Michael's dumped hard onto Lucifer's sofa back at Lux. He's dressed, mostly. The first tank top he came to and some jeans shoved on. No shoes or undergarments, probably end up redundant down in Hell anyway. That small mercy was Amenadiel's call. Probably once his older brother's anger abated, the First Born realized he had as much interest in dealing with Michael as naked as the day most of them were Created as Michael did with being nude. He figures Maze never would have given him the five minutes to pretend he still had dignity.

Not that demons ever gave a shit one way or the other about nudity.

Lilith was never shy, so why would any of her children be?

And of course Mazikeen found them. That niggling worry in the back of his mind…he remembers far too late what he forgot. The damn root. He and Lopez were too lost in each other to chew it in time, and that was his biggest mistake. Maybe. He's not sure. Michael's made so fucking many that any of them is a showstopper.

He should have told Scrappy months ago…should have said anything about his Samael being her Lucifer. And now? Well, now he's fucked it all to Hell.

When they arrive at Lux, he doesn't move from the spot he's been shoved onto. However, he does glare at Amenadiel. Maze has gone down to the club floor to summon Sam, and Michael doesn't care, not anymore. All that's spun through his mind since Maze yanked him out of bed is that Ella knows now.

Everything he's been trying to hide since the beginning, everything that got harder to say, everything he promised he'd explain once they had time and with Constantine.

Fuck!

And sitting there in Sam's ostentatious (what else) loft, Michael giggles. It's a shrill, hysterical noise, and maybe this is all in his head. Maybe he cracked up after the precinct fight. Who knows? Maybe Father already ordered him to a room, and this is the part his loop always falls apart.

He's suddenly terrified it is.

Amenadiel looks over the other end of the couch, arms crossed over his chest and expression nothing short of constipated, and then regards him. "You think all of this is a joke?"

"On me, definitely. I just remembered what I forgot tonight." He runs a hand through his tangled girls and cackles again. "Forgot the root, and of course Maze found us like the good little bloodhound she is."

Amenadiel breathes in sharply. "I thought you'd finally learned your lesson, that you can't beat Lucifer, and it was best to lick your wounds and go home, Michael. The fact that you'd hunt down an innocent like Ella…" He stops and shakes his head.

Michael doesn't break eye contact. He wants to, but he won't look scared in front of Amenadiel now. Not after everything.

"I didn't. I…never mind, you couldn't possibly understand."

"I can see that messing with my family and Chloe and Dan and even Maze back and forth wasn't enough for you. That you had to go out of your way instead of just adapting to your exile to hurt Ella too. Father let you off easy."

Michael stands then and stalks over to Amenadiel, instantly frustrated that he's different now, that his brother easily dwarfs him. Still, he balls his hands at his sides and glares up (and fuck you for all this, Dad). "If you think anything Father did to me is easy or fair or getting off light, then you're as dumb as I always thought you were. You don't know one fucking thing about me."

"I know you should have left well enough alone. If you think that we're-"

The elevator opens and in strides Samael, perfectly coiffed, standing tall and walking as if he owned the fucking world, which he basically did. Michael turns his head toward his brother and swallows hard at the cognitive dissonance of it. By now, it's been close to half a year since he woke up so altered in Vegas. And it's not exactly like angels have bad memories or that he could ever really forget what he's supposed to look like. But this is different. This is having all he should be-both between upright posture and the form-thrown back in his face for the millionth time.

Michael pulls at his tank top then, trying…he's not sure what exactly. To feel more covered or less aware of his breasts, and now he wishes Maze had given him enough time to find a sports bra. He's keenly aware in this moment with the older brother he should be taller than glowering over him and his twin in fine form of all that he no longer is.

Sam, however, seems blithely unaware. He looks between them both and tut-tuts a little. "Mazikeen interrupted me right before going on and said it could scarcely wait. Now, while I admit that this is a sight I hardly expected to walk in on, Brother, if you've started dating again, then it's about time. Can't pass the day only with endless nappies, can we? The good doctor certainly isn't."

