watch the fires rise, burn through my skin [open]

[thedevilwhorose]

Who: Lucifer et al
When: December
Where: Thorne, Horizon, island later in the month prob
What: Catch-All
Warnings: Violence



When the fires, when the fires have surrounded you
With the hounds of hell comin' after you
I've got blood
I've got blood on my name ♫
[Will match style.]

Comments

[righteously]

I didn't do anything- is that- Michael?!

( down on the street, a passing neighbor stares up at him like he's insane. probably because he's a lone man on a roof having a vehement conversation with himself, still very much out loud. his neighbor quickly ushers their child inside, shooting him a wary look as they go. )

[familysucks]

None other.

[How many times is he going to have to introduce himself around here? He misses Heaven and the instant recognition the Host had for him.]

You're listening in on a means of communication only angels are capable of, and you're telling me you haven't done anything?

[righteously]

No, I haven't done anything, unless re-shingling the roof-

Wait...

Is this angel radio?!

( Oh hell no

Nope

No

Do not want

Turn it off

And lo, abruptly, ya boi nearly breaks his neck falling off the roof, forgetting he has wings, barely managing to catch the edge of the ladder he goes skidding down as he barrels through the house calling out for Free Cities' foremost expert — who has literally already heard the entire conversation. )

Cas!

[notrunninganymore]

Yeah, welcome to the cool kids' table, apparently.

You really expect us to believe you didn't do anything? You?

[No offense, but come on Dean, this is really hard to believe.]

[thedevilwhorose]

I thought maybe he was done with the angel envy but man, Dean, how much can you call yourself human anymore?

[righteously]

Both of you shut up, I'm trying to figure out how you turn this off. Get out of my head. How do you get rid of it? Jesus fucking Christ, what the Hell, dude. Absolutely not.

[unwings]

I will go to the isla-

[ he was starting to say, but then - Dean. this nonsense is news to cas as much as it is to his brothers, and he's having a moment of shock, until some chaotic thudding coming from the roof, and Dean's call for help. ]

He hasn't done anything, it's the Singularity. Can this conversation be revisited later?

[ cas comes running down stairs, little patience for michael's need to interrogate and more alarm for what the sweet fuck this world is doing to his friend/lover/intensely codependent human counterpart. he dashes through the house, hoping he finds Dean before his brothers break his brain. ]

Dean? Try to calm down, I'll teach you how to turn it off.

[familysucks]

I don't believe it from you any more than I believe it from him.

[But he will give that possibility some thought. It's just as likely that Abraxas has granted him this 'gift' as it is that it's a result of something Dean has gotten into for other reasons.]

Given this conversation is no longer private—I believe everything that needed to be said has been.

[Fine, maybe he'll go to the island. Just to keep an eye on Gabriel, though, who is apparently happy to be an idiot as long as you pay him a compliment.]

[notrunninganymore]

[Gabriel, on the hand, is more inclined to believe that Dean didn't do anything because Castiel's backed him up, though that's mostly because he thinks Castiel would just spill the beans immediately on something like this. Perhaps not a totally fair assumption, but then again, ultimately it doesn't matter.

What matters is that now he has an opportunity to start blasting offkey recorder music through angel radio.

He could've spared his brothers, but he doesn't. You're all welcome.]

[unwings]

Why would we need him to listen in on you when I do it naturally? The Singularity has been granting him angelic abilities since we arrived.

[ between michael's skepticism and the 'no longer private', as if they expect Cas doesn't tell dean everything they say regardless, he's rolling his eyes so hard the vibe alone could come across the frequency.

and— oh my dad, is that a recorder? ]

Gabriel. Unhelpful.

[righteously]

You think I want-

( OFF KEY RECORDER SOUNDS

DOOT DOO DO DO DOOT, DO DOOOOOOOT- )

I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna straight-up mur-

( It's roughly around this point Cas manages to coax him into shutting the doors on his brain. Goodnight, Angel Radio! )

[thedevilwhorose]

'The Singularity has been granting him angelic abilities since we arrived' [this is said with the utmost mocking and replicating Castiel's tone, which he's done before, only with Jimmy Novak's actual vocal chords] Yeah that's a whole other problem!

Go or not, I don't care, do what you want. [Michael.]

[unwings]

What do you expect us to do about it? Kindly ask the Singularity to stop?

[ yeah, it's freaky. it hasn't exactly been a great time for them either, and dean doesn't really seem thrilled about it. maybe lucifer and michael don't get how becoming an angel might not be a good thing in everyone's eyes. ]

[familysucks]

[In line with his suggestion, Michael has exited the conversation to pursue a more pressing goal: pinpointing Gabriel's current location so he can calmly explain* to him why he should never again play that music over angel radio.]

