In the hours closer to the dawn, the forward deck is dark and blissfully empty, a playground only for the winds and wisps of passing clouds.

The planks are cool under Sandalphon's feet, bare because he couldn't trust himself to keep his balance otherwise, slow, careful steps bringing him up to the prow. Normally, he'd already be vaulting across and making his way up the hand's breadth of polished wood to reach his customary perch atop the dragon figurehead, but of late, such things have become feats simply beyond him.

Instead, he sinks down against a stack of crates near the railing left over from the day's activities, and waits for his muscles to stop threatening to dissolve into jelly.

Pathetic is sitting on the tip of his tongue, pride and anxiety clamoring to make themselves heard. Fully aware that even at his lowest, at his most useless, he's never been so utterly vulnerable, panting from the mundane effort of making it up the stairs in one attempt this time. Unarmed and unprotected, too weak to summon his armor, his sword a weight that slips from nerveless fingers, his wings reduced to a span of small, frazzled plumes that barely extend past his shoulders, grounded, flightless.

Prey.

The thought slips in unprompted, paranoia honed by an eternity in hell inviting itself to the party, and he can't help the shudder, the sudden sense that coming out here has been a terrible mistake—

Weak.

Foolish.

A lamb for slaughter.

Alone.

~…?~

It's still a shock to feel the little tendril of awareness, a barely-there brush against his mind, skimming over the surface of his thoughts like a sleeper reaching out to soothe a restless companion. Hardly conscious, much less intentional, just a fleeting, downy warmth, and yet, it draws him in immediately, sends the shadows skittering away from its sweet touch.

I'm fine, he sends back as quickly as he can, a whisper wrapped in reassurance and gratitude, before the faint contact can become an earnest attempt to ease his distress. Please don't worry. Rest.

~…~

The first few times it happened, he tried to dismiss it as a fluke, just his imagination driven wild by hope and fear in equal measure. Just his reformed body playing tricks on him, just his newly split core still resonating with its other half, just wishful thinking, for even if — even though he succeeded, surely this was much too soon —

Now though, there's no mistaking the purposeful way the gentle touch withdraws, a sleepy caress trailing off into deeper slumber, leaving behind a flush sweetness that no deluded yearning could ever hope to imitate. The knowledge of that soul next to his own, safe and so brimming with affection, even in unconsciousness —

Love.

It's an effort to even think the word, so hopelessly inadequate, to wrap those feeble four letters around the tenderness bestowed by that all-giving heart and apply it, haltingly, to himself — full well knowing that the only reason he can summon the courage in the first place is because the other is still asleep, unable to respond in words, unable to affirm —

Sandalphon shivers, a joyful kind of terror snaking up his spine just from considering the possibility. It's not the first time since reawakening that he's allowed himself to consider all those revelations, but it's the first time he's been able to follow the thought this far without recoiling, at a loss of where to go from there, what to do with it, how to do anything with it.

Ridiculous, conceited, that he ever believed he'd be ready if the time ever came, that if Lucifer ever commanded him to prove himself, Sandalphon would gild his feelings in devotion-laden deeds and words — all for You, anything for You, if You desire the stars I shall find a way to pluck them from the firmament and lay them at Your feet —

Fantasies to comfort himself, dreams to nurse his own ego, leaving him completely unprepared for the truth of things — that there is nothing he can earn, nothing he can strive for or prove himself worthy of, for it is his, has been his, will be his if only he permits —

Knowing that he has over two millennia's worth of memories framed all wrong and will have to reexamine each one, even the darkest and most ignoble, fully aware that throughout everything, he was remembered, cherished, missed —

No words, no words for any of it, and Sandalphon has to stop himself before his thoughts can manage to tip over from helpless awe into rabbit-hearted panic, before that precious soul can try and drag himself to wakefulness and undo all the progress out of concern for someone who has always been some level of angelic trashfire.

Drawing a slow breath, he closes his eyes and forces himself towards a semblance of calm, to begin emptying his mind for the task at hand — to help the two halves residing in his chest develop into wholes.

His knowledge of the process is passive, gleaned from fragments of memory, snippets of theories and experiments by a mind so much more brilliant than any other, and his entire self couldn't be less suited to it if it tried, impatient and rough and fumbling his way through all the things that came — that come — so naturally to the originator.