Michael files that away, and he's not even sure why. He just assumed that Amenadiel and Chucky's mom were actually an item by now. It's a bit interesting that's not the situation.

Amenadiel doesn't rise to the bait. "I wish Maze had explained things a bit more."

Sam shrugs and, naturally, goes by the bar and pours himself a Scotch. "So, not having a frolic then?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Sam, do you ever think about anything but sex?" Michael snaps then. He's tired. He's bone weary and lost everything—lost Ella—and he just wants in his cell. Let Maze start flaying him; he deserves it.

Samael looks at him, and his eyes widen.

He stares, not blinking as he tends not to do, and stalks to them both with all the fluid grace that Michael would give anything to have. Sam stops less than a foot away and appraises him, running his eyes down Michael's body and back up again, focusing heavily on Michael's right shoulder, which is killing him by now and hitched up almost as high as it gets. The eyes they share in common, really even now, regard him finally and then hesitate over the slash to his cheek.

And then the Devil laughs. He laughs long and hard and doubles over, grabbing his knees. "Oh, this is the emergency, is it? Yes, quite the all hands on deck tragedy, isn't it? Did Father actually get a sentence right for once?"

Michael stands as steadily as he can before his twin, keeps his chin held high. "Get it all out then, Sam. Just laugh and laugh. Yeah, really funny, right?"

Samael straightens up enough to gulp down the rest of his drink and then finds his way to his chair. He sits down in it slowly, crossing one, lean leg over the other, looking for all the world like he's assumed a throne. Then again, in Lux, as down below, Samael is king.

"Yes, well, this is rather delightful. So, Michelle, why the drop in now? After dear old Dad yanked you away from here, I…well, I knew from Azrael you weren't allowed back upstairs. Been there, done that, and you aren't missing but so much. But this…now how delicious. Bet you've no eyes on the Detective now, do you?"

Amenadiel shakes his head at Samael. "It's almost as bad, Brother."

The humor suddenly dies from Sam's face, and his twin's eyes go red with their mostly contained rage. "Did you hurt the doctor this time? What? Try and sneak in as a patient, get some intel, make her afraid? Fat lot of good it'll do with that one."

Michael decides it would be stupid to remark he's already done that, stirred that shit about her and the first child she tossed aside like trash decades ago. It doesn't concern him, and he could give a shit what Linda Martin tells herself at night to convince herself she's a good parent.

"No, Luci, it was Ella."

Sam is up and out of the chair incredibly fast. He's standing again face to face with his brother, well, about five inches lower and that chafes, but Michael's squaring off with the Devil. Except this time Sam's wings are out and bladed, raked forward with a razor sharp edge to Michael's throat.

"What did you dare do?"

He can't help it. In this moment, instinct takes over first, and Michael tries to summon his wings. For the first time since Father banished him from heaven, since he left on foot from the hill beneath the Hollywood sign, Michael reaches for the divine gifts that should be there.

He comes back with nothing.

No, not true.

Pain explodes through him and he screams, going to his knees. Spasms continue rippling up and down his back and they only get worse, building to a crescendo until he is curled in on himself, and he howls in his agony.

He needs…

No, not here and not in front of either brother. Not like this. He'll…well if he's whisked to a cell, there won't be anything to feed on, no mortals to scare. The spasms won't get better, only worse. And Michael screams again as his shoulder muscles ripple, desperately digging for wings that are gone.

Amenadiel kneels before him, and Michael can't explain any of it, can't explain why things hurt. Can't think, can only scream.

"Brother, if this is some trick-" Amenadiel starts.

He gasps hard and shakes his head. "No, gone."

"What's gone?"

Samael doesn't kneel down, probably because of the cost of some slacks that were fancy hand sewn by some artisan who gives a shit, but he sighs from somewhere above. "Amenadiel, her wings are gone."

Michael wants to tell Sam where he can shove so many things, chief among them the idea of calling him a her, but Michael's shoulders ripple again and he can't think. It is as much pain as the first time this happened, and he can't…

He looks frantic between both of them, and he settles on Amenadiel first.

