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

[thedevilwhorose]

Who: Lucifer, others
When: May & June
Where: Thorne, Nott, Nocwich, the Horizon
What: OTA prompts and some closed things
Warnings:
Nocwich with Castiel: Cyfaill-induced Problems.
Nocwich with Istredd: A Lot of Blood, animal death, part harvesting, ???? it's a weird thread




I don't know who to betray. ♫
[Will match style.]

Comments

[thedevilwhorose]

"... I do?" It slips out of him, unbidden, and he looks a little surprised, a faint bit sheepish, and he busies himself with multiple weeds.

He hasn't gotten as much push-back from external sources about their relationship as he expected, and he certainly knows those like Castiel will definitely not be able to understand anything, but... Thorne was maybe a different story. The cautionary tales would be there, correct even, but... he truly didn't know how they looked to an outsider perspective. So much of their relationship was mental, behind closed doors, hidden.

He didn't expect anyone to really see even a glimpse of them.

[ordinar]

"Yeah, I mean..." He shifts to position himself a little farther down the flowerbed, but they easily remain within conversation distance. "You're, like, more relaxed. I saw you dancing."

Wilhelm is happy for Lucifer, he really is. But because he's seventeen and his world revolves on a narrow orbit around his own problems, he can't help but feel the gravity of his loneliness all the more heavily in this moment. The absence of someone that's all his, like a blackhole somewhere between the slats of his ribcage. He doesn't know if he should find it inspirational or depressing that even Satan can manage to find that someone.

At the very least, he'll try to hold all his moping inside as he attacks the weeds encroaching on the garden.

[thedevilwhorose]

It can easily be both inspirational and depressing.

"Well, it's rare I can equally be a problem and give him a hard time, in public," he jokes, grinning, and it's relatively true. He was being Very Much a Problem.

[ordinar]

"Wow, super romantic of you," he fires back.

But he supposes it would be weirder if Lucifer were the sort of guy to pile elaborate bouquets on his partner, to engage in all the stock romantic fare that they've already told a thousand stories about. There is romance in the weird, the unique contours of every relationship.

[thedevilwhorose]

"Isn't it?" he sings airily. The only one that has gotten any semblance of Lucifer's actual feelings out of him was Castiel, and they were out of their minds on bug juices and neither of them have deemed to converse again since. Just pretend the conversation never happened, it would be better that way.

Besides, Wilhelm did see the two of them dancing. Lucifer can joke all he wants but there's no hiding what he was feeling from that display.

"You should have done some dancing." If Wilhelm did, Lucifer didn't see. He was highly distracted, obviously. "Maybe you don't have gardening skills but surely that you must know." That's like Court 101, isn't it? "You could've showed off some fancy footwork to some native." Strut around like a peacock for Hayle? Look, they all gotta rub things into the natives' faces sometimes.

[ordinar]

No, Lucifer can't hide it very well. But Wilhelm understands the desire to keep your love to yourself, to keep it away from the world, which has the habit of ruining precious things with all its pre-conceived notions of how things should be.

"I danced some," he protests. With Robin, as friends, and then with Rhy — also, unfortunately, as friends.

"You were probably just too busy staring at Istredd to notice."

It straddles the line between affection and insolence.

[thedevilwhorose]

Rude.

... But not inaccurate, unfortunately.

He huffs a light breath. He can't even be mad. This kid's ended up under many people's wings, literally and metaphorically, for just being himself. It's likely the only thing that's given Lucifer freedom, too, is being able to be himself without the masks and all the open vitriol and constant calculation.

But being under Lucifer's wing may not be safe anymore. Lucifer's lost the ability to protect Wilehlm in the castle. It'd be safer, maybe, for Wilhelm to cut ties with him. Bad enough that some of Lucifer's reputation may be causing Istredd problems down the road, but there's no changing that. Any two steps forward Lucifer gets with the castle is immediately set back, but even if he begged and offered apologizes and bled his grace for Thorne (all things he would never do, but to just theorize) he'd never make up for trying to chase at Ambrose.

Always the flight risk.

He throws more dirt at Wilhelm.

"Fine, I was distracted, so sue me."

[ordinar]

He raises his arm like a shield, and the dirt clod explodes against his skin. Laughing, he lobs a clump of weeds back at Lucifer. (He wonders, a few seconds late, how many others could get away with that.)

"Yeah, I'll get my lawyers," he retorts.