It is a challenge to be careful, truly careful — to ask instead of demand, to hold out his hands to cup instead of grasp, to imbue his hold with acceptance, reverence, a giving kind of protectiveness instead of the fearful desire to keep — a wish not for himself, but wholly for the life that has been entrusted to him.

By now, the sharp tug that accompanies the ritual is expected, like a rope snapping taut and flaying skin, but he simply keeps breathing through it, waiting for it to pass — it's not real, after all, nothing but the foolish echo of a core that has trouble letting go of anything, least of all half of what it still recognizes as part of itself.

No. No longer mine, but mine to give, and only the first of many, many things… even if you won't ever ask for them, *especially* because you won't ever ask for them—

Sandalphon opens his eyes when the hemisphere settles into his palms, helpless to keep from staring at its moon-soft glow, at the faint play of dawnshine hues, familiar shades of rose and ivory rippling and melting into each other in exactly the same way as they would shimmer across pure white wings.

Beautiful.

Beautiful even in this diminished state, beautiful in ways no one could ever hope to describe, but Sandalphon knows he'll gladly spend the rest of forever trying.

The sunset being sheathed…

The attempt is as clumsy and inadequate as ever, but thinking in verse and meter is calming, a way to channel the roar of his own feelings into something a little more tempered, a little less likely to scorch.

The sunset being sheathed,

I sit and think of you…

He has spent the past several days absorbing and purifying as much ether as possible, keeping its pins-and-needles desire to bond and create firmly in check. Now, he lets the words form a conduit, a path for it to travel, channeling it away from his own ravenous half-core and into his palms, his fingertips, its eager hot-cold burn gentling the closer it gets to its target.

…the holy

city which is your face

Your cheeks the streets

of smiles…

And in his hands, the core kindles, just a little, its faint light brightening minutely in acceptance of the offering. A poor substitute for hymns and flowers, and yet, it's the first thing he has ever been able to do for Lucifer, to support and aid him rather than vainly curry favor, rather than hope to simply become of use.

…your eyes half-thrush and your drowsy

lips where there float flowers—

It will take time, of course. Time for the jagged edges to smoothen, time for the wounded soul within to truly make that half his home, to return it to a perfect sphere and once again grace the waking world, but when he does — oh, when he does—

"Oh, you're here…!"

Sandalphon startles, just a bit, the ether spiking dangerously with whispers of threat, and he hastily cuts the connection to Lucifer's core, swallowing the backlash with a wince.

The threat is wearing a nightgown, blue hair coming undone from a pair of loose braids, and completely unaware of the kind of death she's courting by creeping up on twitchy primal beasts in the middle of the night.

How stupid. With any luck, she'll believe his flush to be the fault of the rushing air.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to, um. I just sensed— ah, not that I was keeping track of you or anything, honest!" Lyria amends quickly, waving her hands with such emphasis that it makes the fib immediately obvious.

She explained once, with the same apologetic embarrassment that has her squirming and shuffling her feet now, that she is aware of every primal beast on the ship the way other people are aware of their own limbs, a simple, constant sense of presence and movement.

They haven't spoken about it, but there's just enough white-winged empathy left in him to imagine the scene anyway. At dinner, perhaps, or during laundry, or any one of the mundane tasks she fills her days with, the sudden there-flicker-gone of his presence in her mind — how she would have flown to his cabin, fear squeezing her lungs, only to find the interior incinerated, scorch marks fanning out from the place where two jagged, dull halves have fallen.

Doubtless, she would have tried to fix it, dropping to her knees in the middle of the splintered furniture and weeping when she realized that she couldn't will them whole again, because nothing can disabuse her of the idea that he's worth crying for.

"It's just, well," Lyria is still talking. "You've been holing up in your room all the time again lately, and… I just wanted to see how you're doing?"

"In the middle of the night," Sandalphon says dryly, because he's never sure what to do with her fretful kindness, that stubborn drive to care.

"…Djeeta's right, you're a big jerk," Lyria huffs, though there's a smile in her voice all the same. "She doesn't say hi, by the way."

He raises an eyebrow at that. The last time he saw the Singularity was directly after he managed to reform his body, when she spent an impressive amount of her mortal minutes yelling about his reckless disregard for his own life before storming out. She hasn't been back since, though he's heard her pointedly stomping in the corridor outside his cabin several times, so conveying her lack of regards is likely an extension of that.