"What do you fear?" He asks it even as he wheezes, and it takes the sheer desperation of his pain to get those four words out, but he manages it. Michael doesn't dare break eye contact with Menny, not then, since he needs something to shove the pain away or he'll go batshit crazy.

If he hasn't already.

Amenadiel's jaw slackens and he speaks easily. It's harder on some siblings. With Samael, it takes the most effort, since they are, of course, equal yet opposite. But Amenadiel was never a complicated one. So he speaks freely:

"That Charlie will always be mortal. That Father is right, and all my hopes that there is something-anything- divine in Charlie that Dad overlooked are just me daydreaming."

The thrall of Michael's power wanes, and Amenadiel shuts his mouth fast and looks stricken, then hangs his head in shame as he gets to his feet. Michael's still curled up in the fetal position, but the rippling has stopped, the pain is throbbing, but he can at least think. Can breathe. Probing his brother will at least last him for some time to come.

But locked away in Hell, none of that will keep forever. Eventually, his own body will torture him in ways Maze and Lily's other children could only dream of.

Michael slams his eyes shut, trying hard and failing in equal measure not to wish for Ella. She always made this easier, made the whole process of feeding easier. She gave what he does its dumbass, degrading name on a whim. But she made him feel like this hiccup-this craving-wasn't as monstrous as it was.

He shivers, and it has nothing to do with the final twitches of his shoulders and back.

There is a rustle of feathers over him, and he knows Menny is gone. Just as well. He's sure Samael will savor shoving him down to Hell as a solo venture anyway.

"Well that is quite the floor show, Sister."

"Don't you fucking dare," Michael says, but his voice is small and quivering in his own ears. He doubts it's intimidating to the Devil either.

"Father took them."

Michael nods but doesn't yet open his eyes. "He did."

His brother hums to himself a bit and seems to settle back down on the sofa. "Yes, well, insidious that. I took mine and only reached for them once early on in Los Angeles. Reflex you see."

"Yeah, getting that now," he huffs.

"Yes, of course, and it burned. Didn't do it again, but you…that pain wasn't going to stop, was it?"

Michael opens his eyes. His brother is technically an aid for a detective and has moonlit for years for the LAPD. He's never thought much of his twin's observational skills however, but perhaps Sam can extrapolate enough if it's related to something that he's experienced. That fucking ego of his, of course.

He nods and pulls himself into the chair. Michael still brings his knees to his chest and sets his chin on them, and being as small as possible will win him no mercy from his twin. But he can't…he just wants to curl up and forget everything.

It's all over now anyway.

"Father took my wings and told me I couldn't come home. He didn't say I had to leave Los Angeles, but I saw no fucking point in staying. I bummed as far as Vegas, had a good run at poker, too good for some of the ritzier joints, and a couple weeks in…worst pain of my life, passed out, and woke up missing more than just my wings."

Sam chuckles again, as if this is the funniest thing the Devil has ever heard. It probably is. "My, aren't you fetching? Still a bit malformed of course, can't have everything. Shame now really that I put that scar across your face. You'd definitely have good fortune modeling-well for print of course-if you had a decent face to show for it. Michelle Demiurgos, America's Next Top Model."

He glares at his twin but not enough to make his eyes go gold, to pull on the power of the Demiurge raw and uncontrolled within him.

"I left Vegas, went to Reno. I was having a quiet night in my favorite place for some Texas Hold 'Em, and your friend walks in. She walks in and goes out a couple hours later with a man I could read from across the room, one obsessed and anxious about if he'd get caught." Michael shrugs. "I figured if your pet forensic scientist died in a town I was in at the same time, you'd add 2 + 2 and get 7, so I stopped him. She was supposed to leave me be. But she didn't, and I was scared if I took my eyes off her, she'd get herself killed. So she offered me a deal-we'd road trip and gamble, and I took it. I figured in a few weeks, she'd change her mind on her leave from the LAPD and come home where you and Amenadiel could actually guard her for once."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam asks, puffing himself up with all his ego and bullshit.

