A Former General Chapter 14
12 Weeks Continued
He supposes that he might have overestimated the breadth of a spread for just two of them. Although to be rather fair to him, the two include a technical goddess who should be eating for three and the Devil himself. Celestial metabolisms are ancillary to life on Earth; after all they don't have to eat on this plane. Well, typically. Lucifer never has to eat, but he enjoys it. He is a creature of comfort and, honestly, of all sins. What's lust and wrath without also indulging when the times call for it for gluttony too? However, obviously with quite a set of buns in the oven, Michael needs to eat. So, he shall be the caring brother who provides for his twin.
And if that involves a mélange of cuisines from Ethiopian to Chinese to French pastry, well, that's just being good for the Mini-Urge, isn't it?
Also, now that he, too, is no longer up to suffer and lose his dinner at an un-Dadly hour in the morning, Lucifer can admit he's famished too.
So, while he waits for a veritable army of delivery drivers to arrive with a bevy of international cuisine, he settles onto the sofa and cues up Bones. Because there is only one way to truly unwind after a long appointment or any spot of bother, and that's with the two best fictional detectives he's ever had the pleasure to follow.
Michael comes up from his quarters soon enough, maybe twenty minutes after Lucifer has set off on his impromptu party plans (there are technically four of them, consider it a small soiree with both sets of twins in tow). As his twin exits the elevator, Lucifer-as always-is thrown at first by the contrast between expectations and reality. Even now, after a few months with the former Sword in town, Lucifer half expects the poorer dressed version of himself to step off the lift.
Oh, Michael lacks fashion sense in any form, have no doubt. Although at the end of the first trimester and already kept up by an unsettled stomach for weeks at a time (and Lucifer would know that part intimately), Michael seems to at least have a reason for the hobo chic. Or, to be a bit more honest, the mix of yoga pants that, judging by the stains on the knees, have not been changed in a day or two and the baggy, grey sweatshirt that Lucifer is certain is as much a Goodwill special as his previous mustard colored turtlenecks. No matter the body, his twin is an unfortunate victim of sartorial forces.
And yet, he almost recognizes Michael (and, in a broader sense, himself) in the female form before him. The scars…Lucifer bears the guilt for them, and they are a shame both because he knows after returning to therapy in the last couple months with Linda how horrible a violation they were. How they went from punishment to abuse. And the truth is, his twin, despite his slope shoulder and stiff right side…he would be fetching if not for the facial scars. Perhaps, he still is. Lucifer can see the ghost of their shared visage in Michael's current face-the ample slope of his new nose, the dark brown eyes that are, after everything, still the same as they were, and the prominent though very much softened jut of his jaw. His brother is in there, and yet, when the goddess steps off the elevator, Lucifer still just keeps himself from doing a double take.
Billions of years of fights culminating in the greatest Fall in history and petty scrabbles after whenever Michael helped Amenadiel shoo him off earth-and it happened more than a few times over the centuries-are a long memory. So the few months of contrast do not catch up yet with his immortal mind.
It causes him to blurt out his thoughts as he sips his Scotch. His twin in contrast is grumbling even as he gets a gingerale and settles on the furthest possible spot on the sofa from Lucifer, himself.
"Do you ever get used to it?" Lucifer says, and he doesn't blink as he studies his twin sipping the soda. It's a blunt, rude question, but he's in for a penny now.
Michael stills with the drink halfway to his lips. "Being pregnant? No, I don't think so. It's better now I'm not morning sick, sometimes dizzy at random times. Odd to have both Lopez and Pepe-because of course the purple rat has an opinion-up my butt to eat and eat. I want to." His hand strays to his belly, and Lucifer's not sure if Michael's even realized he's cradling the twins again. "But I'm dizzy sometimes. It gets hard."
"Yes, I wouldn't have believed how overwhelming such a thing could be till experiencing it myself. Thanks for that by the way."
Michael's eyes go gold for a barely a second and he rolls them. Vigorously. He wonders if his twin picked that up from Miss Lopez on the road; Lucifer's not sure. "It's not my fault the empathy thing is back. I don't remember that being a factor since…"
"Making stars?" Lucifer adds.
