A/N - This takes place at the end of season eleven with complete disregard of season twelve.
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There was the sound of a low drone, something vague and mundane in the vibrations under him that were a far cry from the pit as he became aware. He had eyes now, and hands that he watched in front of him as he turned them over, bending and flexing. A smell of upholstery, cheap food and something else wafted through the vents and he understood that it was a car. The landscape whipped by in a streak with sight that refused to see much past human and he wondered when hell got a highway.
"Well at least I'm not in this nightmare by myself anymore," came a voice that had a current of familiar. He looked over, raising his head off the door and saw Lucifer leaning up on the other side of the backseat glaring. "This is your fault Michael. You couldn't just not break so here we are, this glorious road trip to nowhere."
"Boys!" came the scold and Michael turned his head to the front, seeing eyes that held galaxies staring back at him in the mirror.
Father.
He found he couldn't bring himself to care and slumped back. It had ceased to matter where he was for a long time now. This was as good as place as any as he listened to the air around the frame rush by, the fields blurring past in a sea of green and browns.
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"Auntie gave him some time to come 'fix us'," Lucifer was rambling, steering him through the crowd. His hands held the tray of food and he was not surprised Father enjoyed eating. Little could surprise him now, not even his vessel still looking like it had back in the seventies. "So snap it together already because this human shtick is wearing thin fast."
He put the tray down in front of Father who nodded at him, face unreadable but he didn't try particularly hard to see what lived there anymore. Lucifer's mouth was still running as he put fries in front of his brother, hoping that maybe he would fill it with those instead. People were around them not knowing who they ate with; children screaming and laughing, couples together on the same cheap plastic bench. He watched them as he ate methodically wondering what it was like to not know.
"Son," Father tried, snapping his fingers though his brother paid no heed. "How are your -"
"Really Father, I don't understand the point of this, surrounded by all these vermin," Lucifer was in full force now, his grievances reaching a higher pitch as some of the humans glanced over. "Why you even bothered with them to begin with -"
"Silence!" Michael roared despite the binds on him, despite being just of this flesh currently and Lucifer's mouth snapped shut. "We are here because they are better than you."
"You can't mean that. You remember what we were," his brother whispered, grabbing his hand as memories of failures past threatened to free themselves a little more. "What it was like with just you and me -"
"Sometimes I wonder if you were a mistake."
He moved just fast enough to keep Father from touching him as he collected the tray then went to wait by the car. If Father felt the need to fetch him before then he would. In the end they came to him, Michael silently getting in on his side while Lucifer had himself as close to his own door as possible. Father started the car and Lucifer pulled in further against the red seat of this overly red space as if wishing to just sink into it entirely.
Michael wondered why his brother's eyes were a matching red.
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"I don't wish to talk."
If he was still innocent he would have thought Father flinched. Lucifer slept on without rousing in the semi-darkness of this room as he awaited his own turn. Whether this was a break for them or for Him Michael did not know.
He wished, as he sat on this too hard edge of the bed, that Father would just leave. Let them lie here unaware amid the continuous sounds of life and arguments that breached these thin green walls. Until of course the sun vindictively glared through flimsy drapes to make them restart this walk. Over and over again until Father grew bored of this game and left with His toys still broken.
"Alright Michael," Father told him. The archangel moved his feet along the carpet, curling his toes into the fibers because he knew what was coming. "I only wanted -"
"Don't," Michael said finally looking at Him; even fear wasn't left anymore. "There is nothing you can ever do to correct this. It would be kinder to wipe the centuries from him than this."
"And you? What would your kindness from me be?" Father asked and he did not miss the coil of fury lying beneath those words.
"Unmaking me," he said simply, laying himself down upon rough sheets which smelled of bleach. Fingers brushed his forehead and he wondered if his wish was finally granted as the world slipped away.