Self important bastard.

"It means that you didn't keep her safe from Pete."

"Well, if memory serves, I was busy tracking down my girlfriend whom you very much stole and had locked away, Sister."

He flashes his eyes this time. "We're not doing that."

"You're in no position to make demands of me, and I'll call you as I like," Samael snaps. "But maybe you need to be furious with yourself over dear Miss Lopez. I'd have been more aware of things, more on top of it, if the Detective had been safe as houses. If you hate someone for letting Miss Lopez be in Pete Daly's path, then hate yourself."

"I do." He had planned on saying anything else, on blustering or kicking back at Sam. But he can't. There's nothing left of him to even cobble together for bravado. And it is the truth. Ever since they paid Pete a visit, ever since the timeline of how it all fell out coalesced before him, Michael has been drowning in the guilt. "But you…she left California to go and work out her inner demons, Sam. She was trying to lure creepy incels out at bars so she could beat the crap out of them in back alleys."

"Don't be absurd. Miss Lopez is harmless."

"Scraps…" He sighs and speaks again, correcting himself. "Ella very much was pulling some vigilante wannabe bullshit, and you're not wrong, back then she was basically harmless. Like a kitten trying to take down pitbulls. That's why I couldn't leave. I saved her when one of her plans got away from her, but if I had walked, she'd have just gotten killed in a week or five outside a different seedy bar or nightclub trying to get her vengeance kick. I didn't want the blowback, so I went with her." He thinks back fondly even though it guts him too to all their practice, to sparring with her, with how beautiful she was in the desert, drenched in sweat, but actually landing solid blows. "You don't know her like I do, Sam, but she's…she's amazing."

"This is, of course, quite a likely story. Miss Lopez was the only one of my human friends you hadn't yet fucked with, and now months later, here you are like something the cat dragged in, and I highly doubt Mazikeen pulled me up here because you hadn't hurt her."

"Sam…I didn't mean for it to get this far."

And that is not the truth, and Michael is so gifted at lying. And he is also tired of it. In the end, all the circumlocution, all the half-truths, all the flat out deceit…it has cost him the only thing ever worth it in his life. There is no longer any reason to lie, not when the truth of his failures could not be plainer.

"No, that's a lie," Michael amends. "I didn't want her to leave me, once I got used to being on the road with her. She was my friend, and then…" He lowers his head, letting his hair fall over his face. "I fell in love with her. I did. But she didn't know who I was. Yeah, Archangel Michael, but I didn't tell her my annoying twin Sam was literally her Devil-friend Lucifer. I hid it because I didn't want her to know."

"You what?" There is an unearthly growl in his voice, and Michael jolts his head up to see his twin's eyes red as flames and his skin starting to burn and crackle. "Did you hurt her?"

Michael swallows hard. "I love her, and I didn't mean to-"

He's across the room in an instant and Sam has his hand tightly around Michael's own throat. He can hardly breathe, but the Devil has him in his grasp now. "Did you hurt her? Did you take advantage of her like you tried to do with Chloe? Wouldn't it be enough to bed Maze? She'd have been willing even after your joint debacle. After everything she's suffered, you set your sights on Miss Lopez?"

He doesn't know how to explain it. He can't. Because it looks fucking horrible, and it wasn't ethical, but he didn't intend to fall in love with her, just keep her babysat. And then he was so far in that letting her know who he was-who he'd been and fucking looked like-well, then she'd have compared him to Samael because they always do, and he'd have lost her.

But you've lost her anyway.

"It wasn't about you," Michael gasps out. "It was about her and me, and I just…I should have explained it. I didn't, but I should have. But I never…it was nothing like what that puke Pete did. Nothing like that."

The Devil squeezes his throat tighter, and now he can't breathe at all. "You assaulted her."

Dizziness sweeps over him. Angels don't have to breathe technically, but the Devil is strangling him, and it's a lot so soon after his spasm, and Michael is rapidly losing his clarity. A sharp pain slices across his left cheek and, horrified, Michael watches as blood wells there and a drop, bright and incandescently blue, hits the floor.

