bigapplesauce | brother mine [closed]

Lucifer thinks that using the door is for chumps. Instead, he simply flies right in, appearing in the seat across from Gabriel. He notes the two glasses and the fact that they're filled with good whiskey, but does not acknowledge them in any visible way. He is an archangel of the Lord and has no need for food or drink, and he is not an addict of hedonism as Gabriel is.

He folds his hands on the table.

"You wanted to talk, little brother?"

"Oh come on. So formal." He pushes the second drink across the table towards Lucifer. He knows that he drinks. That was painfully obvious from the drunk dialing he got not long after Lucifer arrived. Maybe he'll be up for indulging again for the sake of not having the most awkward conversation of all time. "Drink something."

He takes a sip from his own glass and slouches into the booth a little bit. "You're the one who wanted my company. Now you've got it."

Lucifer does not even deign to glance at the drink that's offered to him. As always, he has his pride.

"If you're referring to my trip into your pet's dreams," he says, "than I'll tell you again: if I had wanted to speak to you, I would have. That was a lesson for him, not you."

Gabriel already knew that he is a cruel, capricious angel tainted heavily by pagan rites and traditions. Lucifer hardly needs to remind him of all the things he's done as a trickster, all the people he's killed without remorse.

"And I am furious about that little lesson." He lets his voice lilt, making the truth of the statement uncertain. He is furious. He hated what he did to Johnny, but approaching Lucifer head-on about it isn't going to do him any good. He takes a sip from his drink.

"He showed me, you know. After the fact. The whole shebang. You got so much wrong. My own brother." He sighs heavily. "To start with..." He waves his spare hand vaguely towards Lucifer's face. "Is that really how you think I talk? And the just-desserts was all wrong."

He frowns pointedly at Lucifer's drink. "You going to make me drink alone?" Now he'd be doing him a favor by having the drink, so he might as well drink it. For his poor brother's sake. Or, that's the idea, anyway.

Edited 2015-01-27 12:43 (UTC)

"My apologies, Gabriel," he says, and, for simply the sake of shutting the other archangel up about it, pulls the glass of whiskey closer to himself, wrapping his palms around it to chill it down a little. "Was there too much blood and not enough pop culture and urban legend references? I'd thought about using a sewer alligator, but I thought that would be tacky."

And no comment need be made on the fact that Gabriel's done the alligator-in-the-sewers thing.

"It was good enough to convince your little human, though, so it can't have been as bad as you say."

After all, up until the part where people started bleeding, Johnny had gone right along with Lucifer and his Gabriel impression. Maybe he'd had a misgiving or two, but it clearly hadn't been enough to set off any real red flags.

Gabriel believes that if it had gone on longer, Johnny would have realized what was happening. Even up till then, he'd realized that something was wrong, but he didn't know exactly what. Lucifer isn't giving him nearly enough credit.

"If it had been real," he ventures, "I wouldn't have done it that way. The asshole Lothario is the only guilty party there. Not the girls. You'd need to..." He shrugs. "Have him fall for a new boner pill that makes his dick fall off or something. He's alone. No witnesses. And if an urban legend grows out of it, that's a bonus, right? Poor dickless Joe Schmoe."

"Collateral damage never bothered you before, little brother."

Lucifer runs his thumb along the rim of the glass, slowly frosting it over.

"But that's beside the point, isn't it? I was showing your little pet what you are, Gabriel, because he seems to be under the impression that you aren't something for him to fear. You and I both know that he should be afraid of you."

Gabriel, like Lucifer and Michael and Raphael, is an archangel-- a weapon of Heaven, designed to be bloody, bold, and resolute. And not only is Gabriel an archangel, but he is also a pagan god as well, a kind known more for their fickle cruelty than their righteousness. The power of an angel of the Lord and the mercurial brutality of a pagan; who, were they not of equal power, wouldn't fear that combination? In some ways, he is more terrible than Lucifer-- at least he never took pleasure in killing humans.

"What is it, exactly, that you want? For me to go along with your little charade of playing house with your human? Really, the whole thing is in awfully poor taste."

"You're in poor taste, Lucy" he fires back, a childish rebuttal in an attempt to keep the mood light. He rolls he eyes and lifts his glass to his lips to take a sip. After a moment, he shrugs. "Yeah. That's pretty much what I want. Why do you care? This isn't even our universe. It's not like I'm interfering with the divine plan. There's no plan."

