No One's POV
Michael and Lucifer returned from the Great Hall, finally able to get away from the chaos that Metatron had left in the wake of the disaster that had been during the assembly of the Heavenly Host, Heaven once more back under control, at least for the time being.
There of course, was much to be done, garrisons to reorder (although that was a simple affair, they would simply go back under their control of their original commanders and the new ones would be divided accordingly), Heaven to restructured, Raphael's loyalists to deal with and now this ridiculous Civil War, but both Michael and Lucifer were more than a little restless to return to Erin and ensure her safety.
Doors unlocking, the oldest Archangels stepped back into their once shared quarters with Cassiel, peeking in, curious and anxious to what they may find.
"Hey! You're back! So… How'd it go?" Gabriel pops up suddenly with a grin.
"By Father, Gabriel!" Lucifer grouses, startling and sending his brother an annoyed look.
"That great, huh?" Gabriel comments, noticing both his brothers in their battle armor.
"Metatron has taken over several of Raphael's garrisons and declared himself the new Commander." Michael informs Gabriel, his eyes searching the room for Erin and not finding her, his worry immediately deepening.
"That little shit." Gabriel growls. "Can we just smite him already?"
"Right, like I didn't try that already." Lucifer snarks back with a huff.
"What!?" Gabriel asks, looking confused to how a Seraph, even if they were in Heaven, thus angels were on a more equal playing ground with each other, could get the jump on his older brother.
"He's taking souls." Michael informs distractedly, wanting to know where his mate was. "Where is Erin?"
"Wait, wait, wait… Souls!? Great. Didn't think he had it in him. That conniving fucker." Gabriel grumbles grumpily, ignoring Michael's question about Erin.
"Well he did. Attacked with a garrison in the Great Hall. And now we have a Civil War on our hands." Lucifer growls with finality, also wanting Gabriel to answer the question about Erin.
"And he is searching for Erin." Michael hisses, wings arching defensively at the thought. "Gabriel, Erin. Where is she?"
"Okay, okay. Touchy. She's in the garden. Cool your jets. She's fine." Gabriel snorts.
Michael and Lucifer glare at their brother, pushing past him to walk towards the archway leading to the courtyard.
"Wait, wait, wait… You're not- You're just anxious to see her right?" Gabriel says, rushing after his brothers. "I mean, you don't intend to bond with her right?"
"Metatron seeks her soul. It is logical. She must be kept safe." Michael answers, pausing to turn to his brother.
Gabriel slapped himself in the face for both his brothers' stupidity.
"You're a fucking idiot Michael. And you too Lucifer! You don't- by Father, why did I get you two morons for brothers? What? You expect to force her to bond with you? You realize that's gonna go over so well? Not to mention that's wrong, right? By our laws in Heaven that's considered wrong. Not to mention by human standards it's also considered wrong. Besides you can't apply logic to falling in love. You really are hopeless. As romantic as dirt. Actually I think dirt is more romantic than you Michael. Did you two lose your brains recently?" Gabriel sighs, throwing his hands in the air.
Michael gives Gabriel an affronted look, but sighs, wings dropping slightly after realizing his brother's words. Of course he would never force his presence or himself on his mate. That was atrocious. He was simply too caught up in the thought of protecting her, too fearful of losing her he hadn't thought of anything else.
"You are correct of course, Gabriel." Michael answers, giving pause.
"Of course I am." Gabriel snorts.
"What do you suggest then?" Lucifer asks, irritated at himself for his lack of thought, also too wound up at the thought of protecting his mate he hadn't well, thought.
"Oh I don't know, try talking to her? I mean I know you two are pretty hopeless in general. But a conversation might actually accomplish something." Gabriel snarks.
"Your snark is not appreciated." Lucifer huffs.
"Yeah, well I'm always having to do everything for you two fucktards, so stuff feathers in it." Gabriel sasses back.
"Enough." Michael cuts off before his younger siblings can get into another spat.
Gabriel rolls his eyes, childishly spiting his tongue out at Lucifer.
