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Cotton-mouth. It's the worst. The slow rise into consciousness is like a bubble through tar. Pop — pressure comes first, followed milliseconds later by scent and sound. Softness — swaddling, pressure around shoulder and across chest, dull thumping pain in time with her heart. Redness — the glow of her closed eyelids, it registers too. Warmth.
A rusty squeak of recognition that reality is unkind in this after she shifts and Rosemarie turns her head towards the light, wherever it is in the room. A squint, blink, and slow inhale as she doesn't recognize where she is. The exhale is a quiet querying note.
Lux occupies a fairly high aerie. Not the tallest in a city of towers and spires, though arguably he might be happiest atop the highest building in mankind's history. The exorbitant cost of such digs are an affliction upon his bank account and very little else. It boasts a lovely view over the surrounding Manhattan skyline, enriched by splashes of light that burn late into the night. Lamps in the darkness he neither fears nor especially treasures anymore.
The affliction of awakening is a problem for mortals, of course. How long it has been since the damaged young woman took to a bed to recover, she'll be without obvious means to determine. Day sinks into the sanguine velvet of deep night, punctuated by weak sounds of urban existence. Cars trundle far below. Music percolates up through the soundproofed floorboards. A man drinks his complex blend of a liquor and stares out at it all.
Their prayers are hateful things.
Another wince and the tasting of the tack on the roof of her mouth follows that hesitant sound. She could use a shower, that's for sure. How does her shoulder both itch and hurt at the same time?
White bandages are revealed when she grabs a handful of silk sheets and drags them back. The next sounds is markedly more shocked — and pieces filter back to her.
No — nononono, not right now. The flinch is impossible to avoid, the grittiness of sore eyes realized. A tentative touch to her face finds it cleaned of chemicals but sensitive to the pressure, like an awful sunburn. In the end, she can thank the Otherness and its mad need for survival from an averting of scarring.
"Hello…?"
His shoulders carry the weight of the world, at least a little less so. Lucifer might be grateful for that, if not preoccupied by counting the number of buses and low-slung saloon cars circling the block to a distance of a half mile. Not a single pigeon approaches the building. The last errant bird to try ended up completely incinerated in the white fire of creation. He drinks the alcohol, feeling nothing of the usual burn down his throat that someone might. It's not unsurprising. He isn't human.
His senses aren't so adapted to mortality he fails to notice a squeaking frame of a bed, the shudder of silk along itself. His head turns slightly to reveal the aristocratic profile that defined the mould for mankind. How not? Humanity postdates him by billions of years, conceived in the sixth day far after the plants and the kindled stars.
But the flare of his brilliant eyes — a shade inconceivable as lbue except as the full spectrum of it — visibly shifts to the source of that movement. His own adjustments have been miniscule in hours. It may mark the first time he has stirred himself to action, other than to hiss instructions to Mazikeen.
"You'd be better off in a hospital, I'm told," he says flatly from the railing.
Rosemarie recognizes that voice — how not? It's not like it haunts her dreams regularly. The blush of realization at looking rather ragged comes hot on the heels of seeking out the man where he stands, noble and somewhat overwhelming, as he always is to her. It spreads to her ears, her neck, down to her collarbone, and the plan to sit upright is aborted. Instead, a grateful slump back beneath the shield of the sheets.
"Why am I not there then?" A valid question, truly, given the rusty staining of the bandages about her arm and shoulder. It's not a shoddy job in the least. Someone in the house of Lux knows how to immobilize a limb to prevent further damage; thus, she tests range of movement faintly and regrets it immediately given the pang of her body saying, Really now, just stop. It leaves her milky beneath cinnamon sprinkling of freckles, dusted strawberry and cream in the end.
"I had some doubt you would appreciate doctors extracting your blood and trying to decipher what you were. Categorization comes naturally to those of a scientific persuasion. When they failed to easily classify you, you might find yourself on a very different kind of table under scrutiny." Lucian doesn't swaddle his words in any veneer of lies to comfort her. Rosemarie just has to swallow the pill stuck in her throat as he delivers it. He turns away from the cityscape and steps over the terrace, his loafers smartly marking his pace as slow and inevitable. He's the kind of man who makes haste slowly.
The glass he puts down on a table while moving through the expansive bedroom that owes its size for someone who has a full set of wings stretching from one side of the horizon to the other, when it comes down to it. For the tidy creation of healing, blame Mazikeen. She who delivers murderous destruction must also know how to reverse the tide, whereas Lucifer is lost to his own moody thoughts.
"Are you hungry yet? Your body took a fair bit of energy out of you to heal."
And is that pill a bitter one. Rosemarie had briefly mused over it in passing so long ago, it seems, the chance that she'd end up in the hands of someone more concerned about her physiology rather than the ethics of her life itself — but only as quickly as one might risk touching a hot stove. Like the previous circumstances that brought upon the tender skin over her cheek and forehead as well as the bandaging, she pushes it off to one side to be addressed later — or never.
Her warm brown eyes watch him walk, marking the grace of his motions that seem inevitable to his person as the rising of the sun. It's mesmerizing in the end, especially to a wearied mind, and her reply to him is slow to leave her lips if only for the distraction of appreciation.