He cocks his head at Lucifer, and an analytic expression briefly crosses his face. He already knows that he can't convince Lucifer that humanity is worth saving. Half of the time he's not even sure of that himself, but maybe he can convince him that this universe doesn't belong to him. "Not even a divine chess game. Not even divine strip poker." He cringes. "A horrifying as that would be."

He huffs out a laugh, then shakes his head. "Look, I was here before you," He taps his temple with one finger. "When it was quiet up here. We haven't got jurisdiction, bro. There's no Heaven for you to take back. No machine to rage against. We're in their world, not the other way round." He still has trouble with that himself. But the TARDIS is right about that. He doesn't have the right to punish people when he wasn't created to do that here.

He shrugs, "Why begrudge me a distraction or two, in this..." He waves his empty hand vaguely "...empty universe? What have you got to gain from interfering?"

He knows it's futile to argue with Gabriel about their right to do as they please-- a right that they don't have to be given, one that they simply take because they can. It doesn't matter what universe they're in, they are beholden to no authority but their own.

"It's degrading. Haven't you had enough of slumming it, Gabriel? Pagans, humans, sapient vehicles-- you've run the gamut. You've been around every block, congratulations. Are you done now?"

He says it as though Gabriel is the token rebellious child here, and all of this is just a phase that he should get over soon enough and come back and be a respectable angel. You know, like himself and Michael.

"For someone so intent on teaching lessons, you're terrible at learning your own."

Gabriel nearly flinches when he mentions the TARDIS. How does he know about her? Has she talked to him? He can't even imagine it. Nevermind Lucifer making his list of lovers sound like a frequent buyer's club punch-card and not actual individuals, he's more worried that Lucifer might try to hurt her eventually. She can hold her own against Zagreus- he'll have o believe that she can hold her own against Lucifer too, if it ever comes down to a confrontation.

"What's the lesson I'm supposed to be learning?" Some bitterness creeps into the faux-cheer of his voice as he continues. "Something about family always trying to hurt the people I love?" Lucifer hadn't personally killed any of Gabriel's children, but there's no doubt that he approved of what the other angels had done. The popular point of view in Heaven about relations with anyone non-angelic is that it's in the least pointless and at most dangerous and reprehensible. Gabriel never saw it that way.

"The lesson, Gabriel," he says, "is that you give your love to those who will hurt you. You loved those humans, knowing that they would bear you abominations and that your brothers would have to destroy them. You loved the pagans, and the moment they found out what you were, they stabbed you in the back. Excellent choice there, brother. Even that little Hindu whore that you were so fond of wasted no time in shoving an angel blade in your heart."

How long will it be before Johnny does something that will hurt him, or the TARDIS? At least Johnny is mostly powerless in the face of an archangel; the vehicle has more power, could maybe do real harm if it so desired. Harm, of course, beyond the emotional toll of another betrayal.

"And the Winchesters, that you sacrificed yourself to save? How many times do you think they thought of you? They were barely even grateful for the fact that you died to give them a chance at locking me away. They were barely grateful for Castiel, and he Fell for them. Even if you had stayed around to help them, they would've treated you like they treated him-- like a dog, to come at their calling."

And this is why Lucifer can't help but look at his brother's relations with lower beings as anything but reprehensible-- they have always hurt him in the past. They will always continue to hurt him, just on the basis of what they are. They do not, cannot, and will not understand an angel enough to ever be able to return his love appropriately.

"Once is an incident, twice indicates a pattern, little brother. How many times do you have to burn yourself before you'll learn not to play with matches?"

"I didn't sacrifice anything for the Winchesters. I wanted to save the Earth from you. Which I did, by the way. I hid out and invented increasingly complicated cocktails while they did the dirty work." Did Lucifer know that he didn't actually kill his brother? Well, now he does. Whoopdeedoo."This isn't really about them. Or Kali. I lied to Kali for hundreds of years. I'd probably stab me too."

Gabriel knocks back the rest of his drink, and when he sets it back on the table it's already refilled. He's angry and desperately sad, but outwardly it's showing more as disgruntlement. Lucifer hadn't been around to meet the so-called abominations that were killed out of some misguided desire for purity or safety or whatever the hell their reasons were, but Gabriel had felt a tremendous loss each time. That didn't have to happen, as much as Lucifer thinks it did.