Michael looks toward the TV as if his twin has ever given a toss about the adventures of Booth and Bones. "No, that's not the last time I felt the bond until now."
He leans forward, ignoring the ding on his mobile from Patrick letting him know the Chinese is here by now. He'll let the bartender know to bring it all up shortly. "Really? I honestly thought that was all over with once the Demiurge heavy lifting was done."
Michael shakes his head but doesn't regard him face to face. "I felt it just once since we finished fashioning Creation for Dad."
"Mhm, do tell? Was it during my Garden phase because if you're going to feel something as an echo, it might as well be time with Eve. She's not perfect for me the way she compliments Mazikeen, but it was quite the frolic."
"You really never change, do you?" Michael asks.
"I'd like to think I am." Lucifer studies the wound on his twin's face, at the still angry way his twin's lower left eyelid pulls. Wing wounds, like demon steel, take forever to heal if they do at all. "But I admit with family trials back in my life, I reverted back to everything I had been above."
"A brat? An asshole or both?"
Lucifer sits up higher at that, bristles, but doesn't quite take the bait. "You be the judge. You're both an expert at that and the one I hurt most. I…I am sorry."
Michael shrugs, though only the left one moves. "So I hear."
"Do you believe it?"
"Don't take it personally, Sammy. I don't trust anyone except Scrappy. After so long and so many things, including what Father fucking did. How could I?
Lucifer swallows thickly at that. "I understand."
"But I mean, hey, it's a long six months coming. You have a better shot of being someone I like and trust again than Menny so, you know, mazel tov."
"And," he asks, fording across the divides in their conversation, "when was it that you…that the bond still worked on your end?"
Michael curls up, and it throws Lucifer the worst. Mostly, Michael still seems to take up space and hold himself high. He's hardly short like this, not anything like Azrael or Remiel. But when is twin is distressed-which happens often these days for good bloody reason-Michael brings his knees to his chest and tightens up in a ball. It makes Lucifer realize all over again how different his twin is now, how much more fragile.
Or maybe inside, Michael always was, and he never bothered to notice.
That thought has started to haunt him of late, and Lucifer's not sure what to make of it. How to weigh all of it.
"When you burned."
Lucifer gapes at his twin. He has to have heard him wrong. "Beg your pardon?"
Michael laughs, but it's a watery sound. "You're never going to be British, Sam. But after the Rebellion. I…I was in the infirmary. Raphael had made some progress with at least the spear wound Sandaphalon inflicted on me, but my wing and side…well, we all know how that went. But I was bed bound and delirious, out of it with bone pain in two limbs, and I just…I bolted up screaming because I felt like I was on fire. It lasted for weeks and weeks. I just burned and screamed. It would get so bad that I'd run my hands over my face and arms because it felt so real and I kept being convinced I had to have a scarred face, wounds, sores…anything. But after however long, you know how hard it is to tell in the Silver City, worse when you're in chronic agony. It stopped."
"You felt what happened to me?" Lucifer can barely croak the question out.
"I doubt it was some weird fucking nerve pain because of the stabbing and wrenched wing combo, no, Sammy. I…I felt you burn like I was doing it. Even before Rae Rae or Amenadiel saw you at Hell's gates, I knew-because I'd lived it through the fucking bond-how bad off you were, at least until you glamoured it back together."
"Not quite sure how that all works most days. All of Amenadiel's ideas of self-actualization…for a long time I assumed this was the true face," and he shifts it seamlessly for his twin. He has to give Michael credit for not flinching or showing any reaction to the sight. His brother has seen it before, and you don't get to be the Head of His legions by having a terribly poker face but after everything with his human friends reacting at variously apocalyptically bad levels to it, Lucifer always expects the worst these days. "But I think they're just both that way, and the damn self-actualization allows us to run wild with many things."
He does not change anything else, has no interest in his brother knowing about how devilish he can get, how deeply his self hatred plagues him or the biggest reason he's returned back to therapy.
One thing at a time. Patrick texts to let him know about four other delivery people, including that divine (and Lucifer would know) French pastry place with the to-die-for chocolate souffles have also dropped off their spoils. He responds ordering his bar tender to come on up, while simultaneously making a mental note to give Patrick a raise and a bonus for the last few months. Lux has been, to be quite fair, even more scattered and uncanny than its usual.
