abraxaslogs | Set my sights on the setting sun

The waiting doesn't bother him. Truly, he expected it to be longer. Hours. To the point where it might be a problem to wave away at Thorne as a long-time sleeping.

"I'm not going to put in energy for you."

Not even destruction.

Ha! Michael isn't even worth that much. How's that, bro? They've both come so far and yet gone back so many steps. Can't get it right. Can't even remember how to get it right, though Lucifer was faced with it in the Feywilds. He could've, maybe should've conjured the right dance routine.

Screw.

That.

He wouldn't even dance to their Father's ditty. He wasn't about to pull together some lackluster song and dance to a memory-skipping Michael.

"I had the loveliest conversation. With Gabriel." He leans forward, out of his slouch. Elbows to knees, fingers steepled together. There's the, maybe expected, snarl. "Would've been real great to not have that surprise, Michael."

He is, apparently, worth enough to make a trip out to his domain to chastise him for a perceived slight. That may not make him a person of any great value in Lucifer's eyes, but there is still some connection between them. Unfortunately.

(Michael is not thinking about the Feywilds. He refuses the memory.)

He sits back in his pew, relaxed and arms still crossed, for all appearances bored with the current conversation.

"I'll let Gabriel know you would have preferred I ask the Elders to put him back where they found him rather than deal with the shock of his arrival."

There's his confirmation that Gabriel did in fact make good on his word and reach out, so now he doesn't have to let Lucifer know about him. One point for Gabriel.

He doesn't owe Lucifer anything, least of all an explanation, but—

"He asked me not to mention his presence. He wanted to make introductions on his own terms."

How's it that Michael takes the reasonable route? Lucifer came here, metaphorically speaking, for blood. Throw around words a bit in a fit and get a rise outta Michael and sure probably not ultimately result in much but--

He'd like to get a rise out of Michael just to settle back into their familiarity, as if Michael's entire posture and expression wasn't enough.

But how dare Michael launch Reasonable Explanation at Lucifer that just takes the wind out of his sails. It should be easier to conjure a snappish response but Lucifer just drops his hands and scoffs, looking upwards.

"'He wanted', did he? Shocked he even considered little ol' me in that."

Michael in his resting state is all about logic and reason. In a verbal match, it's key to get a move on and anger him within the first couple of words, before he talks you out of your own foul mood.

Or poke at one of his hot button issues. There's a not-insignificant overlap between the topics that instantly enrage the both of them, however.

He's not in any rush to get back to familiar. Familiar with Lucifer might mean years and months of no contact, or it might mean being stuck in the Cage together—or blades out, fighting for the narrow, dim spotlight of their Father's approval. This kind of petulant foot-stomping is more distant in his memories, but compared to the other options, manageable enough that he could stand it becoming the norm.

"Are you?" The tilt of his head says he thinks that's a conversation for Lucifer to be having with Gabriel, not him. Michael certainly doesn't understand Gabriel. "I hear he also contacted Castiel. I wouldn't be too flattered, in your position."

Gabriel might actually like Castiel, as a person. As an individual. Michael can spot a few admirable traits that might make a fine angel if extracted and installed in a more functional base model, but he can't actually imagine being friends with him.

Maybe that's a failure of imagination on his part. He has a lot of those.

Well he didn't come here for an actual conversation, he came here to be mad. Now he's just putout, arms folding over his chest. So now he's just left trying to walk through something. Words and a broken-layer of glass level of feelings.

It's not flattery. "I don't think Castiel tried and apparently failed to kill him so it's really not the same thing."

He not. Actually sure. If Michael knows what Lucifer tried to do to Gabe. He assumes, if only because Michael was hyper-aware of most things and he was still roosting up in Heaven, vesselless, all high and mightily divine. Like an asshole.

Michael manages to look high and mighty even from a lower seat. He's doing it right now, cool and vaguely annoyed, like Lucifer's an underling wasting his time with a minor complaint.