"You will have to enlighten me on how this works. Do I not-greet her back, or…?"

"She'd like that, I think," Lyria says, "She's really glad you made it back. You know that, right?"

He didn't, actually, simply because it's still hard to fathom why, but he has learned to let such information wash over him without comment – asking, for some reason, seems to upset the mortal children more, and it's not like any answer he would get would make any more sense, anyway. And if something in him warms a little at the thought, well… that is nobody's business but his own.

"You… you also know that we'd help, right? If you need anything."

This, he does know, simply because the children have a habit of outright forcing their help on anyone and anything, foregoing things like tact and sensibility and caution in their endeavor of collecting yet more strays. That they haven't simply plowed ahead with their usual enthusiasm is new and a little strange — but then, he's new and a little strange, reforged in a fire of his own making.

Not any better or brighter or any less of a disaster, but more complete than he has ever felt except perhaps in the moment of his birth, when he was first embraced by light itself and granted a name.

~And then, if you wish, perhaps… and only if you wish, you can tell me who you are.~

Another shiver moves his wings at the memory of those words, an uncertain delight curling in his chest at the prospect of being known.

"Sandalphon?" Without him realizing, Lyria has moved closer, leaning forward to peer up at him searchingly. "You've been spacing out a lot lately. Is it because of, um."

She waves her hands as if to illustrate a nebulous point, and from her perspective, he supposes Lucifer may as well be that, a hazy recollection of infinite power and gentleness, supplemented by whatever bits of information managed to escape from the private mausoleum of his own mind in moments of weakness.

"His name should be a prayer to those who utter it, and a benediction to those who hear it," he says softly, fingers smoothing over the nascent star in his grip. "I still know far too little of his joys, but you should speak it often, and freely, when you meet him. He likely won't think to say so, but… well. You will know that it is most welcome."

"Oh. What… what should I…?" Lyria trails off, gazing at him uncertainly, and the stupid, eternally devoted part of him is pleased that at least one of the naturally irreverent mortal children has the awareness to ask. It makes it easier to wholly mean the answer.

"Just his name, from one of the skies to another."

"Oh! Um," she brightens and dims all in one, a hesitant twist to her smile. "If I count…?"

Ah.

There's something disconcertingly familiar about the hopeful little uptick in her voice, that willingness to put stock in the words of just about anyone, that eagerness to be told she belongs, and Sandalphon averts his gaze, groping for a spark of irritation to cover up the sudden sense of recognition.

"Whyever would you not?"

"R-right! Um…"

An extended pause, broken only by rustling, and when he glances back, she's in the middle of smoothing out her hair and clothes, the kind of hasty grooming attempt the children will usually engage in whenever they are about to visit the house of anyone important.

"Okay, all good!" she declares eventually, and before he can ask what she means by that, she casts her gaze towards the starry void and earnestly intones, "Nice to meet you, Lucifer-sa— Lucifer?"

It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It's proof her creator must have done little more than stuff ancient power into a tiny mortal body with far too big a heart and set her loose without any practical understanding of the creatures she is technically supposed to be feeding on. It's also far too easy to imagine Lucifer's reaction – the faint widening of his eyes, a brief shiver of his feathers, the tiniest curve of an "oh" to his mouth, the startled pleasure of receiving such a simple, artless greeting.

It's that thought that overrides his paranoia, his desire to keep this secret to himself until they have both recovered more of their strength.

"There is… no need to raise your voice," he says, lips quirking at her confused expression. "Lucifer… is right here."

Despite his words, it takes a moment to convince his hands to obey, to loosen the vise-like grip they have on that precious core, shielding it from sight. A foolish reflex, really, like a child clutching a secret bauble, hoping that his feeble flesh and blood fingers would be enough to conceal its light — and it's almost a relief to watch the sleep-soft glow reemerge from their shadow, petals of light once again unfurling in the cool night air.

A soft gasp breaks the reverie he's fallen into and he looks up to catch Lyria with her hands over her mouth, eyes round as saucers and growing rounder still in the light of that nascent star.

Conceited, perhaps, to feel gratified by her reaction, but he can't stop the surge of pride at watching understanding dawn on her face and do absolutely nothing to wipe away the awe, the breathless wonder at gazing upon the most beautiful soul in all the world.