Humans who can hack that are rare, and they deserve the rewards.
"Food's here," he says simply.
Michael nods and uncurls enough to sip his drink again, but he doesn't extricate himself from the sofa. Lucifer, instead, puts his glamour fully in place again and heads to the lift to await Patrick's arrival. They can set the whole spread up on the bar, and then they can both enjoy the bounty. He's been famished lately, even for this plane, which is not typical, unless he's gravely injured. He ate for a week after the loft shoot out but his wings, such as they'd been at the time, had needed the nutrients and apparently caloric intake to heal.
The bar tender arrives and together he and Patrick make short work of setting it all up. Lucifer realizes somewhat sheepishly that three souffles was perhaps too much even for two angels (more or less). In addition to the bonus to be wired tomorrow, he lets Patrick take that back down for himself.
As always, his employee his beyond accommodating. Lucifer finds that Patrick is singularly able to ignore everything that makes little sense or, similarly, seems far too much and overblown. That discretion is both rare and often handsomely rewarded.
When the human is gone again, Lucifer prepare a plate overflowing with sweet and sour chicken, stuffed crust pepperoni pizza (pedestrian but he was as ravenous as Michael so for now it might as well be ambrosia), naan bread, and Korean barbequed ribs. He makes sure to grab a glass of milk from his mini-fridge under the bar as well.
As if that injection of calcium will balance what is, to be blunt, a complete junk food binge.
Michael seems grateful, actually seems to shake off his funk and take the plate eagerly. He bites into the pizza first. "That's…yeah that's what I've been missing feeling like I've been trapped on a tilt a whirl for a month. Fuck that's good."
"Language? I mean, can the little tadpoles hear yet?" Lucifer asks, chuckling a bit.
"I don't think so exactly. Maybe more like the tenor of my voice or Lopez's so they can recognize it. Not like they know the difference between curse words and normal ones. It's stupid distinction anyway."
"I've always thought so, and I've told the Urchin as much," he agrees, preparing his own plate but also making sure to heap piles of the best kimchi in town on his plate too. He didn't offer that to Michael as he's heard pregnant people tend to develop indigestion and the four alarm dish would assuredly do that to the goddess. "I didn't know you'd ever felt that. You never-"
"Didn't come up chasing you back to Hell to do your damn job, Sam. Didn't come up over a year ago when I…I lost everything after the Rebellion. I didn't have every sibling eating out of the palm of my hand like you did. Desire is loved and Fear? Not so much, but I had Azrael and almost Uriel, at least he'd play chess with me sometimes, ass that he was. But I was the General and our siblings had to respect me if not love me. It was something, made being the also ran easier. Then, I was injured and everyone except for Rae Rae stayed away from me, as if you could catch a fucking broken wing. And you were being praised after causing all of that, after getting some of our brothers and sisters killed in your war and even some turned to demons in their own Falls…you got praised for doing your job once. I did mine for eternity so far, and it ruined all that I was. I…I was so blindly angry, and I'm mad still, but all that rage and look where it got me," he gestures to himself.
"It seems to have started you off with a rather eclectic yet growing family," Lucifer says, settling back on the far side of the sofa and continuing to munch on the kimchi.
"Sam, I appreciate you're trying. I am floored you'd ask me to go full Fear powers on you, and that you're not upset with me after. I think I almost broke Will's brain, and Menny couldn't fly the coop fast enough." He sighs then, and even if he's fed recently, somehow there's a sallow undertone to his skin that's crawling back across his face. "I won't do that again. I mean, we needed the experiment, but there was a feedback affect. Probably our empathy-now-messes with it. I wouldn't ask me what I desire cause you'd just…you'd just say what you want for yourself."
"I sense a 'but' here, Brother."
"But," Michael continues, picking at his sweet and sour chicken next, "but this is beyond hard. I did a shitty, terrible thing. If Chloe hadn't been leading me and known the bulk of the time I'd have-"
He can't help but let his eyes go red in his fury. Michael and his crimes against the Detective will never not be a sore point between them. "I know."