"Getting hurt is part of it." He huffs a sigh and looks down into his glass. "Is that what you were trying to do with Johnny? Push him away before he can hurt me?" He looks up and meets his brother's gaze. "I don't need you to save me from myself, Luci. I don't want you to."

"They think that you did."

He had been speaking from the Winchesters' perspective; they, after all, had no idea that Gabriel had survived. To them, it was a sacrifice, even if Lucifer and Gabriel knew better.

He watches his little brother's apparent mounting annoyance with a quizzical tilt of his head, as though this whole situation is some logic puzzle that he hasn't figured out the trick to. He's missing some core component has to why Gabriel acts the way he does, why he continues to throw himself at mortals and other beings, over and over and over again. It's like watching history repeat itself, or like watching someone beat their head against a wall.

"Why do you waste your time with him?" he finally asks. "The vehicle I can almost understand-- it at least can get around the lifespan issue. But the boy? He'll live, what, another sixty years if he's lucky? That's an eyeblink to us, Gabriel. The entirety of his existence is so infinitesimally small compared to ours as to be nonexistent. And not only that, but he can't even comprehend what you are. Just hearing your voice would break him."

Some very special people can hear angels' voices, but Johnny isn't one of them. He isn't a prophet or a saint or a martyr.

"Your masochism worries me, little brother."

"The TARDIS is a she. Don't say the vehicle," He copies Lucifer's intonation, then makes a displeased face, curling up his lip. "You make it sound like I'm out there shoving my cock up a tailpipe."

He lifts his glass and takes a more measured sip. Lucifer is partly right. He does get hurt, but it's not out of some tendency towards masochism, and he's always found it worth the pain. In return, he gets love and companionship and a unique perspective not his own, not angelic. That's beyond valuable to him. It doesn't matter that Johnny can't hear his angelic voice. Even if he could, it wouldn't change the sort of things that he wants to say to him. He would never say that he's wasted time with any of the humans he's known. He would say that he took advantage of the time that he had.

"I've protected him. Scribbled some goodies onto his ribs. I don't want you looking for him." May as well tell him now. He'll figure it out eventually. "Even if you're right- which you aren't, by the way- even if this is a huge masochistic torture chamber I've set up for myself, it's still what I want. He's good for me now. If that changes later, I'll deal with it then. And you can do a big 'ol 'i told you so' dance."

"Now, brother, I'm sure she's not that kind of girl."

Delicate emphasis on Gabriel's insistence as far as pronouns went, that long-suffering tone like he's humoring him with the concession. After all, he only cares about the TARDIS as far as she relates to Gabriel; beyond that, his interest would be limited and analytic in nature.

He can't say that he's surprised about the ribs; if he had some little human that he wanted to keep from prying angel eyes, that's what he would do as well. The difference being, of course, that he wouldn't be protecting a human to begin with, but still. It's a logical and not unexpected move.

"And do you think that I would enjoy that, Gabriel? Do you think I would enjoy lording your pain and loss over you?"

"I don't know what you enjoy." He knows that Lucifer enjoyed tearing apart a group of people that used to be his friends. It's hard to believe that he has any motivation even close to brotherly love working here after that.

"I think you'd find it necessary. To remind me of the error of my ways and gently steer me back to the path of righteousness." He emphasizes the last, as if it's as ridiculous a notion as he believes it to be. What is righteousness, anyway, when it comes from Lucifer? Lucifer's moral good isn't one that Gabriel ever wants to mimic.

"What do you know about what's necessary, Gabriel?"

There is just a hint of an edge to his voice; big brother Lucifer is getting tired of this conversation, going 'round and 'round and getting nowhere.

"You've run from every responsibility that's been given to you. You've hidden from the consequences of all your actions and abandoned every cause you ever started to fight for. You need to be steered back towards appropriate behavior because otherwise you act like a spoiled child."

And this, boys and girls, is what those in the business call irony, and also hypocrisy. Sort of.

"And while Heaven stands empty in our universe, you would rather play with your humans in this one than find a way to return. I've tried to be gentle with you, brother, but you refuse to see that what you're doing, at best, is just another form of running away from something that you don't want to deal with. Since clearly no one else has, let me be the first to tell you, Gabriel: Grow. Up."