"Starving," the brunette admits quietly. Lo and behold, the gurgle of the empty stomach demanding lost calories and the little shiver to follow.
Lucifer doesn't usually try to conceal his graces more than necessary. Wings, halo, these aren't things to display to the general public. In the privacy of his own home, the reminder of his mortal state is considerable. Choosing to remain in the flesh and heavy with regrets or a stomach ache from consuming too many cherries, these recall why he left Hell in the first place.
Why his brother followed, he isn't fully confident based on erroneous information. Why this woman bothers so, he's still figuring.
"Stay where you are. I doubt you might make it four steps before toppling, and another bruise will slow the healing." He sighs, and skims his fingers along the tabletop that holds a bowl of fruit that he rarely bothers with. Proper meals won't consist of papayas and mangoes. She'll receive the stock of a kitchen outfitted for near anything under the sun: solid, simple food. Porridge might be a suitable thing, but for the beginning, there is soup and cheese grilled to a bubbly texture on toast. Thrilling, really, plain and filling.
If they've cooled, nothing a bit of heat manipulation on his part through the fire of creation. Take that, Campbells.
The devil she knows in turn recognizes the simplicity and homeliness of grilled cheese and tomato soup. Rosemarie has a moment where tears fill her eyes at the plain perfection of a meal devoid only of a mother's touch — rather, a fallen's angel instead — and manages to wipe carefully at what spills from the corners of her eyes. Tired tears, not much else behind the mask still. Much too tired.
Slow to appear above the burnished sheets, she sits up as best she can while attempting to keep from flashing too much skin. It's the premise, surely.
"Thank you." Knuckles still bruised and sensitive fingertips rest in her lap as she watches, every line in her body radiating lack of energy. Those eyes, however; therein lies the stubborn low-burning flame of the Shi'ar warbird, keeping watch over its host.
Never underestimate the power of tomato soup to alleviate all that ails one. It may not have a fundamental supernatural ability, but it comes close. See the power of a grilled cheese sandwich to stopper the flow of misery from all points of the body, and deliver the comfort of home and hearth on needy souls. Well, the man has some knowledge in ministering to souls. Even if that ministering often tips to the darker side of the scales. It's not like he failed to note what worked in his tenure.
Lucifer Morningstar, purveyor of comfort food, is truly a fiendish being. Not a fallen angel, per se. He didn't lose his wings. He never abandoned his grace; nor did he turn into a demon. Small points of a massive ego.
Rosemarie receives the food on a tray set up to minimalize her need to recline or sit up unnecessarily. The damage is what it is. "Milk might be suitable, but we'll keep it to water for now." She might eventually question how they've been handling evacuations of certain materials.
It all tastes like heaven. Whoever mans the kitchens gets a treasure trove of brownie points from the librarian. That first bite, with the crunch of butter and browning on the outer layer suffused with that tomatoey slurry and then with the melt of cheese within, that perfect ratio of fat and salt and addictive qualities — this almost brings her to tears again. After that, she forgets manners. Rosemarie doesn't spill a drop, mind you, but chewing?
That's a questionable behavior when the stomach wants the food in it right now.
Not but a few minutes of busy silence pass and the emptied plate is worth mourning, in a way. The tip of the bowl to capture that last half-spooful of soup briefly hides her face and then the freckles visage appears again, tongue licking up an errant drop on her lip.
"Delicious," she ventures after glancing at Lucian again. The Shi'ar warbird is happy for the sustenance. It's energy; it'll go to the slowly-persistant knitting of torn flesh. "Thank you." Gratitude hundreds of times over it implied in the emotional force behind the words even as she ventures a sip at the glass of water.
Lucian is patient. He stands by the bed and waits on a human as he rarely has the tolerance to manage. On the other hand, he's a bartender so presumably these things aren't impossible to imagine. Isn't he taking orders and fulfilling them in an ironic flip of roles from the master of the infernal host?
As long as she eats, he is not talking nor interrupting the process essential for her renewal. Rosemarie can lick the interior of the bowl with her tongue and use her fingers to gather crumbs without comment. Internal commentary is another story, but he knows how to keep his trap shut with regards to human predilections. As soon as the food is gone, he takes the tray from her. The next one set aside, in plain sight, comes along. This time, it's simple: a bowl of rice, a banana. The essential things to bind together food and keep her from burning through things too quickly. The Shi'ar warbird is probably nesting, let's be honest.
"You are welcome."
…well, he's not wrong. That fearsome atavistic avian is absolutely fluffed up internally; the barkeep might as well be feeding her and it doth please the mighty Shi'ar warbird within her mind. Cheep-cheep, coo.
Rosemarie, on the other hand, gratefully accepts more food that will…fit somewhere, she supposed — hunger still rules her actions. Snarfing is absolutely the continued action. The banana is quickest of all to disappear, gone in a few bites and swallows. Not a single grain of rice is left in this bowl when she's done and yes, the last few are picked up with fingertips getting less concerned with the bite of pressure on bruised nerves.
Emptied dishware again and Rosemarie slumps against the backboard. "Thank you…" Much more softly now, lassitude suffusing her veins as blood rushes towards the process of dismantling food for its precious stores of essential nutrients.