It flares and the concussive blast of it blows them both back and to opposite corners of the loft. Michael's struggling up first, always slower than he'd like, slower than the old days when he was actually a general, but he lunges for Sam's bar, grabbing a towel, anything to staunch his cheek. Sam cut deeply, but if Michael can cover it, then at least he can keep his blood from dripping again.

Samael grumbles as he gets to his feet too, wings flared out behind him and his right one stained red at the end of his primaries. He regards Michael and groans, sliding a hand through the hole in his pants knee.

"This was bloody Prada!"

Michael shakes his head, towel clamped firmly to his cheek, and stalks to the place where his twin held him still…where Sam cut him yet again. "You idiot. I…fuck," he says, weaving around the overturned chair and staring down at a sickly yellow squirrel (maybe a chipmunk; what is he National Geographic) with too many eyes breathing its last breaths before him.

Sam is by his side soon enough, his twin's glorious, fucking, aren't-I-so-showy wings now tucked back away. "Dear Dad above, what in Heaven's name is that abomination?"

Michael shrugs, his bad shoulder barely moving. "I think it's a squirrel, mostly."

The thing gasps, giving some terrible, final shriek of pain before its five eyes stare open and glassy. Before it dies.

Disgusted, Michael hurries back to the bar for a spare towel and drapes it over the monster his blood has made, that the fucked-up, uncontrolled Creation inside of him spawned.

"Sorry, sure you can have some staffer or whoever toss it in a garbage can for you, Sam. Wouldn't want to get your hands all that dirty, right?" He glares up at his twin. "Except when you get bloody scarring me. You're gonna have to take your rage out next time on anywhere but my face; think you've used up the real estate there."

Samael for once is quiet. Michael studies him, and there it is-fear—bright and intense and, for once, of him. Michael has tried forever for his brother to notice him, to see him as equal, to see him as not just a shadow. Now Sam does, and the Devil is scared. For his friends, for Decker and her brat.

Michael could care less about any of them.

"You still have your powers," Samael says, his tone accusatory. "I thought we weren't the Demiurge any longer."

Michael sighs, his face feeling crusty beneath the towel. "Well, that answers that question. I figured you weren't really Will anymore." He gestures to the squirrel. "I'm definitely still Creation. Actually, we left a lavender chinchilla back in New Orleans when Maze burst in. Pepe won't be missed by me, but yeah…this is not my first time making uh life."

"Well that died."

"I made one neon blue frog too, and it hopped away. But I'm not Creating deliberately," Michael explains. "My blood…I…without my wings, I can't focus my powers. It's why if you cut me, and the blood touches the ground, then it makes or tries to make whatever the fuck it wants. It's why my fear isn't working right either."

"No, I'd say that you made quite the show of Amenadiel. Not that it wasn't obvious with him, and his stages of grief of late, but it worked as it should have."

"I need to do it," Michael replies, looking away, but then he just spies the lumpy, malformed thing he Created under its towel—another reminder all his powers, all of him, is wrong.

Sighing, he strides out to the balcony. Samael follows him, not that there's any way as he is that Michael can really escape. A swan dive off one of the tallest buildings in Los Angeles won't kill him, but it won't feel great either, and he's not quite a big enough masochist for that.

"What the bloody hell is going on?"

"That's what I wanted to know," Michael says honestly, leaning on the railing. "Father took my wings, and I've gone haywire ever since. The pain without them is…you cut yours off. I think Dad ripped mine out mystically or some shit. They spasm, and they hurt, and I can't think. It gets so bad and…and the only way to fix it is to scare someone badly. It makes the pain stop. For a while, maybe a couple weeks at best, maybe not. Somewhere in Arizona, I got cut and this insanity started with my blood-with my Creation-being back. It's changed me in other ways, and I feel it…it's growing."

He expects Sam to laugh or to be snide, to throw all of this in his face all over again. It's what they're both good at: hurting each other. Maybe his twin would have or at least called him a liar, but the Devil has seen both examples in short order, and the truth of Michael's deteriorating condition is written all over his wounds and his fucked-up lack of wings.

