#izzy writez

Luke stares at him for a moment, before turning to look at the cross on the pedestal. He thinks about himself, alone in a strange place, with only a stranger to lean on; he thinks about Lucifer, and the magazines worn with use, and dotted with tears, piled in his desk drawer; and he even thinks about Micheal, who sends a Christmas card out to a strange address in Neveda every year, even though he never gets a response. Luke thinks about them, and then he thinks about Mammon, and says, “I don’t know. I think if you were my brother, I’d miss you a lot.”

She looks at him – hair falling right over her eyes, where he couldn’t see – before she’d smiled a tight, all-lip smile. She’d promptly gotten off at the next stop.

He didn’t think about it. Instead, he stared at subway walls, and concrete tunnels, and thought about anything else. He thought about hotel rooms, slot machines, blonde kids at airports, and the stack of finely wrapped presents sitting in the post office, about a mile from his stop. Whether he finally managed to catch his stop or not, the gifts would be delivered, and the damage would be done; his brothers (if he could still call them that) would see, and then they would know. Mammon had signed all the gifts and put a bet on himself getting there before they did.

It was a wonder he had any money at all.

But presents would be at best weird – and at worst stalkerish – if not paired with the face and apology he knew they deserved; despite popular opinion, Mammon was aware of how his gift-giving habits came across to the average person. Though the Morningstar's were far from average; quite the opposite really. Sparkling gold standards the lot of them were; that made the presentation all the more important. 

(They’d all always hated how he gave presents; wrapped neat, and tight, with ribbon bows, and no names. Not from the gift giver, nor the gift receiver. He’d always left it to them to figure out; he’d always said it was because it was obvious who the gift was for, even more-so who it was from. Lucifer had always stated that it was because, You fear intimacy, at even the smallest levels. Jury was still out on who was right.)

Signing them – giving them – was important. He had to do it, and do it right– otherwise, it’d look like he hadn’t changed at all.

Lucifer doesnt say anything. Mammon, in a moment of divine debauchery, has stunned Lucifer into silence. God's chosen child; the painter of the skies; the preacher of the angles; the Morning Star.

Micheal would be ashamed.

________________________

It suprises no one, when Mammon gets fired.

Wukong preens a little at the compliment, and Guanyin (ever the Bodhisattva) only offers a flicker of her eyes in return; that was fine though, he thinks, because he knew he was her favorite anyway. She never would’ve let Pigsy come cry into her bedsheets, if he’d been unceremoniously kicked from their journey.

Master’s lips thin, the way they always did when he believed someone was going to ask him for something he didn’t want to give. Like when famine-addled farmers asked for what little food they had, or when a particularly uppity God wanted his adulation for a job they had not done– they were all lucky that Master was a very kind, very devout monk, who seemed to find great pride in giving unto others. They wouldn’t get anything, if they were asking Wukong. This lip-thinning look seems different though; less holier-than-thou, sacred monk with a savior complex, and more frustrated human man, with a point to prove. Wukong was not a fan of either. “Well, he has always been exceptional in the art of murder.”

Wukong does not flinch– only twitches, suddenly, and violently. 

Guanyin blinks slowly, looking hard at Sanzang. He himself – incredibly desperate to not look at his Master, less he falls victim to the passive-aggressive lip-thinning face – averts his eyes directly over the man's shoulder. There, he watches Bajie point and laugh, as if Wukong being at the fatal end of Tripitaka’s anger was some sort of raunchy comedy; Wujing only stared at his chortling brother with big, black eyes, seemingly begging him to stop, before Wukong felt so emboldened to stop him himself; Ao Lie, rather predictably, continues to be a horse. Scowling, he turns his eyes to the ground and decides that it may be best to look at nothing at all.

He turns away quickly, storming down the street, towards nothing in particular. A shame he’d parked across the street; he’d have to wait a little while longer, to get home.

Lucifer’s heart melts like sugar in a thunder storm, and he takes an unwitting step forward. The door almost closes in response, and his melted-sugar heart breaks in half. “It’s me,” he answers, tongue numb. The Omega pheromones must be getting to him, he thinks– that has to be why tears push their way into his eyes. He blinks them away harshly. “It’s Lucifer. Can I come in?”

Mammon doesn’t say anything for a long moment; Beel looks at Lucifer gaze pitying, while Belphie just seems downright gleeful at the idea of Mammon turning him away. Lucifer makes a mental note to ground him, along with Satan. Maybe tie them up from the ceiling, as well.

“Didn’t think ya’ were gonna come,” is the answer he gets.