He knows at least in part what happened between Lucifer and Gabriel. Given Raphael's access to the prophet, there's very little that happened on Earth related to the Apocalypse that didn't eventually make its way to his ears. Funny enough, it's one of few incidents that didn't further lower his opinion of Lucifer. It might be another story if it had featured an angel in the service of Heaven, but for all that Gabriel is dearer to him than any lower angel, he abandoned them. He interfered in a matter that he'd long ago recused himself from. What else did he expect would happen?

"Trying to kill someone does not mean you want them dead."

Whether or not Lucifer likes that truth or wants to recognize it, he must at least understand it now that he's had a turn in Michael's shoes. Gabriel might see it too, though whether or not he's willing to forgive is again between him and Lucifer.

Not that he was paying Michael a lot of attention as it was but he does jerk his gaze away completely at that comment, because no, he doesn't want to recognize it.

It unfortunately makes him think of another Michael and Lucifer openly winces before clenching his teeth. Hard to forget the manic gleam when he looked at Lucifer.

"I wonder what you'd become if you had killed me in that cemetery," he says dully, eyes fixated on a wall, unblinking. "Other You sure went off the deep end. Or maybe he started that way, who's to say."

It's an interesting look on his brother, that unwillingness to look him in the eye. It's not a familiar attitude. Lucifer at his most insolent had still, always, been able to stand and face him. He'd even stood up to their Father, a thought that still fills Michael with anxiety. Lucifer is many unpleasant things, but never a coward.

The nervous shift in his demeanour is enough that he takes the comment as simple curiosity instead of fighting words. Michael gives a noncommittal hum. He really wouldn't know.

"I never met him; I only know him through Castiel's memories." Which, needless to say, are undoubtedly coloured by Castiel's less than glowing opinion of Michael to start with. "What was he like?"

Lucifer's view of the other him is probably just as biased as Castiel's, but perhaps if he sees his double from enough alternate angles, he'll have a clearer picture of who he was. He suspects this is not a subject Lucifer particularly wants to delve into, but hey, he brought it up.

Lucifer had previously only experienced true pain twice before the twisted version of his brother: Amara, like it would matter; and Crowley, just because. There's something about having another torture spell come back at Lucifer from a Michael that didn't sit well from him, and the fact that Michael was willing to leave him caged up on that world had Lucifer not escaped, well...

He didn't feel like they were on even ground. He should've been able to best that abomination.

He didn't.

And he ran.

"Unwell."

It isn't meant to be a slight.

Lucifer almost says 'like me' but is wise enough to bite his tongue... to an extent. He'll make the same point, just with more words, instead of less.

"Killed his Lucifer and ran that planet to the ground. Heaven reigns supreme over All Things."

Not just Hell, but humans and monsters as well.

Is it because he killed his Lucifer? Because God had not revealed presence for his 'victory'?

Lucifer isn't sure. They were exactly on chatty terms.

Michael doesn't take it as a slight. He'd gone to Hell, then he'd been forced to face a truth about their Father he didn't like, but to have gone through with the plan as intended only to be met with a resounding silence? No reward, not even an acknowledgement? He can't imagine what he'd be like, but he's certain he wouldn't be well.

"Angry, then."

He knows which way his attitude bends when things aren't going his way. If the other version of him was at all like him, he'd have been raging.

Michael cocks his head to the side, curious. From his point of view, Heaven has always been the seat of power in their universe. Yet Lucifer says it as if it's a bad thing—as if Lucifer hadn't wanted to be the one calling the shots in their Father's stead.

Maybe it's only because the other Michael hadn't wanted to share.

"Isn't reigning supreme over all of creation exactly what you want?"

Substitute 'Heaven' for whatever group is willing to show his brother loyalty these days, of course.

Very angry. Except--

"Oh, I think he was beyond angry by that point."

It had shaped into something else. The glint in his eyes was a bit like a child plucking off insect wings.

It was a bit too much like Lucifer, and even then it wasn't. Lucifer wasn't looking into a mirror and he wasn't looking directly at familiar family. He could feel the wrongness roil in his gut.

"I wanted rule but I wanted the planet in tact. That world was a husk, tarnished, hollowed out. Barely even sunlight. What's the point of having rule if the one gem, the one piece of worth, is destroyed?"

He scoffs.

