abraxaslogs | I don't trust, but I see right in front of me

What are they going to do? Sacrifice an animal in their room so they can get like this again? Istredd is standing by his theory they won't have a lot of opportunities. Unless they go hunting in Thorne, which may be safer in terms of things that can kill them, but not quite so dramatic.

"It would be worth it." Istredd says that with conviction. Certainty. They're already poor most of the time, go ahead and blame him for saying he'd spend what little money they get for the two of them to have sex like this. He is not ashamed. I doubt we're the strangest hook ups that go through there. There are vampires and werewolves here. Who knows what they get up to.

He would probably not look them in the eye but there is also a reason he keeps all their PDA very innocent like holding hands or light touches. Mostly because he can't trust himself, like he can't trust them.

You know all the times I fantasized about us, this never came to mind. He chuckles. Lucifer knows that he's wanted him a long time, it shouldn't be a surprise he thought about it. Extensively. That part he may be a little embarrassed about.

It's a cryin' shame Lucifer doesn't have access to his healing capabilities (though that would be added to the rank of Greatest Joke Against Lucifer if he did have that instead of, say, his barely-there smiting capabilities), because that could... open up more, ah, unconventional means.

But he is satisfied with Istredd's answer.

Then your mind's played it too safe. "Take the big risks, find the thrill!" Of your imagination? Whatever. He tosses a piercing look over his shoulder as they walk, all the lilt gone from his voice as he points out, "Though you did take that first, big risk. That leap." In trying, in potentially risking their friendship and putting them completely into unknown territory.

It's a weird credit to give but Istredd should get it, anyway.

(It's also far better than Lucifer saying 'aw, you're adorable' because Istredd's already a touch embarrassed and it comes too close to laughing at Istredd, which would not be his actual intention.)

You have no idea how safe it was playing. Istredd smiles, shaking his head. At one point the extent of my fantasizing was holding your hand, maybe a kiss if I was very lucky. He didn't think Lucifer would be open to any of this, so yes this is thrilling and strange and he likes all of it. He still is just grateful to have any of it. Any touch, any look, any smile. It's exceeded expectations.

"You could have rejected me and I would have never brought it up again." That is definitely what Istredd expected. That is why the kiss made him genuinely shocked. They've gone over the reasons why that probably wasn't the best first kiss in terms of feelings and complications, but the feelings behind it were real. Istredd looks ahead and not at Lucifer. Ten feet and no looking.

It was because you let me touch you, I started to have hope. Not only that night but also before during their reunion, when he cupped Lucifer's face for the first time and Lucifer let it happen. He didn't pull away. They were intimately close like that for the first time. From there it was only a matter of time.

Unrequited love is the worst. You'll never have to know what that's like, luckily.

Wow, Istredd.

Just, wow.

"Yeah, and have it buried deep, deep into your thoughts, deeper than your initial feelings, and left to fester," Lucifer says, skeptical. Lucifer is the King of Suppression but that doesn't mean he thinks it's a particularly healthy method. He'd do all the looking between the two of them if he wasn't leading the way, though Istredd might be able to recognize some of their route now.

Your idea of hope was still wildly playing with a game of chance since I didn't know what I wanted until, hmm, the possibility.

Predictably, he makes no comment in response to the last part.

"It wasn't healthy and I was fooling myself." Istredd knows that now. "In the start, it was merely an interest. Then an attraction. Then an infatuation. Then love. Then being in love. It was a process." So it was easier for him in the earlier stages to sort of shrug it off. There were plenty of ways that he could convince himself that it was no big deal to have feelings for him. They would go away, right? That's how these things happened.

I'm not used to getting what I want. It's always conditional. He rejected Yennefer because he couldn't see them as long-lasting, in their sphere. Why keep the pain? But the pain continued.

Well until you told me later, I thought when you kissed me, it was because you'd been secretly harboring feelings like I did all along. It wouldn't occur to him that Lucifer didn't know until that minute. The risk seemed like a good chance at that point. Lucifer was receptive, he was letting him touch him. He still thought that even after it got messed up.

"I'm grateful, believe me. Beyond grateful. I fucked it up a little, but I'm glad we got here." Istredd can acknowledge this was overall his problem.

What a weird process. Humans are so weird. It's like they got wired all wrong. Soldered some connections together that shouldn't have been made. Jury-rigged together, functionally broken.

And yet.

Lucifer is a transcendent being. Perfection at its peak, no flaws to the celestial makeup of his form--even the hellish veins, fiery pulses, fit together with him in the only arrangement they can.

There is no other formation that Lucifer as Archangel could be.

And yet he is fundamentally, equally flawed.

"Ehhhh, I already told you, we can go halvsies on who fucked what up," he says, and then makes a little wobble of one of his hands, "well, no, you a sliiiight bit more." Which is ten times nicer than Lucifer calling Istredd the screw-up when he finally confronted him in the makeshift Nocwich hospital, but finally giving Istredd some more shit for it than he did when they were in Nott. Proper levels are important.