*he's going to issue threats of grievous bodily harm.

[notrunninganymore]

[Gabriel does, eventually turn off the "music", though he absolutely doesn't bother to hide how pleased he is with himself all the same.]

[thedevilwhorose]

[Lucifer, who is bad when it comes to Shutting Up despite Gabriel's soundtracks:]

Yes, please, asks the Singularity to stop. This is getting excessive, Castiel, even you must see that by now.

@cas, branching off the in-person stuff over here

[righteously]

I am calm!

( He snarls, calmly — clearly distracted by the argument he's already formulating in his head to fire back at Michael. )

[unwings]

Well, your 'calm' is very loud.

[ grabbing dean's arm, cas drags him to the closest chair and begins to search around for something to write on/with. ]

Do you remember what I once said about frequencies?

[righteously]

Cas, literally nobody remembers anything you say about frequencies!

( That is... so much more rude than he meant to be but Dean Winchester is Not Good at keeping his temper in check when Brain Shenanigans are happening, sorry angel husband. )

[unwings]

Then this should teach you to pay attention more often.

[ it's Fine. his lips press and eyes dart up to the heavens as if he still counted his angelic nature sparing him from rudeness. snatching some paper, he draws a wavey line and what looks like the buttons and knobs on Baby's radio panel. ]

Focus on me, and breathe. [ he reaches out, hands on framing Dean's face as he wills him to center himself. Despite Gabriel's obnoxious Titanic tribute. ] The knob you use to change stations in the Impala - it's the same concept.

[ The less then stellar diagram is held up between them. ] Envision it.

[righteously]

I'm gonna kill him.

( He kindly informs Cas, heated and frank, but a pair of hands framing his face do help center him. It's easier to focus when he's being touched, when he's literally forced to look at Castiel rather than retreat inward to be swallowed up by noise and a new Sense springing into being. )

I'm gonna kill him.

( But he splits what little of his focus he can into imagining the Impala, the radio, the dial, the station, this one's crappy, this is the Backstreet Boys of mental noise, time to turn the dial- )

I'm gonna straight up murder him. Both of them. All three of them. And the big, stupid god damn rock that put them in my head. Screw this. Screw them. You know what? Screw Titanic. That movie sucked anyway. Shut up about the door, it doesn't matter if Leo fit, that's not how buoyancy works, that-

( Pause. )


...oh hey, I think it worked.

[unwings]

Good. [ he sighs in relief, frame slumping and hands shifting down to dean's shoulders, something still protective in the way he isn't willing to let go of him yet. ]

I'm sure Balthazar would agree. About the boat movie. Perhaps about Gabriel too. [ spoken absently, the remaining chatter on angel radio not helping to ease his anxiety about the changes the singularity is putting dean through. ] You haven't... felt less hungry, or needed less sleep recently, have you?

[ he remains knelt down in front of dean in his chair, framing him in, with unease wrinkling his forehead and softening his eyes. why does the singularity want this? it has four angels already, does it really need five? ]

[righteously]

( Does he feel a little guilty about bashing Titanic? Yes, almost immediately. It was an okay movie. Winslet was a killer. Billy Zane, come on. Not even a cinematic classic is safe from Dean's temper when he's in a mood.

He's calming down. Slightly. Tic by tic. The aggression's still visible in the lines and features of his face, in the tension in his shoulders, but he's slightly more rational when he answers: )

I'm literally hungry right now, why- why?

( And then, a beat later, Grumpy Brain processes the implication. )

You're worried I'm going Full Angel, aren't you? I'm not. That's not- that can't happen.

( ... )

That can't happen, right? That's not a thing.

( RIGHT? )

[unwings]

[ cas isn't great about beating around the bush of his concerns, or skipping out on honesty (when it isn't misdirecting from a horrible bad no good mistake he's recently made), so the answer comes out simple and frank. ]

I've gone full human, without the aid of a transdimensional pillar of creation.

[ so, yeah, seems like that could definitely happen. his goal wasn't to freak dean out, but here we are. ]

Which means we can turn you back into a human.

[ probably not the kind of reassurance dean was looking for. ]

There's worse things you could be turning into?

[righteously]

( This is not the answer he wanted to hear. Why did he come to the Font of Truth looking for comforting lies, this was a mistake, oh no. )

Back into a human? Back- don't say back. Don't say back, why are you saying back?

( NOT HELPING NOT REASSURING VERY SCRAMBLE )

No. Listen- this is not- this isn't happening. This is not happening. It's, like, a fluke, or something. It's like- like when people get metal cavity fillings and then they start picking up on AM talk radio.