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Lucifer was beginning to return to his usual self after a day of being subdued, shuffling around and skulking at the tiniest little thing. Michael wondered what they had talked about when he had waited by the car but he doubted it was the truth.
"Son, stop squirming," Father commanded from the front and Michael turned his attention back to the landscape that was flatter now, less hills.
"Can't we just pull over somewhere for a few minutes? I just want to get out. You can understand why I don't like closed spaces," Lucifer whined and Michael somehow resisted the urge to reach over and just rip out his brother's throat for that.
The guilt worked as Father pulled into the next gas station. To his surprise Morning Star was out of the car before it had even fully stopped. Not as though there was much to see but he might have been telling the truth for once as he watched his brother walk around the place.
"He was," Father answered before opening his own door.
They appeared to be getting fuel and he debated if he wanted to go outside his comfortable seat. The world smelled of gas and exhaust out there and it was slightly better than the stifling staleness that built up in here. It always seemed to remain, even through the times when Lucifer rolled down the window to stick his hand out so it could ride the air currents.
"Do you remember," Father began as he joined Him by the pump and Michael tried for a look that said he wasn't interested, "when you and I -"
"I remember loving you and only you," he said and Father stilled. "I remember the joy of us alone together in the void that lingered with the scent of creation ready to be born."
"Mikha'el," Father said, rubbing a thumb across the archangel's cheek and he didn't have the energy to look away. "I remember your wonder at everything."
"I also remember the day you broke me, Father," he replied, his voice even and flat and he couldn't tell what Father felt, if anything. If He really cared or if this was perhaps an exercise in guilt reduction. Try to mend the damage, tear apart what couldn't be salvaged. Like what he had watched humans do with an old house last night on TV.
Without a word he went to join his brother at the far end of the parking lot away from people. Together they studied the small insects running across the pavement.
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"Michael?" Lucifer was draped across his bed instead of his own, watching him with his head laying on his arms. He wondered if petulant toddlers in full tantrum had ever turned to his brother for inspiration.
Father had left them to their own devices for a while. He was unsure if it was a plan or if He was simply back with Amara working something else out. A little piece he didn't know he had left chipped out of him at the thought of her. They had locked her away, Father not even caring what it would do to her for all that time. He had been a fool to think he was any more important.
"Michael?" Lucifer tried again. He glanced over, those blue eyes staring at him, blond head tilted back against a cotton sea of black.
He shifted his focus back towards the window and the vast nothingness it revealed. "Yes, little brother. Speak. What is it?"
"Couldn't you at least try?" Michael started looking over at his brother who had pushed himself up a bit. "I mean, appease his feelings so he just leaves after a while?"
"We can't trick him Lucifer, you know that. You've tried before," Michael said getting an eye roll. He sat down on the bed, searching for the right choice of words for his brother to understand. "Morning Star I've already asked him to unmake me there is little else -"
"Why?" Lucifer grabbed him, shaking his shoulders and Michael wondered what his brother saw when he looked at him. "Why would you ask something like that?"
"I would be happy."
"You would be nothing!"
"It seems far more agreeable," Michael said, surprised by his brother's vehemence on this issue. There were few things he thought his brother still cared for and he had doubted he even made the bottom of that list. He still did if he was honest. That this perhaps wasn't a shock in the slightest and that his brother would be telling Father at breakfast that maybe it was a good idea after all.
"Just couldn't you try?" Lucifer pleaded putting his face into his shoulder, his cold grace palpable. "Just a little, to not hate me quite so much?"
"There are some things even you do not know Morning Star," he told him gently as he pulled him closer, feeling Lucifer's slack form as the ice of all his sins. "Some things can simply not be fixed."
He was still holding his brother in his arms, leaned back against the headboard of the dusty room when Father returned. Gusts where howling now outside, fierce across this expanse of desert screaming of a coming storm. Michael wished he could join those grains of sand just past the door. Scattering in the wind on the way to nowhere.