"Erin is sitting on the bench under the oak tree. I'll leave you two idiots to go talk to her. Seriously though, think things through a bit before speaking, use your damn brains I know you morons have, and maybe just talk to her. And for the love of Father, don't fuck things up." Gabriel finally informs his brothers, pointing a finger at the warningly before flouncing off.
Michael and Lucifer look at each other a moment before walking further into the courtyard, approaching the oak tree and bench where Gabriel had directed them, Erin indeed sitting on the bench underneath it, Gabriel's feline Aasim beside her allowing Erin to pet him.
"Erin." Michael says, standing a few feet away, out of the two of the brothers the most unsure around Erin.
After all, Michael's meeting with Erin hadn't exactly gone well. Not only had she not recognized him with Michael wearing Adam Milligan's vessel at first, but it had inevitably lead to her death. Additionally, Michael hadn't gotten time with her like Lucifer had on Earth.
"Michael? Lucifer? Oh, you're back!" Erin says, looking up from Aasim.
"Hello gorgeous." Lucifer greets, all too easily slipping back into the familiar greeting he used to give Cassiel, not that he didn't think Erin was gorgeous, she was, it was just easy now that he was back in Heaven.
"You used to call Cassiel that." Erin notes, stroking Aasim one last time before standing.
"I- yes, is that okay?" Lucifer worries, stopping himself from walking towards his mate, suddenly feeling just as insecure at Michael looked.
"Do you mean it?" Erin questions, more or less to make Lucifer squirm, a smile playing at her lips.
"I've always meant it. You're still gorgeous to me." Lucifer answers without doubt.
"Then it's okay." Erin answers, laughing lightly as she walks over to greet Lucifer and Michael.
Lucifer relaxes, wings wrapping around Erin as she walks into his embrace, her smaller body fitting into his chest.
"I missed you gorgeous." Lucifer nuzzles carefully.
"You weren't gone that long Lucifer." Erin snorts, patting Lucifer's chest lightly.
"Long enough." Lucifer grumbles.
"You lived." Erin jibs back playfully with a laugh.
"Everything go okay?" Erin asks, pressing a comforting hand against Michael's chest as Michael embraces her, his wings tightening instinctively around her.
"There are- Lucifer and I need to talk to you." Michael says worriedly.
"Oh, okay." Erin nods, pulling out of Michael's embrace and walking through the garden.
"Erin?" Lucifer asks, both Michael and Lucifer following their mate questioningly.
"You wanted to talk, right? Let's talk." Erin invites, beckoning them to sit with her as she plops down in a soft spot in the grass under a tree that sits near a small water feature that trickles quietly.
Both Michael and Lucifer soften, settling beside her, memories of Cassiel doing the same flashing through their mind.
"So…" Erin asks softly, cocking her head slightly to look at Michael.
"I- You are not safe here Erin." Michael beings carefully, not wanting to scare his mate. "Raphael's- one of Raphael's lieutenants, Metatron, has claimed Commandership over a few of the garrisons, loyalists to Raphael, and begun a Civil War. He has taken souls, twisted them for his own power. And- and he- he seeks your soul."
"We need to- we need to return your soul to Earth, Erin." Lucifer adds, equally careful.
The two Archangels fall silent, allowing Erin to process the information, both anxious as to how Erin would take the information.
"I'll be alive again? You can actually do that? And- and that will, keep me safe? Returning to Earth?" Erin finally asks with surprise. She didn't think anyone but well, God, could bring someone back to life.
"It is a special case. You would be safe on Earth, we would ensure it." Michael answers, curling his wing around his mate assuringly.
"Metatron would not get to you, we would not allow him to find you or hurt you gorgeous." Lucifer promises, shifting his wings around Erin, both he and his brother deciding to ignore the little fact about bonding, despite how much they want to bond with her or how much safer it would be, especially if they bonded in Heaven.
It was irritating in some aspect, but fact nonetheless. The laws of Heaven were stronger than the laws of Earth. In a sense it was because in Heaven humans were reduced to their souls, their bodies a feeling of an image, rather than a mortal body as it was on Earth, or in other words in Heaven it was a human's purest form, and angels, well angels were always pure. Therefore if the bond shared with Erin in Heaven would be stronger than if they bonded in the plains of corporeal earth.