"I was the Sword. The Defender of the Faith, and I tried to rape a Miracle. There's anger at you and there's such bitter, petty rage that it leaves even me sick. This is that. I thought for so long I was like this because I had done it to myself, that I made my body female to understand. I didn't, but I swear I do. I know well what truly loathsome mortals will do to someone who looks like me or Chloe. Or Scrappy."
"Was she ever-"
"I stopped anything that ever got out of hand. Had to do it a couple times to keep her alive. I meant it-Scrappy Doo. Ella bites off more than she can chew every damn time. She's amazing and eager to learn, but you know how tiny she is. She got herself in a bad way when we first met and once at Lux before she finally quit all this. But yeah, I'm intimately aware of what incels and fumbling homunculi and general shit bags do to 'women,'" he says, rolling his eyes and gesturing to himself again. "Or what they think is a woman technically. I have never regretted anything more than that, and Chloe has every fucking right to hate me till the end of time. I just…I am sorry, but that's a small word, and it's not always enough."
The anger cools under his breastbone, and Lucifer feels his eyes cool. "That's appreciated."
"But we're still a fucked up mess as brothers, probably always would be. I get so worried you can only destroy each other so much before you can't come back from it."
"Do you want to?"
"I want to try," he says, setting down his plate and his drink. Michael cups his small bump deliberately then. "I hate to think of a new Demiurge, assuming we pull off the whole coup d'etat and get Dad out of our lives, but I hate to think of Lopez's kids hating each other the way we have over the years. They should…they should have that one other person who understands, who supports them no matter what. All we did was ruin each other."
"Michael-"
"You have to hate me, right? Not just for Chloe's sake but because I kicked you to Hell. Dad said do it, and I might have hesitated but I did fucking do it. You burned. I don't know how long that was in Hell time, only what it felt like for weeks and weeks inside the Silver City. I don't know how you'd ever forgive anyone for condemning you to pain like that."
"Because," Lucifer says, setting his own food aside and closing the distance between them on the couch, "you were ordered. End of the day, you chose Father's edicts but so did Azrael and I adore her."
"I'm not a cute little manic pixie dream angel."
Lucifer snorts at the image. "No, I imagine your partner, Miss Lopez, fills out that requirement far better, minus the angelic nature."
"There is definitely something Freudian in that," Michael huffs, blushing just a hint.
"But I didn't know you suffered the lake of fire too via our bond. Michael, for all our arguments over the millennia, you should have said something."
"What would it have changed? What choices did we ever have?" He cups his nascent bump more tightly. "What chance do they?"
"Well, I'd rather like to think that even if it's a drop in the bucket to billions of years, we're going to try something different, be actual twins for once. You're right, once we win-and we will-because I'll call in every favor I have across all the planes I can think of."
Michael offers a small, half-smile. It stretches his scars, but it's somehow reassuring to see despite that. Lucifer can't help but sling his arm around his brother's shoulder. He's aware that if Michael were more himself and less exhausted, the goddess would never allow it, but it's been a long bloody day, and they're both rattled.
Michael nods to him. "Then, we should be golden, right?"
"And I do mean it. We shall serve as a better example for them finally. They deserve better. Miss Lopez's get would always deserve better."
Michael beams at that. "I hate every fucking thing about how this happened. Father's a psychopath."
"Yes, never was fond of Him," Lucifer replied drolly.
"And maybe we should have all joined you together then…" Michael rubs his right hip. "It would have saved so many things, so many of us. Uriel's dead but we're all a collective, scarred mess. Sam…He can't have them."
He nods, knowing full well who the "them" are. "And He won't. No matter what I have to do. He won't."
"Good, and we'll talk your me and Fear and apparently doing it in small doses plans later, but I'm…I'm worried."
"Oh about what? Pick a problem, Twin."
Michael rolls his eyes but relaxes, even is right shoulder going more slack as Lucifer plays a bit with his rat's nest of hair. Has Miss Lopez not explained hair brushes to him even now? The goddess groans and adds, "Amenadiel is being squirrelly. I'm worried that if Dad ever offered him divinity for Charlie to turn on us, to turn on the twins, then he would. You heard him. He doesn't regret anything more than the fact Charlie's completely mortal."
"He never would."