"The rift chewed me up and spat me out. I've seen people get hurt trying to find a way around it. We haven't found another way through yet, and I'm not jumping back in just to appease you." He doesn't say that he's not sure if he'd even want to go back, if he had the opportunity. Is that shirking his responsibilities? Maybe.

He shakes his head. He knows that Metatron is alive. That dweeb is definitely not his pick for leader, but if he's the only one left maybe it wouldn't matter. Maybe humanity can run things themselves for a while. "What good would it do anyway? I don't wanna be God." Unlike some other people he could mention.

He huffs out a breath and stands. It seems like they're not going to get much further with this. It's just going to go downhill from here.

"I haven't been running from my responsibilities. I've been running from you. I'm building things here. And I'm trying to keep you from stomping all over them like a grumpy kiddy with a dirty diaper. Maybe you should take your own advice, hm?"

Lucifer rises as his brother does, and though there's a difference in the heights of their vessels, it's an immaterial difference to the two of them. What they really are is light and starstuff, and the size of the meatsuits they're folded up inside don't matter much. What does matter is that his temper is rising like a glacier, cold and inexorable and liable to crush everything in its path.

"I wouldn't want you to fill our Father's shoes either, Gabriel," he said. "Not that I think you could. But how can you stand to sit here and muddle through your delusion of domestic bliss while our whole family is dead? Does the genocide of our brothers mean nothing to you?"

It wasn't war, it wasn't in-fighting, it wasn't the Apocalypse. It was the systematic extinction of their siblings, the systematic silencing of the celestial choirs. He had felt the hollowness of their dead Heaven during one dreaming-- white noise on angel radio and wings burned down to the roots-- and it had been terrible. Was there anything that their Father wouldn't allow? Would He simply let them tear themselves to pieces and never say a word?

"Someone is responsible for this. You might not care to go back and take care of it, but I do."

And the fact that he could deny his responsibilities, even now-- as though abandoning them for long enough meant that they had never existed in the first place-- is acutely infuriating. Building things, Gabriel says, as though that just isn't a kinder term for running away again. Lucifer steps closer, invades his brother's personal space because apparently he hasn't gotten through to him yet.

"Our family is dead, Gabriel, and where were you?"

Gabriel just stares back at Lucifer for a moment, feeling a paralyzing mix of sadness and anger. Lucifer has no right to blame this on him anymore than he can blame it on Lucifer. Lucifer was in the cage when the angels fell and he was here. Both locked away and both, to an extent, negligent in their absence and responsible for what has kept them separate from the rest of Heaven. There is a part of him that feels responsible for what happened, that fixates on hundreds of different outcomes from hundreds of different personal actions, but he won't let Lucifer embody that doubt just to goad him on.

He doesn't trust that Lucifer running Heaven or taking down Metatron would solve anything or make anything better. Revenge isn't what drives progress, and he's not sure there is anything but revenge left for either of them there.

"Are you trying to blame me for this? Do you really want to play the big domino game of cause and effect? Because I don't think you'll like it." He takes a step away then turns back. People are watching them now. "This, all of it started with you."

Revenge is all that Lucifer's had for millennia; why would he stop now? And three angels does not a Heaven make. What would he even do with the Throne of Heaven after Metatron is dead? Sit in an empty house, ruling over a dead Kingdom? He wouldn't be able to stay there-- it wouldn't be his home.

He wouldn't even kill Metaton. He would take their brother and drag him screaming into some deep part of the Pit, and there would not be words in any language for the horrible things he would visit upon him for as long as he could keep Metatron alive. And he has gotten very, very good at keeping someone alive for a very long time.

It would be terrible, and it would only result in more bloodshed and another dead angel, but Lucifer is willing to bear that burden for the sake of bringing justice to the rest of his siblings.

"Let's not forget who drove the whole play off-script, Gabriel," he says, hardly caring if the mortals around them were watching. Let them; if they try to interfere, he'll vent a little anger on them. "This wasn't supposed to be the ending to that story. This is your mess, little brother, because you didn't want the party to stop but didn't want to put in the effort to fix anything yourself. And you don't even know if Michael and I survive, do you?"

It's twisting the knife and he knows it, to imply that Gabriel's actions might be the death of both his big brothers, despite all his efforts to avoid that very thing. But let him think on that-- of Heaven reduced to just him and Metatron, the last archangel and the murderer.

brother mine [closed]

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