"Is… is that…?"

A useless question, on the surface, but Sandalphon is only too familiar with the feeling behind it, the need to confirm this gentle radiance as real and true. Sandalphon nods, wordlessly,

"Hello," Lyria whispers, spellbound by the play of colors. "Oh, you're asleep, aren't you? I won't take long, promise."

No response except a faint ripple of light, one of those periodic little pulses that always make Sandalphon think of a sleeper burrowing further into the sheets. He can't be certain that's what it actually is, fully aware it might just be his own inclination towards the fanciful that assigns meaning to these patterns, but for the lingering attachment of his own core to its former other half, the vague sense of something warm and comfortable drifting across the space between.

"It's probably a little silly," Lyria is saying, eyes darting from Lucifer to him and back again, "I know that beasts… I mean, I know you probably can't hear me when you're like this, but it seems kind of lonely not to say anything, and… you've always been there for us, haven't you? Whether we knew it or not."

"Always," Sandalphon affirms just as quietly, less out of necessity and more to simply say it out loud, to mark in some small manner the first kindling of awareness in the Skies, the first mortal child to know of and recognize the depth of Lucifer's devotion.

"Do you think he'd mind if… if I stayed a little while?"

This, at least, is easy enough to answer, filled as he is with centuries of retrospective understanding – that each story Lucifer ever told, every discovery he shared, carried so much hope for connection, not just between them, but them and the Skies.

"I believe Lucifer-sa— Lucifer would like that very much."

And for all their differences, there's something in the way she beams at his words that makes him think, perhaps, establishing such a connection will not be as difficult as Lucifer has been led to believe.

"…And you?"

Having that hopeful excitement trained on him is something he'll never get used to, and Sandalphon huffs, seeking refuge in the gentle glow resting in his palms.

"Far be it from me to tell you how to spend your nightly hours, Girl in Blue. However, you may wish to fetch yourself a blanket. It's still a ways until the warmth of dawn."

"Oh! Y-yes! Be right back!"

Watching her rush away, flush-faced and shiny-eyed like all her yuletides have come at once, Sandalphon shakes his head, letting out a breath he didn't notice he'd been holding. In his hands, the pearlgleam core remains silent, glowing with the soft pink hues of deeper sleep.

Something stirs at the edges of his memories, a moment not his, a promise he wasn't awake to ever hear. A tender hand against a pure white cradle, wings weary with the weight of aeons, a melancholy whisper of yearning – the first and only time the soul in his care has ever held a wish for himself, so convinced it was a sin, so sure it was impossible and yet trying, always trying — chipping away at himself, for centuries, for ages, all for the chance to know, to be known, to love and be loved, never realizing —

You don't have to give up anything… not your wings, not your radiance, and never your wishes…

Leave it to the Skydwellers to make an equal out of you, with their audacious optimism, the endless adaptability you admire so much…

And leave it to me, in my infinite inadequacy, to adore you… let this ugly thornrose thing of mine bloom into something worthy of you…

Just know that I welcome you.

This world welcomes you.

We've been waiting to meet you… for a very, very long time.

*.*.*.*.*

FIN

Author's Notes: Three years later, this fic is finally done. Now... who's up for a sequel? Hmm...

- The fun thing about trying to write anything to do with Lucifer? Running out of synonyms for light, soft, and pink.
- Yes, I suppose technically Lucifer should be taking a super-long time to recover from the kind of damage he endured, but... he's the most powerful primal beast ever and he deserves to be happy. So no sitting around waiting for hundreds of years.
- Don't kill me for what I did to Sandalphon's wings. An angel's wings are extensions of their power/soul, and they'll grow back to full size once he bounces back from exploding himself. In all their lovely sparrow glory.
- Sandalphon's poetry-writing is one of the few things I'll happily take from canon and treat seriously. The poem partially quoted here is "In the Rain" by E.E. Cummings, which really made me think of Lucifer:

in the rain-
darkness, the sunset
being sheathed i sit and
think of you

the holy
city which is your face
your little cheeks the streets
of smiles
your eyes half- thrush
half-angel and your drowsy
lips where float flowers of kiss

and
there is the sweet shy pirouette
your hair
and then
your dancesong soul. rarely-beloved
a single star is
uttered, and i

think
of you