Instead, Samael studies him, the eyes they share in common looking over him with unerring precision. "You assaulted one of my dearest friends."

"I love her."

"Yes, well, doubtless she does not feel that way about you. Whoever could?"

Michael looks down at the street far below and nods. "I don't know." Not the Host or his twin, certainly not Lily. For a small, possible moment, Michael let himself hope that Ella could have, but he fucked that up too. "No one, but I didn't mean to hurt her. I really did fall in love with her, Samael, I swear it to you on our bond as the Demiurge."

"That I assumed was long gone since you shoved me down to Hell."

"Only after you tore my wing in your panic and…" He sighs. "We could re-litigate that for eternity, Sam. It was a war; you picked your side first and waged the whole damn thing, and I did what Dad wanted. How am I the bad guy here?"

"Do you need a laundry list of this fall? Or shall I remind you that you abused the kindest mortal I know?"

He swallows, and it feels like gargling glass would for a mortal. "When Menny dragged me here, after how upset Scrappy was…I wanted you to throw me away in a cell below, maybe Mom's." He laughs, and it's barely lucid. "It would be fitting. Two Goddesses, same cell."

Sam snorts. "I have not ruled that out, but don't be daft or self-important. Without wings, you're barely a decent archangel anymore. And you're hardly in Mum's weight class."

"Now who's lying?" Michael says sadly. "Maze didn't understand my scent. She bumped into me and Lopez in a nightclub in West Hollywood, and that's when she started trailing us. I was ingesting a root to obscure my signature from her, but she thought I was a goddess then. Not an angel. I thought she was nuts, but I don't think so anymore."

"But it's a shared role," Sam objects. "I had half, and you had half, and that's how we made the universe. Father is far too paranoid Himself to give all that power to just one of us, and He certainly didn't reward you for your spree this fall by leveling you up. Talk about delusions of grandeur."

"You'd know," Michael replies under his breath before adding. "Then how do you explain what happened? The energy just from that much of my blood blew a chunk out of your expensive marble and burned through part of your sofa. And, right, Created life."

"That perished rather quickly."

"Could I do that before?" Michael points out. "Could I make a single thing no matter how deformed or doomed to die without you shaping it with your Will? We built a universe together, and if I could have done things on my own, you know I would have."

"But you can't–"

"I don't know what I can do. I'm not trying to do it. It's just acting on me. It's all uncontrolled, like being lashed to a giant nuclear power plant about to melt down. I can feel that much. Something is happening to me. Lopez and I were on our way to try and find someone to help stop it-"

"Bedding her involved in the process then?" Sam snaps back.

Michael finally looks at his twin. He removes the cloth from his face, and the blood is crusted thoroughly there but is no longer dripping from his cheek. It's a small mercy at this point, but one he'll gladly take. "No, it wasn't, but I love her. It got out of hand-"

His brother's eyes blaze red again, but even his idiot twin is smart enough not to reach for and injure Creation incarnate (and just barely incarnate at that). "Don't. The safest place is to take you to Mum's cell. You're not wrong. It contained a real goddess before. It'll contain whatever you are now. If you get worse…what happens to the humans around you? To Los Angeles or Earth for that matter?"

"I don't know," he says.

"Exactly, then you understand this is for the best, and that since you've hurt Miss Lopez so acutely, you'll have earned whatever tortures Maze and her siblings rain down on you, so long as it doesn't spill any Demiurgic blood."

Michael nods. "It's all the same, you know?"

Sam sniffs even in his red-eyed rage. Prim and preening as ever. "This is the finest of luxury penthouses. It is the exact opposite of Hell, I assure you."

"No…I…without Scrappy, it's all Hell. So might as well put me somewhere I can't ruin with my fucked up powers. Keep her physically safe at least, even if I already broke her in other ways."

Samael's eyes go brown again, and he quirks his head at him. "Scrappy?"