"It doesn't matter. I wanted the rule, the power, the acknowledgement. You though..." There's a pause, and he looks annoyed about not having an immediate answer come to him. "I don't know," he spits, "wanted to be right, wanted to be the good little soldier, and look where that got any version of you."

An alternate of himself that's more like Lucifer is well outside the realm of what Michael can conceive. No wonder Chuck scrapped that draft.

He's tempted to ask what use or interest another version of himself who'd already gone through with the Apocalypse song and dance would have for another universe's Lucifer, but then Lucifer starts criticizing his choices. Michael bristles beneath the human illusion.

"It got me further than you. What did you earn by rebelling? The company of demons and the very creatures you declared so vile you couldn't tolerate their mere existence. I still have my grace."

He might've had a place in Heaven to return to, too, if there had been anyone left to lead, but the extinction of their species is on Castiel's head. Blame where blame is due.

"It was never about what I wanted. That's what you've never understood, isn't it? Acting in the best interests of someone other than yourself."

It was bound to happen that he got under Michael's skin. He wasn't even completely trying like he had been when he got here.

It was bound to happen that Lucifer would rise to it with a heat of his own.

"I didn't lose my grace from my demons I lost it from," that he doesn't spit you is impressive, but he may has well have, "him!"

And for what? For a spell? Because ohhh why would the ruler of the planet, wanting to explore other worlds, other possibilities, deign to use his own grace.

"So you act in Dad's. And he tried to kill you, isn't that right? Sure seems like your eternal loyalty was really paid off!"

It's the first mention Lucifer's dared to make of their disastrous time in the Feywilds, so it makes sense it would come out in the form of anger. Like most things from Lucifer.

Water off a duck's back. His mirror self's acts are not his own and Michael will accept no guilt for them.

(It's reason to sucker-punch the other him if he ever shows his face here, though.)

Lucifer's reminder of their last conversation hits its mark. To have been so easily stripped of a part of himself is embarrassing, and the memory of being unmade still hurts. It will always hurt. How does one recover from having the very foundation of their existence swept aside?

Michael stands, roiling grace and stiff feathers beneath a stony expression, and stalks his way up to the altar. His narrowed eyes never leave Lucifer.

"What would you know about loyalty? Last I saw you—before this place—you betrayed me for a chance to serve Him again. You rebelled to prove a point to Him and you'll die in His name. For all your insults, no one is more desperate for His attention, His approval, than you."

That's not fair.

"That wasn't me," he growls.

But with the right persuasion, he knows it could be. All it takes is one bit of radiance, and how depressing is that? That for the right-played cards they'd all fawn to their Father.

Michael's right; Lucifer's given his brother so much shit to ignore the fact that Lucifer has always been the worst of them. The favorite, so desperate to still be considered. So desperate to be on top.

It likely ended as bad for Lucifer as it did Michael.

But he won't let Michael know that. Will go to his grave, again, before letting Michael know. No matter how predictable Lucifer and his actions are--he isn't going to be the one to admit to them.

He landed his strike. That's what he wanted, isn't it?

"I'm supposed to just believe your word? What has that ever gotten me? Some freakshow campaign of yours? The continual propaganda that you've generated making you better than me?"

Michael scoffs. Lucifer's trying to get off on a temporal technicality, but he doesn't get to pick and choose his sins around him.

"Who was it, then? Who would you scapegoat for your own actions?"

He might not be much for admitting to his failings, but Lucifer isn't one to give others credit for his work, either. Michael can picture him arguing he's not to blame for his future. He can't envision Lucifer trying to pawn the blame off on someone else.

The suggestion that he's lying ought to offend. Michael sees it for what it most likely is: a childish denial of an unpleasant truth, not a genuine belief that he's making it all up. He frowns in disapproval.

"Did you expect me to sing your praise in your absence?" To tell them that Lucifer went to get milk? Come on, now. "Between you and I, my word has always been good."

Michael extends a hand. The offer is obvious. If he won't take him at his word, it's all there in his memories—and if Lucifer can't trust those, then there's no trust at all between them.

He always gets to pick and choose his sins, Mikey. It's how he works. How he's always worked.

