May 2015:

"Really, Little Brother?" Michael sighed and closed his book in exasperation. He looked up at Lucifer standing on a rickety picnic table pumping his wings up and down. "You haven't made it off the ground that way even one time. Give up." He eyed Lucifer testily.

Lucifer pulled a face. "I like the feeling!" He pulled at an out-of-place feather—inky blue-black with startlingly red bars at the tip—and rolled his shoulders. Another flap of his wings.

Michael rolled his eyes and some of Adam slipped through his expression (much less patient and much more petulant). "Your wings are too huge to even pretend you can get into the air from the ground." He spread his arms wide. "Or have you not seen yourself in the past year? You barely fit through the door with them folded!" He rubbed a hand over his mouth, raising his eyebrows.

Lucifer snorted. "Yeah, whatever." He jumped off the table and made his way to the chair Michael had perched in. He leaned close to his older brother to hiss in his ear, "I just like to feel powerful, sometimes, Michael." He leaned back on his heels, and glared down his nose. "You of all people should know how restricted I feel, now." He laughed, bitter and low. "I'd almost prefer being the Pit again."

Michael opened his mouth to speak, but Lucifer held his hand out to shush him. He shook his head at Michael, smiled, and walked away, with his wings stretched out wide as they would go to catch the air and brush on whatever they would, and tamped down in his own mind and body, Adam thought Michael's brother looked so very small now, pinned in the center of nearly fifty feet of feathers.

Michael heard Adam's musing, in the space they shared, and hummed in agreement. Lucifer always acted cheerful, always pestered Michael (or Adam, depending on who was in control), always leered and cackled and teased the Winchesters.

But maybe, just maybe, Lucifer wasn't as okay as he acted.

He was almost as good at hiding his emotions as Gabriel. Almost. (No one could beat that closed-up Trickster in regards to blanketing true feelings.)

Michael and Adam sighed together, and they stood, to walk after their stubborn younger brother, to make peace with him for another day and to pull him back from being foolish and reaching out too close to the sun in his attempts to be strong and feel power again.

They didn't want him to become Icarus all over again, after all.