grief, an uncertainty for which there were no answers. The moment he turned, he remembered what he had been doing just before she’d arrived.
He cleared his throat and moved to the counter to try and neaten up the mess he’d made. “I have no answers except there is no right or way to do this, especially in a place like this where rules may as well not exist. She may return, she may not. The only thing I do know is that we are there with her back from where we came. So I suppose in that way she is the luckiest of us all,” he added.
Lucifer moved to the wall and grabbed another bottle that had yet to fall to his marathon drinking. Two glasses, both filled a few fingers full of good whiskey. He held one out to her. “To your mother, to the detective,” he said softly.
“If I have to.” she said with a watery smile, trying to add a dash of sarcasm to the situation of his never ending whisky supply. She watched him clear off the space, she wasn’t surprised to see he had already managed to to have several drinks despite the notification not being up long.
Her mom was definitely the lucky one in this case. She had access to both of them, while the versions of them here were cut off entirely.
“To mom.” Rory responded, taking the glass her dad offered, followed by a murmured thanks. Rory wasn’t going to hold onto any hope that Chloe might come back, to hold onto that would hurt too much. It was a back and forth she didn’t want to deal with. She was just going to count herself lucky that this time she had her dad with her.
“Well you don’t have to but you know how my bar is,” Lucifer teased her quietly to keep the humor momentum going a little bit longer for them both. “Though we could hunt the place and see if there is any more of Regina’s stash undiscovered.” That he highly doubted with his senses highly attuned to alcohol or something of the sort.
His glass clinked lightly against Rory’s before he moved to put his arm around her shoulders once more. “Whatever the circumstances may be, I am quite happy that you are still here with me,” he murmured. “I may not have known you very long but I love you dearly, Rory.”