"I don't know, it hasn't happened to me yet!"

He's said as much before but of course he's not going to take the blame for his future and of course Michael's right that he wouldn't pin it on anything else. Without having all the information at hand, Lucifer's trapped himself.

He twitches, wishing he could have enough strength to just go at Michael here. It's the Horizon, it doesn't matter, it'd be cathartic. But Lucifer has zero standing against Michael. If he got any hit on his brother it'd be out of pity.

Talking so rarely gets them anywhere; Lucifer always comes out on the losing side of it.

"You sure sang scorn in my absence," he bites out. "I didn't do every black mark to my name but oh, I turned my back on you so I should be forever faulted for every other villainous act, right?"

He cuts himself off by some miracle, pressing a hand to his face, fingers against closed eyes.

Lucifer's argument has been the same since he was locked away. The same, constant litany. Dad made him the villain. Everything after what he did was made up lies. Make their Father and his siblings into something great and here Lucifer was, the black spot of the family, the monster locked up for the safety of humanity.

You could've given me the dignity that I was rightfully owed, he doesn't say, because for all the cyclical nature of their arguments, that is the one piece of truth, and the one piece that Lucifer is sure Michael will cast aside as nothing of value. And that... Lucifer can't handle.

He drops his hand and looks at Michael's.

He can't really ever get a hold of that full scope of information, can he? Just whatever Michael has dangling before him, whatever point of time their threads lined up again. That question Lucifer's been too cowardly to ask now held out to him like a wicked offer.

Who's the tempting devil now, Michael?

In a world where Lucifer was stronger than in this moment he'd just slap Michael's hand away and leave.

But he knows the burn of the offer would wear a hole through him and the temptation would be too great, and how much it would kill him to later go back to Michael and risk, what? Being denied?

He'll regret this no matter what choice he makes.

He reaches up and takes Michael's hand.

He has to choose his sins before he commits them, not after. A tough thing to do when he's disconnected from the version of himself that went through with it, but Lucifer is Lucifer is Lucifer in Michael's eyes.

Michael believes he did give him all the dignity owed an archangel, even a fallen one. At least as far as circumstances allowed. He always painted the Apocalypse as a proper fight, never an execution, didn't he? Even if the winner was a foregone conclusion. He never spared a moment's thought to sabotaging Lucifer's access to his true vessel either—and there were certainly those in the Host's upper echelons who voiced the thought.

But that's not what Lucifer says, so it's not a position Michael bothers to defend.

"Not every rumour about you was spread by me." Though the narrative did work in his favour, so he never did come down on a garrison for whispering about alleged ill deeds of Lucifer that had never taken place. He's not going to justify his running of the Host to Lucifer. "And I don't fault you for every villainous act to your name. I hold you accountable for your betrayals. Both of them."

Michael clasps his hand.

A view from inside the bunker. Does Lucifer recognize it? It doesn't matter. He has Michael's general feelings on the place for context: home of the Winchesters, and therefore no place of shelter for him.

(There is a deeper resentment there too, something from past experience that deems it a prison, but the memory doesn't play out.)

Michael is gathered around a table with Dean, Sam, and Lucifer's son. Before him lies a thick tome bound in black, the alpha and omega embossed upon its cover, beginning and end— their Father's Death Book. Michael can't open it.

Time skips ahead.

Another table, another gathering.This time, Lucifer joins the assembled. Michael sees hims as the attending humans can't: filled with his old radiance, a far cry from the thin moth-eaten quilt of Lucifer's grace as it is in Abraxas. Suspicion taints Michael's memory. They exchange petty words, the same old argument of what is right versus what is owed from a Father to his sons.

Death makes an appearance in a guise Lucifer wouldn't recognize, but through Michael's eyes there's no mistaking what she is. She opens the Death Book, begins to read—and turns to dust as Lucifer snaps his fingers. The book flies into his hands.

"Yeah, this is what pop wanted to get his hands on. Oh, did I say that out loud? Yeah pop was the one that let me out of the Empty. I'm sort of the new favourite now."