Edited 2023-08-04 05:51 (UTC)

Istredd would simply laugh if he thought Lucifer considered anything about himself perfect. In the sweetest way possible. Because he loves him but he wouldn't love anything perfect. The flaws are what stick with him.

"Yes, me more," he agrees. Istredd is better at taking personal responsibility on these things. That's partly Lucifer's influence too. He can be very reckless and thoughtless, as his lover has pointed out to him, although he wouldn't call anything about his feelings for Lucifer reckless. He avoided them out of fear of risk.

"I didn't realize I wanted you until you said you weren't interested in people and I felt a crushing sense of disappointment. It was very bad timing to learn I had feelings." Istredd just explained the process from step to step it took, but that gut feeling of sadness at a door closing on something he didn't know he wanted was a real bad moment.

"I've had my heart broken before. I wasn't in a hurry to feel that again." Lucifer may remember that fear he had of being a placeholder, or of Istredd being kind to him and how that would have been the worst. Kindness with rejection is still rejection. He didn't want him to regret it. Istredd isn't trying to bring up Yennefer on purpose, but it is relevant. Experiencing something that devastating would make it hard to decide to willingly walk into it again.

"And then you said your feelings for me were unparalleled and I decided I couldn't live without knowing." This was post-Pit when he had to look at his future and decide what it would be, so it ended up being easy in the end. Istredd steps a little closer to him, three feet away rather than ten, but so far so good.

"But we're here now tempted to be defiled covered in blood in a dangerous forest, so it worked out. My only real regret is that you had to feel any pain at all." Even if it was temporary during his meltdown, Istredd will always want to protect him from bad feelings. "You're mine. That's all I wanted." A pause. "Okay maybe I wanted a little bit more." Thus, the defilement.

Edited 2023-08-04 17:53 (UTC)

Get another glimpse at Lucifer's true form and try to tell him that it's not perfection, regardless Lucifer's mixed-bag of emotions that have come out of it over time.

It's just facts of being a celestial entity, sorry Istredd.

Lucky for him, everything else about Lucifer is Highly Flawed.

So.

Winning still?

The fact that Lucifer can, and has to, separate his time in Abraxas as pre and post pit says a lot. They've had some heavy-hitting problems before. But the pit? (Was it even a pit? Lucifer was never there, never wanted any concrete details or memories from Istredd, it just seems the simplest breakdown. Put a long-winded complicated scenario into one three-letter basic nothingness of a word. Pit. Pit.)

The pit cracked something in every single Summoned across Abraxas--he's almost sure of that statement.

And some screwed-up part of Lucifer is glad for it.

"You can't know there's anything better without pain," he says, oddly soft in spite of that twisted point of view of his, but he does believe it, in the same way as, "just as no one can no light without darkness."

(And you don't know you want something until you realize you 'can't' have it, but he doesn't say that one. Istredd's the living embodiment of that one.)

Istredd reaches out to catch Lucifer's hand. Even if there's gore on it still, at this point, he's going to take it. Everything is in pouches and it is unlikely he is going to try and seduce Lucifer again. Probably. The two of them sometimes are all over the place but that's the way Istredd likes it. He wants love that's wild and senseless and consuming. While also, at least for the two of them, sometimes sweet and relaxing too.

"I don't know how much longer it would have gone on for, if not for the Pit." That is the term they're all using. Istredd would say it was more or less that, yeah. A giant fishbowl of earth and trapped in darkness. No way out, at least for awhile.

He means the two of them. How long Istredd would have held back, certain it was unrequited? If it would have taken months or years. That trauma made it happen sooner, they both know that. If Istredd hadn't been hiding under the bed, if Lucifer hadn't been broken thinking he was gone.

So how does he figure out this strange in-between feeling of wishing it never happened and grateful that since it did, he got something special out of it? And Istredd got a few things out of it. Friendships. The decision to keep living. Realization that he was stronger than he thought. And certainty of what he wanted after he made it.

He runs his thumb affectionately along Lucifer's knuckles.

"I would have cracked eventually. You're very tempting."

'Unlikely' yeah okay Istredd, who are you fooling.

"I don't know, you're pretty stubborn, and I'm very blind," he says, which really in an accurate summation of what happened. Lucifer would not have noticed on his own even if Istredd hadn't been hiding his thoughts because he wouldn't be able to recognize what the hell to do with it all and still assumed cross-wires for whatever bullshit reason he could come up with.

Because that initial thought of no one ever chooses him would still be a blaring alarm and Istredd is kind.

"I think maybe another year. But in the situation we're in here? Something insane happens every few months so there would probably be other times when emotions ran too high."

It needed a catalyst, that much is clear. A reason for them both to be upset and vulnerable enough to cross lines and not stop. The Pit was an obvious one, but he thinks something like the gods a second time could do it, there were other ways he could slip his guard and try to cling to Lucifer. The inevitability of confession is the point.