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He was worried which was a surprising feeling in and of itself. He'd rather thought hell had burned away what he had had left when he entered the pit but this, this was worry and he was filling with it.
Lucifer had become mindful, quiet, obedient. The last one was worth more than an entire universe of anxiety since his brother had been anything but for so long. Yet here he was doing what he was asked, not talking ill of the humans. Blue eyes slipping him glances when it was thought he wasn't looking as if to make sure he was still there for a few more seconds.
"You scare him," Father said as they watched Lucifer outside in the sun glancing back at them still inside at their booth every minute or so. It wasn't a scolding, just a statement and Michael let his shoulders fall loose.
"That wasn't my intention, only to tell him the truth."
Father shifted and it was strange to see Him with such human mannerisms from all His time on earth. Part of him should be livid that this was the false prophet, content to watch His first fall from the heavens condemned to the fires of hell but he was cold. Those same fires had done their work. At least his brother still had something jagged enough left to feel rage.
"Michael I -"
"If you love me as you say you do, you can," he said, his voice low as it slipped under the clatter of breakfast around them. "If you ever meant an ounce of the things you told me, of how we once were you would grant me peace. Not this."
He slide across the vinyl seat, wanting to feel the sun again if he was trapped here when his wrist was grabbed, a light hold by two fingers he knew he could never break.
OL MONONS
"It's too late," Michael said no louder than the footfall of the nearby waitress.
Shaking his wrist he was let free and he went and stood beside his brother by the car, Lucifer still uncertain how close to stand.
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Lucifer was on his side of the backseat, head leaning on his shoulder as they both watched the landscape slowly become more mountainous, promising something of winter. This was common now, the way Lucifer was against him and Michael had failed to find a way to unstick himself from both of them. Like they had finally come to accept the notion that there might be a ticking clock somewhere that was firmly against them.
This moment was like all the others since yesterday's breakfast. Some strange fascination that he wasn't allowed to have a breath, to even stand by himself lest he find a sword to fall on. So little was left that hadn't starved away that he just allowed it. It was better than starting yet another foolish bickering match and an opportunity for the terrible truth to slip out that they refused to believe.
It was in the long stretches of silence that threatened his endurance that he wished he could sleep without Father's aid.
"Father where are we going?" his brother finally asked after hours had dropped out from under them and it seemed like there was little around.
"Thought we'd go see that national park. The one with the geyser. You'd like that Lucifer."
"Are humans attacked by bears there?" his brother asked, letting out a breath as Michael elbowed him in the ribs. "What I can't root for the bears now? Even the humans do sometimes."
"He does have a point about that," Father said and Michael sighed, trying not to feel irritated by their antics.
The glass was cool against his forehead as Lucifer hummed happily, most likely fantasizing about all the ways a human could get bear eaten. The two of them talked he knew and more than likely some of it involved him. He tried not to count off the seconds as they flowed by at glacial speed, hoping Father would just turn around and snap. It was a surprise when Lucifer took his wrist to rub the soft thin skin there on its underside, still humming.
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"So that's it?" Lucifer was going for a complaint but Michael knew better as they watched it go, the spray of water high. These human eyes they had to use made everything seem bigger, much grander than their sight at times. He thought this was one of those as the mist created rainbows in the sunlight.
"Perhaps you can convince Father to go to the park with the active volcano, Lucifer."
"That one's on an island, Michael," Father scolded as though they couldn't just drive across the ocean if they so chose. "I'll be back in a bit, you two behave."
"Always, best for you," Lucifer crooned and he swore his brother fluttered his eye lashes at His retreating figure.
His eyes went back to the human ideal of natural wonder before them. Even as he now was it was beautiful; Father's hands rarely made anything but. Lucifer wrapped an arm around his waist, pressing himself against his back and Michael stiffened instantly. He disliked games and he knew that's all this was in the end.
"Little brother," Michael said carefully not bothering to move. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to enjoy the view."