There's no words after that. A rage so hot it can only be Michael's colours the memory. He lunges for Lucifer, misses; sends a flash of grace after him that strikes the wall. Lucifer's counterattack hits its mark, sending him flying backwards.

What comes next is the early fulfillment of a future promise. There is Lucifer's own face turning towards him, and Michael plunges an archangel blade into his stomach. Lucifer's eyes flicker. His grace combusts, burning out through his eyes and mouth like solar flares.

Michael lets go. His expression is stone.

"So tell me again. Was that not you?"

Sure feels like every rumor at least started with Michael as its source. The end result may not have been him, but the root? Yeah.

Or maybe Lucifer just has a forever bitter taste at the back of every vessel's throat that won't go away.

He claws into Michael's grip during the memories, head twisted inhumanely to the side as they all but feel like a passive assault.

"I don't know," he answers Michael, despite it seeming like him. "Didn't think you had it in you, Mikey," he says after managing to release Michael's hand, deceptively neutral even though there's no deceiving Michael. It's more for Lucifer's own benefit. A careful control over his own... chaos. "Still right, y'know! The old man had no love to give."

Lucifer has no idea what to do with the memories. He spins them around in his mind like a Rubik's Cube, shifting rows like they'll unlock some hidden meaning, but with everything from Michael's eyes, he's more confused than he was at the start.

'Yeah pop was the one that let me out of the Empty.'

And then, unexpectedly, Lucifer's eyes jump up and his voice rising, "Wait, I died twice?!"

'I don't know', he says, as if Lucifer can't recognize himself in a mirror. As if Michael can't recognize his own brother when he's standing across from him. It almost earns Lucifer an irritated roll of his eyes. Another feeble attempt to deny the obvious because it's unpleasant.

The reality of what kind of person their Father is is just as hard for Michael to look in the eye, but he's done jumping to their Father's defense. Whether or not He ever loved them, he can't say. It's a moot point, anyway. They've been tools to serve a purpose from the moment of their creation.

"Maybe not, but I maintain it was never about love."

Love wasn't enough to keep Lucifer from cracking their family apart, wasn't enough to keep Raphael from picking sides, wasn't enough to keep Gabriel in Heaven. Emotion has never been worth much of anything between angels.

One guess whom they inherited that trait from.

When Lucifer skips over it all to his own death count, Michael does let out a long-suffering sigh. Younger siblings, always zooming in to focus on the least important part of the bigger picture.

"Don't ask me about the first time. I wasn't there."

He couldn't actually tell him with any certainty it's only been twice, either. As Lucifer well knows, they don't get regular news updates down in the Cage.

He doesn't, is the thing. And maybe that's something Michael could never understand--so concrete in his perception of Self.

Wouldn't that be nice. To understand and know yourself from the inside-out, for all of time.

That's what they like to call boring, Michael.

It was always about Love, that's what Michael never understood. For Lucifer it was always, always Love.

And that's why it went so bad, so extremely, irreparably wrong.

He should have reached out. He should have asked for help.

It doesn't matter now. It didn't matter enough, then. He isn't going to focus in on it--what did Michael expect?

He didn't reveal his weakness when he needed to above all all, he's sure as hell not going to do it now where he barely trusts his brother versus when he did, implicitly.

"Good. Cool. Glad you weren't, great talk." Deflection, deflection, deflection--always. He has to process. Has to have time to pick apart every piece, every angle, of the memory Michael showed him until it does damage to himself.

He gives Gabriel all the shit for being a runner, but he's never been any better. He's simply dressed it up differently. All smoke and mirrors, Lucifer.

"Cool," he repeats, and that's too much of a slip. Breathe. Center yourself. Michael's gotten the quota of your Unease, don't let him have anymore. "Well don't let Gabriel get to comfortably," he says, dismissive of everything else except for why Lucifer came here in the first place. Their brother. Their wayward brother that they have a venn diagram about where their Thoughts & Feelings intersect about.

Gabriel is more Complicated for Lucifer than Michael is, isn't that hysterical?

He came here about Gabe. He's going to finish about Gabe.

Set my sights on the setting sun

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feels ancient and hopefully encapsulates things because I didn't reread