Michael nods, and it all seems so small and ordinary and human. Like there was a moment where things could have worked out, where if he'd had the choice, he'd have settled into the most mundane and boringly normal human life with Ella Lopez. If she'd have had him by her side. "Like that cartoon with van and the potheads and the talking dog?"

"I have no idea what you're on about."

"Scooby Doo? Anyway, he has this tiny, pip squeak of a nephew named 'Scrappy Doo,' always biting off more than he can chew. Tough but outclassed and has no idea he's about to be wiped out. That was…that was Ella to me. She was brave enough to take on anything, and I've seen her do so much, but she…she's fragile too. I just wanted to keep Scraps safe. And I failed, Sam, believe me. I know it better than anyone else."

Sam rolls his eyes at that. "What an appellation. You really are quite the smooth talker, Sister, aren't you?"

"Not funny."

"I'm a veritable riot."

"Well, it's not calling the so-called love of my life 'Detective' all the fucking time, like she forgets her job title."

"Anyhoo," Sam says, standing up and away from the balcony, "time waits for no Devil or goddess. Let's get you down to your cell and tucked away before you ooze out more Creation, shall we?"

Samael sprouts his wings again, and Michael wishes he had even his shitty ones back, wishes he could control anything again. But he can't. And this is the best place for him, as far from hurting Ella ever again as he can get.

Sam offers out his hand, as if this will be some quick pleasurable flight, but before Michael can take it, there is fluttering behind them both. He turns first, expecting Amenadiel's return after having finally collected himself. Instead, his eyes go wide at his brother Gabriel, adorned in his most formal robes, standing behind them both.

Michael sighs and rolls his eyes heavenward toward Father. Of course, why have me shoved in front of two, tall, normal brothers when you can rub it all in with a fucking hat trick?

Then, he regards Gabriel, as tall as ever, solid but more wiry as Sam used to be. His golden hair is shorn close to his face, accentuating his square jaw. His blue eyes are as intense as ever, though the left one's just a hint lazy, although Gabriel never caught shit for that imperfection the way Michael did for his torn frame and mangy wing.

"What now? Can't a guy be damned in peace?" Michael gripes.

Samael, despite all that's happened tonight, chuckles darkly. "Actually, for once in eons, our now dear Sister and I agree. I was going to solve our Michael…Michelle…take your pick problem and be back in just a mo, right?"

"No," Gabriel intones, regarding Michael fully, and he does not miss the sneer in his brother's expression or the disgust. "I come on Father's decree."

"Well, if Dad would like to show up and do anything that's not mysterious ways bullshit, then I have about a billion questions," Michael says, and it comes out more pissy than vengeful.

"His choices are hardly anything for you to try and understand, Michael," Gabriel continues.

"No, actually, still with her on this. I'd prefer if we knew why the newly minted goddess was leaking Creation all over. That can't be safe," Sam adds.

Gabriel sighs and looks between them both like they're cockroaches to him; to be fair, they're both in exile, and Gabriel is now exactly where he's always wanted to be-the favored son and the one who both leads His legion and serves Him closest. All it took was for him and Sam to royally fuck up and for Amenadiel to defect.

But hey, a victory is a victory, right?

"Father only told me what He wanted me to know."

"You don't say," Michael snaps.

"Yes, well, glad to see spending a bit more time with Amenadiel and his grandson has softened Dad up a bit. Knew He'd stay resoundingly the same, opaque as ever," Sam agrees.

"Silence," Gabriel says. "Both of you. I only know what Father told me when He sent me here. Michael is to stay here at Lux. He's not to leave, and you, Lucifer, since you have so much space in this nightclub of yours-"

"Only the first two floors, actually; the rest are either empty or, well, there is Amenadiel's old place. That's true."

"Then hold him there then. Father wants Michael under your watch, Lucifer, and here only. Nowhere else."

"Until when? I can't bloody babysit her forever."

Michael glares at Sam then, his eyes bright gold. "Keep doing it, Sam. Just keep pushing me."

"I rather think you're in no place to threaten anyone, Twin."