Gabriel's bond with Erin for instance, had been established on Earth, when Erin was but a small spec in her mother's womb. It had been strong, but now in Heaven had been strengthened the moment Erin's soul had been restored to its purest form and would remain that way even as Erin returned to her mortal body.
Of course the bond had done little to prevent Raphael from killing Erin, but even an Archangel blade would have killed Gabriel. So there was little that could have stopped Erin from being killed from the Archangel blade's injury, even the bond.
"You know, I get this distinct feeling you're hiding something from me." Erin says after another moment or so, picking up on both Michael and Lucifer's awkward silence, despite their reassurance. "There's something else, isn't there?"
"There- it's nothing gorgeous." Lucifer answers.
"Somehow I don't exactly believe that." Erin snorts with a light laugh. "You can tell me you know."
"It's- We- we would like to- to bond with you Erin." Michael finally answers his mate, looking away from Erin, not wanting to see her rejection. "To- to keep you safe. And- and because, because-"
Michael couldn't finish, trailing off his sentence.
Because I love you, because I have missed you, because the bond we once shared aches as it has since the moment it broke, because I never wish to spend another moment, second, decade, century, millennium, without you.
"Michael." Erin says softly, touching his knee gently, trying to capture his attention before she rises gracefully from her cross legged position to kneel in front of Michael.
"Because what?" Erin questions gently, taking Michael's face in her hands, forcing Michael to look at her.
"Because- because we love you- I love you." Michael whispers, his expression honest and more than a little reserved. He knew she couldn't love him yet, how could she when he had all but gotten her killed?
"Oh." Erin exhales, leaning back on her heels, hand dropping from Michael's face to study him.
Of course, logically, Erin knew Michael and Lucifer both loved her. Gabriel had practically drilled that into her brain, Lucifer had followed her around for the better half of a week after meeting him, taking every chance he had to be with her even though she hadn't been 100% comfortable with him, and Michael, well she hadn't exactly spent much time with him, but I think even a blind person could see his devotion to her.
The fact that they had returned to Heaven, all to retrieve her soul, to protect her, the fact that a war had started between the angels, yet here they stood before her, willing to do anything to keep her safe despite the probably million and one things they probably needed to be doing right now.
Up till this point Erin knew her feelings towards the Archangels had been on the verge of something more than tolerant, more than just 'these are my best friend's brothers', or maybe 'these are my friends'. But she hadn't been willing to think it was something close to affection or love, too confused with the memories of Cassiel and wanting desperately to know that the feelings, if and when they came, that they would be hers, not because they were Cassiel's memories dictating them.
Yet now, knowing what they had done, if that wasn't worth some sort of affection or love or chance of it, well Erin wasn't sure what was then.
"Okay." Erin decides.
"Okay?" Lucifer asks, his expression uncomprehending.
"Okay we can bond." Erin answers, turning to look at Lucifer.
Lucifer's expression darkens lustfully at the thought.
"Erin, I don't think-" Lucifer begins to explain thickly, as much as he enjoyed the thought of bonding with Erin he didn't want to presume that Erin remembered exactly what that entailed, and he would never want to force her or coerce her falsely into bonding with him.
"Lucifer, I remember. I understand what you're asking. You and Michael have protected me, you returned to Heaven to retrieve my soul, you've basically decided to fight a Civil War for me, well maybe not completely, but in part. You've killed your own brother because he killed me. And you've definitely show me that you love me and would cross the ends of the world for me. If that isn't romancing the hell out of things and sweeping me off my feet, I'm not sure what is." Erin explains.
"I love you Erin." Lucifer whispers finally, pulling Erin closer to himself, white wings arching around her protectively.
"Erin." Michael breathes, curling himself behind Erin, caging Erin between Lucifer and himself, his red wings arching around her from behind, barely daring to believe that he was getting a second chance. "I love you."
"And I think- I think I'm falling in love with you Lucifer and Michael."
Edited 2/18/19
