brother mine [closed]

[has_a_horn]

It's become abundantly clear that Gabriel needs to have a talk with his brother. He's not convinced that it's going to be a particularly productive talk, but at least he can try to set down some ground rules now that they're sharing the city. Most of all, he needs Lucifer to stop terrorizing his friends. He's not looking forward to this, and he feels nervous about asking anything of Lucifer. THe last time he tried didn't exactly go super smoothly. He has a feeling that this is going to be more of a high-pressure negotiation than a brotherly conversation.

He sends Lucifer a phone, then texts to him, then a few hours later wanders into Wilmot's for the meeting.

He walks in about ten til seven. The farthest corner booth will hopefully be private enough for the type of things they'll be chatting about. He slides in there, orders some top shelf whiskey (two glasses) and waits.

Comments

[has_a_horn]

"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.

[wentdowntogeorgia]

"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."

[has_a_horn]

"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?"

[wentdowntogeorgia]

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?"

[has_a_horn]

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."

[wentdowntogeorgia]

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.