oh ye knights errant

@errantsouls " Cas." Wan, tight-lipped, reflexively wary; a far cry from old. But so, too, have situations changed, and the last they saw of each other wasn't on pleasant terms. " However did you find me? "

" Ah. Yes, well. I do seem to be still alive, now don't I. " Still: he's wary, for however he leans ever casual, ever devil-may-care, ever so lackadaisical. There's a pain there, too — deep, digging, desperate, angry and bitter and hurt, parts of him wanting things to fall back the way they were and other parts of him afraid they never can.

it isn't always shakespeare, but it's genuine.

i'm not going to make it. you're going to have to go on without me.

you're crazy, you know that?

well, for me, there is no difference between a private life and a public life.

it's all true. it's all real. nothing here is fake.

i have love handles?

in case i don't see you! good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight!

what the hell is wrong with your job?

can't get any further away before you start coming back.

it's not that simple. it takes money. planning. can't just up and go.

i don't like the look of that weather. i think we should head back.

you're talking like a teenager.

we need adventure.

i thought we were going to try for a baby.

i might as well pick one of these up while i'm at it.

i almost hugged a perfect stranger in the salon last thursday.

you're just feeling bad because of what happened.

i've never blamed you. and i don't blame you now.

i made macaroni!

i've been such a klutz all day!

you're a better person than i am.

you know, [name], i'm not allowed to talk to you.

i can understand that. i'm a pretty dangerous character.

would you wanna, maybe, possibly... sometime go out for some pizza or something?

if we don't go now, it won't happen. do you understand?

we have so little time.

they don't want me talking to you.

i've never seen you before today.

if you don't tell me what's happening, i'll report you!

i think i'm mixed up in something.

you're going to get both of our asses fired, you know that?

just between you and me, i'm going away for a while.

i need to talk to you, but let's go outside.

can you pass along a message?

i'm sorry to keep you.

i guess i'm being spontaneous.

you're blaming me for the traffic?

i'm sorry. i don't know what got into me.

you want to destroy yourself? do it on your own.

why do you want to have a baby with me?

what the hell are you talking about?

you're having a nervous breakdown.

you're part of this, aren't you?

whatever the answer was, we were right together, and we were wrong together.

you're the closest thing i ever had to a brother.

i'd gladly walk in front of traffic for you.

the last thing i'd ever do is lie to you.

i never stopped believing.

let's get some champagne up here!

don't you ever feel guilty?

look at what you've done to him!

give me the phone.

was nothing real?

you never had a camera in my head.

He’d seen what had happened to Sam.

There’s that moment when it grips him. It wasn’t painful- not yet. But he knows. He knows the power held. And he knows he does not want to be on the receiving end. He is a toy here, a plaything, a pawn. He is nothing to Lucifer, and he knows this.

But he is something to Michael.

He’s not nothing, and that’s the terrifying part. Being nothing would be to be ignored. To be nothing would be to be —— nothing. He’s not nothing to Lucifer, and it’s because he’s something to Michael — and the Morningstar himself is unable to say whether it’s love, jealousy, pride, petty revenge, or something else entirely that has him like an angry child wanting to break his brother’s toys. 

Billions of years, and yet ——

His head tilts, and though he wears a human face —— oh, it’s an inhuman, sharp gesture. ❝ But how many times, ❞ he wonders, ❝ Can the mind be taken apart to atoms and feel every moment of its unmaking? How many times can that happen, and still stay sane? How —— ❞ And a little twirl of the fingers, ❝ many times can atoms, electrons, nerves, cells, organs —— how many times can they be broken apart and rebuilt and still say they are you? We could find out. ❞

"Yes, he is a terrible father, that is something we can agree on. He is selfish and he only created all of us to do his dirty work, I know. I learned that long ago, Lucifer, and I am sorry. I truly, truly am for what happened to you. I wish..." She paused and looked at him, really looked at him, "I wish I had had a chance to know you better before. Before any of this. When...when Michael said it was nearly a Utopia. How you all lived in peace and comfort."

"I am the archangel of Death, do not think for one more second I do not understand anger and destruction and desires to destroy and chaos and having to fight your instincts and how you can feel your sanity trickling away the longer you try to and how it bloody smolders. It burns so hot, Lucifer and there is nothing to cool it and the thirst to hurt...there is nothing to quench it. There is no serenity or tranquility for the likes of us and in the end we will be reduced to ashes, so we must do what we can with the time that we have. I have chosen to do good. I have chosen to do what is right by them, not a father that has the ego the size of multiple universes and plays us like puppets against each other. If I must flare out it will be my own doing. He doesn't have the right to control me anymore."