"Do you know who else would have enjoyed this view?" Michael asked as Lucifer sighed noncommittally, not sensing the danger. "Gabriel."
"Don't," and that voice was strained in a second, hand tight on his hip.
"Tell me little brother did he scream when you put his own blade through his stomach?"
Suddenly he was being shoved violently away, stumbling as these cursed creature's had poor equilibrium at times. He caught himself as people nearby were turning their heads towards them now. Lucifer's face slipped not into anger but something else he didn't care to name.
"You don't know, you weren't there -"
"I saw your handiwork later Lucifer. I saw his remains burned into the floor, his vessel's eyes still stunned and staring that you did that to him. Are you even sorry? Can you even feel a pittance of remorse for what you've done, what you put us through?"
"You abandoned me." Morning Star started walking forwards, seeming to feel like he had gotten his bearing. This old familiar fight as Michael tore himself to pieces in heaven begging him to come home. "You knew the price, what happened but you still left me. And Father let it, it's his -"
"It's no one's fault but your own!" His voice made everyone start looking then and he managed to calm himself. Breathe in to fill these borrowed lungs he currently relied on. Taking his brother's chin in his hand, there's a flash of sorrow when Lucifer flinched. "You are cruel and you are selfish but it is how I raised you I suppose. Some things beautiful, cannot be fixed."
He left his brother standing there, people watching as he made his way into the surrounding lands towards the trees knowing Father would come get him if he wanted to. Otherwise he would just be here forever as the earth sank more until the slumbering giant beneath their feet awoke and helped to reshape the planet yet again. There was a deep pain as he walked on that not even that could scratch him.
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The falls he had found were isolated, some sort of seasonal natural run off. He enjoyed the chill on his feet as he dipped them into the small pond at its end wishing it were larger so he could slip all the way in. Stars were beginning to show as this portion of the earth turned away from the sun, a bright scattering of pearls across the emptiness. Leaning back on his hands he marveled at it all. One last look before it stopped for him.
"I'm ready," he said, hearing the crunch of stone and flakes of bark beneath his Father's boots. An arm wrapped around him, hand on his chest as though to keep him from running. Some sort of bitter bile rose in him as if he had ever had an escape to begin with. A choice in anything.
"Do you remember when we made him?" Father's voice was by his ear, he could feel it's warmth. Even pick up the scent of lunch mixed in with the divinity and he shuddered.
"Please, just give me what I ask for."
"You and I joined as one as we shaped him out of our love. How he was the most beautiful for it." Father was relentless and Michael wanted to scream. To turn around and beat him even though it would instantly break these flimsy bones he had been supplied with.
"Take what you want if it makes you happy," he said instead leaning back more. "I have little choice since you hold my keys."
There was a sound like a sigh as Father pulled him closer. Water splashed as his feet pulled free of it, heels sliding slick against the mud of the impromptu shore. "You were always so stubborn."
"You made me, you should know."
"There are times I wish I could go back to when it was just you and I, alone and wrapped together in joy. At your wonder of all things."
"You could have created dust and I would have been enthusiastic," he replied finally turning to see his Father, the small smile there carving fresh regret. "You could, you know. I wouldn't know any better."
"I would."
The question of if He cared enough to do it anyways fell away before it was fully born. He pressed his toes into the soft earth, letting them sink as he tried for another. "Why? Why would you make me hold everything alone in the end, even his punishment?"
There wasn't an answer as dusk sped up her descent, the areas around them slipping away in the looming shadows that spoke of a cold night. Perhaps it had been wise of Father to hold him down, to make him stay since he would have left by now. He didn't need to hear any of this and what he did need was missing.
Fingers scraped along the edges of a nearby stone, feeling it's alternating smooth and jagged edges and he longed to have been some piece of all this. This dry hard land shaped by molten fury. Like a stone that was polished by eons of water not knowing or caring where it fell or how long it stayed large enough to be seen.