"I wasn't able to stop it. I tried." He did. Logic it away, remind himself that their friendship was too precious, reminded himself daily that Lucifer wasn't interested as he self-proclaimed. It was an active effort to let it go so he could move on with his life. And none of it worked. Love for him is useless to fight against.

He squeezes Lucifer's hand. "Remember when I told you that no one ever prioritized me, until you?" He said it while explaining how much it meant to him that Lucifer would pick him over revenge against Dean, that Yennefer would not do that, no one would. Istredd is used to be overlooked. "Sorry to be sentimental, but this thing we have? It's everything I wanted for myself." And something no one else could provide him, or wanted to provide him.

Something insane happening every few months feels like an understatement.

Every time Lucifer tries to get a foothold he's lost scrambling to whatever else is going wrong and when the dust settles he's just trying to catch his breath. Usually before this place Lucifer was on the other side of that, so maybe it's just... a bit of forced-humbling.

Istredd had talked hundreds of years in longing but that felt more abstract.

Another year is not.

It's funny, with this being everything Istredd wanted, but Lucifer having no concept, no thoughts about it. But just like their bond the thought of being without it is staggering.

What they had was fine, what they had would've kept him functioning and thriving and whatever else.

But comparable to what they gained... to imagine not having it...

Lucifer would argue no one prioritized Istredd because of the fact that he didn't want to risk opening his heart up so it was just a looped cycle of nothing ever going to change, but he does understand--of course he does.

He turns Istredd's hand with his own, an idle gesture. His gaze is sharp in the dark, maybe even sharper than normal, meeting Istredd's.

Lucifer likes to think he prioritizes himself over Istredd, at the very least, but in many ways that wouldn't be true either. Excluding himself in that equation? It's easy. It's simple. It's without thought. "They're fools to not," he says. "You're not someone to be overlooked--and enough people in this world would attest to that." He grins then, wicked and amused and self-assured (for once), the lilt underlining his tone, "I'm just the most important outta them." But don't forget the others, Lucifer will continue to push that.

Edited 2023-08-08 07:38 (UTC)

It is interesting that with the gods, with the Singularity, with all the things that it can do to them, the worst still was manmade. A kidnapping. Experimentation. The attack on Yennefer in Nocwich. Yes the other things feel even more above their heads, powerful and uncontrolled, but somehow it's those happenings that made him feel the most powerless. He's never been good at politics but the people who are still can't get their feet in the power of this place. Yennefer's the closest to the queen and she couldn't do anything to stop her madness.

It's why he is trying to keep the Summoned together as close as possible. It's inevitable that it's them against the world. Humans are like that. At least he's with someone who agrees with him, who is on the same wavelenth and they're working together for a common cause. Lucifer is doing things he doesn't know about, but he still feels like they have the same fundamental interests, and that's important.

It's possible Istredd is as much responsible for his isolation as anyone else. More so. People did try. They weren't the Brotherhood, his fellow mages, which was part of the problem. Outside of Triss. His shouting for their attention never went anywhere. But like here, the people he met on the way tried. It's only here he's tried back.

"It's true. And the people here are far more extraordinary than the ones I knew." He has respect for everyone he's met here. Much like Lucifer, restarting in this place has done wonders. He laughs and nudges Lucifer with his shoulder affectionately, still holding his hand. His eyes are so blue that even in the darkness they can be seen clearly.

"You will always be my favorite." It reminds him of when Lucifer reassured him that no one would ever know him the way Istredd does. He believes it now. "Now that I have you, I'm never letting you go."

Lucifer isn't at all surprised by the manmade problems being the worst, but then, he's the one that will continue to see the tarnish of humanity, regardless how far he's come to accept a couple of them.

"They really are," he agrees, because of that small-percentile acceptance. He'll get his hands dirty for those people and it won't be animal blood. Might not even be blood.

"Don't forget that." That Lucifer's his favorite, that Istredd's never letting him go. It should feel like a cage in itself. Trapped. It should be something much worse than anything boundaries or knowing where their independence resides could correct. It doesn't. Not born out of desperation or a need Lucifer didn't realize was there or a fix to all his time alone.

It's just... something that is.

He reaches up with his free hand to flick flecks of drying blood off Istredd that Lucifer had put there much earlier. "Let's go amuse some townsfolk in the square. I still want that drink."

And really, actually, leave these woods.

"Unforgettable." In a way, it's freedom to Istredd, rather than a box too. Freedom to be himself with someone, to be accepted and seen by someone he admires. To know that someone has his back and believes in him. It's a high like nothing else. And he can only be glad that's a shared feeling.

They're both happy, at least about them. Who would've seen that coming?

He makes a face at the flick but mostly because it means they'll be drying in this blood for awhile. But again, very few things he wouldn't do for the archangel. "And by amuse, you mean terrify."

I don't trust, but I see right in front of me

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FINALLY LEAVING THE WOODS wrap lol