❝ Oh, it was beautiful, then. We lived as we liked. Flew through the universe and spent thousands of years with the stars. Laid bare in the fields of a newly born planet. It was perfect. ❞ He simmers, goes quiet as she speaks, thoughts wildly percolating —— some brief flicker of his eyes closing at the acknowledgement, and the empathy, at the softness — before he asks, suddenly: ❝ Do you remember what I used to be? ❞ 

His head tilts, and he comes close. Intentionally: his wings unfurl, unfold, spread — those ashen, blackened things, six of them. Not shining and proud, but dim and shedding ash like dust, some of the oldest feathers still looking burned and singed. They are held low, curled slightly inward at their peaks as though they have long gotten used to the inward curve of a cage. ❝ Do you remember? ❞ 

How these wings used to be proud, huge, white with golden-veined feathers. He was vain, but oh, he had a right to be. The Morningstar was beauty, was gleaming and light and proud. The Lightbringer, the Star of Morning, the Angel of Light. Oh, how he gleamed, and now he’s reduced to —— this. ❝ Look at me. Look at me. I have already been reduced to ash. To nothing. Everything that was —— light, and good, and forgiving, and beautiful, has been burned out of me. All I am now —— ❞

He loved him from the moment he knew.. he has to take a second to try and take the anger that flares in his chest. Part of him wants to let it loose, let his rage consume him. He wants to scream, to yell.. to show how much pain he was in. But he can’t- he won’t… his anger is a weapon-

“Are you telling me you care about something more than yourself? Telling me you don’t care about your father?” Ethan’s breath shudders slightly as he counts in his head. 1, 2, 3, 4….

“He cares about me. If he didn’t, I would be dead.” His voice is cold- though there’s pain that winds it’s way into the undertones of his voice. Is he even talking to Lucifer anymore…?

Would he… would he kill Lilith? Would he take the life of his sisters, if Michael asked…? There’s an obvious pause at the question, ocean hues flashing a fiery red.

Frustration abruptly burns hot, hot, hot. ❝ I have always cared. I have always —— ❞ And the surge of emotion comes fierce, cold consuming him, and he can feel Nick fighting inside him, screaming, warring against the all-consuming flood of grace. His features contort, grimace, and he forcibly shoves it all back, locks him back away in that place in his mind. 

When he looks up again, tears swell hot and crawl down on features that are swiftly made neutral aside from the barely-there quiver at the corner of his eye, and his head tilts just scarcely, just barely —— a tumultuous tide of everything boiling under the skin, scarcely held.

❝ I loved my father. I loved my brother. I loved them, I would have laid down every part of who I was for them. I would have died for them. For every, every thing they asked me to do. We were happy. ❞ He leans in, close. ❝ But when our father commanded it, he branded me monster, struck me down, and threw me in that cage to be forgotten. ❞

Yet all they see is an abomination.

And not just any abomination. No… he is that which is made of betrayal, and anger, and fear. Made of what heaven believes to be evil, blasphemous, untrustworthy. Even if nephilim were permitted to live… he would still be hunted. He is everything they fear..

He could be what brings heaven to its knees.

The hand on his shoulder catches him off guard. He’s not really the touchy feely sort… but this- this feels different. Almost right. Like it’s something he didn’t know he needed.. that he didn’t know was missing.

“What am I supposed to do? All I’ve ever wanted was to show that I’m a hero… that I’m capable of good…”

A pause…

Lucifer's views on family and fatherhood are ill-defined and tumultuous at best, and the decision to even create a nephilim was spontaneous, as much of his decisions often are. His impulsivity is a thing of legend.

But it doesn't mean he doesn't care. So many think of the devil as heartless, cold, emotionless, soulless. The reality is that he burns wildly with them, and that's always been part of what gets him in trouble. ( For his distaste of humanity, he probably shares more in common with them than most of his siblings. )

Dad. The word spins wildly in his head, rattles around with almost a panicked flood of emotion, but then it settles into something more warm. Proud. Accepting. And a pesky, wriggling guilt that he doesn't like one bit, either.

❝ To deserve it? Nothing. You bear the weight of my name. Your father's name. ❞ And his sins, but — no matter the shaky ground tentative truce that he and his brother have extended, he is yet too proud to name it thus. ❝ Just like all sons and daughters do. ❞ God's secondborn with the loftiest expectations, trusted with everything, fallen so far.