"I begged you to give me the lock," he whispered, feet mindlessly moving in the chilly muck. "I pleaded and wept and you refused. We both loved him the most. How could you be so cruel to give something like that to him? For us to watch him wither and twist into something foreign and strange?"
"I thought he was strong enough." A pause, unneeded breath against his face. "Later, I couldn't lose your devotion too."
"You did in the end anyways."
"Did I?" That mouth filled with a thousand sharp edges of creation took his own and he tried to push back, to not allow it. To not want again. Whispers of the first Light lapped up against his bound form confined in this flesh and he was weeping when his Father pulled back.
"Please don't do this to me," he said, disliking his voice. "Just let me go."
"So be it."
He felt his form expand inside him as his Father held his wrists and he tossed his head back for one more look at the heavens, the home he would never return to as he felt his wings unfold and burst out. Earth moved at the force of him returning, stretching up past the trees that had a moment before dwarfed him. Warm heat that had once called him home rushed through, a hurricane destroying every dark place that still dared to cling to him.
Feet scrambling and slipping on the craggy rocks he sat on as that purity melted and pushed inside. The expanse of everything they had been laid out bare and raw, rage and pain still saturated with love trembling as it awaited verdict and he cried out with his head still thrown back.
Oh Father.
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Lucifer was huddled up in the passenger seat of the car, attempting to sleep unaided as it was well past midnight and there was nothing but the silent darkness of nature all around them. Michael alighted softly by the driver's door before opening it and sliding in, his brother eyeing him warily.
"Michael?" Morning Star asked him as he looked for the keys where Father had told him to. Popping open the visor they landed with a dull clatter in his lap. "Why are you naked?"
Michael looked down at himself and realized that yes, he had forgotten the simple thing of clothing. With a wave of his hand he was redressed and was attempting to find the correct key for the ignition when Lucifer took his arm, pulling it violently.
"You're back? How? Because you're a suicidal idiot and He just thought it best to let you run around?" Lucifer's lip curled into a sneer. Like they had set some trap on him, made him think he was cared for. His brother's fingers attempted to sink in, yearning to rip him apart.
"Quiet. Not everything is about you."
The pull was incessant and while he could just drag his brother with his arm it would behoove him to nip this in a bud. In a moment he had Lucifer pinned against the seat, his brother's eyes filled with anger over the unfairness before he kissed him forcefully, hoping to calm him without blood.
"There are just some things even you don't know," he said again, stroking Lucifer's face with the taste of frost sharp in his mouth. Hands were now clutching his sides, the only thing he had ever created shaking beneath him. "I'll tell you but you must behave. Alright?"
A nod and he kissed that mouth more delicately, thoughts of mine flowing through his hands as he tried to burn out an eon of bitterness. Ice melting under his heat, that famished needy love he knew was still holding on inside.
Satisfied with the small noise his brother made below him he pulled back and started the car. Lucifer rearranged himself and watched as he pulled the seat belt over to click it in. Not that he needed it but it was better to not invite problems.
"Are we still going on with this asinine road trip?" his brother complained while at least following his lead on the whole seat belt fastening front.
"Yes," Michael said about to put the car in drive then stopped. "Where would you like to go beautiful? Would you like to see Kilauea?"
"Michael, that's in Hawaii. Are you suggesting we drive there?"
He shifted the car into gear. "What's a little thing like water to us?"
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End A/N
OL MONONS - MY HEART
THEY ARE AT YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, THE SLEEPING GIANT THAT MICHAEL REFERS TO IS THE SUPER VOLCANO.
MICHAEL REFERS TO KILAUEA WHICH IS AN ACTIVE VOLCANO ON THE BIG ISLAND OF HAWAII. IT HAS BEEN IN CONSTANT ERUPTION FOR DECADES AND NOT ONLY HAS DESTROYED SEVERAL ROADS BUT POSES A THREAT TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE ISLAND.
Thank you for reading!