He seethes but lets it go. Michael's in Hell wherever he goes; that's true enough. Everything is agony without Ella, when he knows she can't stand the sight of him, but staying here-assuming he's safe to be around-is preferable to Hell. Down there, he'll be in agony in a matter of hours. Up here, if he can still go down to Lux, itself, then he can pick up an incel when he needs it, get enough fear to keep the spasms away.

It is the better of shitty options.

"That was Father's decree. Michael is to stay on this property and not leave. He said that you'd both know soon enough why, and that to remind you, Michael, that if you despise how Father has punished you up to now, that it will all be nothing compared to how you'll feel if you leave Lux's property line. Is that understood?"

Michael wanted to snark that there was nothing else to take, but he'd have thought that months ago when Father ripped out his wings. Or even in Vegas when he woke up female. There is always worse Father can dream up.

Sam's burned, monstrous true face is proof of that.

"Yes, I'll obey," Michael finally agrees.

Sam huffs. "Novel change of pace from the last eight months or so, isn't it?"

Gabriel turns and stares down Samael too. "Those are the rules, Lucifer. You aren't to touch Michael in any way. No fighting, no scarring again. Nothing."

"Well, now that I know her blood is a ticking time bomb literally…how thick do you think I am?"

Michael laughs. "You want an honest answer or—?"

"Enough!" Gabriel shouts, his voice echoing through the early morning around them. "Michael, don't leave here. Lucifer, he's to be provided for, kept fed in all ways, and comfortable. Father will follow up when He sees fit. It's so simple that even you two morons can handle it."

"Oh, and hit a nerve," Sam quips.

Michael ignores his twin. "What's happening to me? You can't just fly down here, bark edicts, and then leave me as in the dark as ever about all of this. Father's gone to a lot of trouble, and it's not just punishment. It's something else."

"Well, it is punishing you, so I am guessing whatever Father has planned, it has a few overlapping advantages, but you know how He is, Michael, more than maybe any of us. Only He knows all the pieces, and I came to relay His wants. Messenger duty. I don't know the whys or the grand plan. I wasn't privy to it. But if you try and leave here, I assume Father will just finally end you, and you'll never find out."

He swallows hard at that. Even Hell is one thing but non-existence? As miserable as he is, Michael does not want that.

Would never want that.

To be literally nothing at all.

Michael nods and rakes a hand through his hair, trying to get it out of his face for once. "You have my word, which is usually shit, but I won't leave Lux's boundaries. But if Father leaves me hanging on this-on me-for eons…"

"He better bloody not. I hardly deserve a house guest. Even on another floor, well, she's clearly going to be a dealbreaker for putting the Detective at ease."

"Yeah, biggest problem about half the Demiurge leaking Creation and on house arrest is that it limits when you and Decker can fuck. Totally see how that works, Sam."

"Unbelievable," Gabriel grumbles. "You two do deserve each other. Message relayed. Wait for Father's audience. Around that rule? Well, good luck with each other." Gabriel spreads his wings, tawny and russet like a hawk, and flies away about as suddenly as he came.

Sam sighs. "Well, come along then, Sister. I'm already knackered, and you look like death warmed over."

"You tore what was left of my face up!" He snaps.

"And you deserve far worse for how you hurt dear Miss Lopez, and we both know it. So, chop chop, Michelle. Think I've a few cast-offs from lovely ladies long before the Detective. Maybe an old t-shirt or such somewhere. Let's get you a change of hobo chic and shove you down to Amenadiel's old digs. Sounds lovely, doesn't it?"

Michael sighs as he passes back into the penthouse from the balcony. "I think I'd rather be in Hell."

"Yes, well, feeling's mutual on preferring you in Mum's old haunt. But beggars can't be choosers, can they? Now follow me to the cast-off pile."

"Do you at least wash this shit?"

"I'm sure someone I have on payroll has in the past. Probably."

"Fuck you, Samael."

"Yes, well, definitely going to decline that offer," he concludes before sauntering up his steps and into the recesses of his bedroom.