"Didn't he parole a human from Hell just to get around the no killing humans rule years ago? Do you really think that kind of ruthless dealing isn't still in him, especially if he gets even more disappointed with a son with no wings, no actual powers?"
"He did keep blathering on when Linda was pregnant about how excited he was for A-mini-diel, but he's been my ally for years. I…I can't see it."
Michael snorts at that. "And that's why you were never the General. That lack of planning and, well, discipline."
"Not part of the Lucifer brand," he says, chuckling. "What do you mean?"
"I know how a long game works. I know how to plan for contingencies down to plans D and E. Sam, we have to think about what we're going to tell Menny and how much. Because I don't trust this, trust that if it's between my kids and his, he'll pick helping me and the twins. I don't."
He pulls away and scoffs. "That's…I know that's not possible. He's been by my side in so many battles now. He saved Linda's life. He's my dearest brother."
Michael's face crumples at that, just a moment before he's back and stern in his expression, but it does. "Sure, but he has a kid now. Trust me. When you have one of your own, let alone by blood, that's the priority. If he wants to find a way to worm Charlie's way into angel-hood…he might be the weak link. I'm just warning you now."
"I'll talk to him. I just…he wouldn't."
"Mhm, and that kind of deliberate blindness, Sam, is why you lost the first time around." Michael shrugs, that shoulder stiff as always. "Don't take it the wrong way. I mean, I had a tantrum, got my ass kicked, and then lost my wings and my control. I've fucked up massively too, Brother. I just can't afford to if it means they…that Dad wins and brainwashes them into perfect, little soldiers. You can have faith. I can have suspicion. It's worked for me often before."
Lucifer sighs again, refusing to believe Menny would ever…
Instead, he reaches for the remote and turns up the episode. "Now, now, no more of that for the night. Nothing makes a glum day brighten like Bones."
"It is not that good a show."
Lucifer smirks. He can tell Michael likes this one because his twin bitched (no pun intended) non-stop about Castle after they finished Bones and started in on it. Lucifer doesn't know for sure, but he suspects that it has a lot to do with certain superficial similarities between Angela and a forensic scientist (well former) they both know and love dearly in different ways.
"Michael, may I try one thing?"
His twin quirks his head toward Lucifer, long hair falling into his eyes. "All right, I'll bite. What?"
"The reverb effect as you've dubbed it. Do you think it works with Desire as well?"
"Worked gangbusters with Fear," Michael says, miming the gimmee-gimmee motion with both hands. "Fine, have at it. Can't be as fucking toxic as Fear."
Lucifer nods, stares at his brother, and lets his power coalesce around him. It's not quite the level as when he accidentally made what Chloe later dubbed "desire zombies" that one time during the twin realtor murders, but it's the full thrust of his power, the amount he had to use the few times it even worked round the Silver City to get to Michael.
Equal and opposite, both their nature and their shared curse.
"Michael, what do you Desire?"
His twin doesn't fight it, and he isn't sure why. Soon enough, Michael looks him eye-to-eye and speaks plainly, "I want Lopez and her kids to be happy and safe, to be free of Father's bullshit and plans forever."
Lucifer feels it then, the ricochet that Michael must have felt with his own power downstairs. He can't fight it, even if it originated from himself, and he soon speaks as plainly, but the answer he gives is not the one he expects. Not at all:
"I want to be sure."
Michael frowns, brows knitting together in confusion. "About me? Because I'm not running a con this time. Believe me, getting knocked up or hurting Ella like this, getting her dragged into all this crap…I'd never."
"No," Lucifer says, feeling lightheaded from his own power thrumming through him and peeling open his own layers. "I…I meant that I want to be sure that I've changed. That I'm not the same Devil who came to Los Angeles, that I'm not a brutal, selfish bastard. Sometimes, Still Michael, I'm not sure."
The spell ends, and for the first time, Lucifer's at the end of his own Gift. He's not sure he likes it, or it is as fun for others as he always assumed. How strange. How, perhaps, offputting.
There's a strike against him, a throw pillow thunked hard into it face. Feathers explode everywhere and he grumbles at his brother.
"Have you any idea what that cost? It's not some trinket from Target, Twin."
"Michael, Lucifer. No 'Still' needed," his brother huffs.
There's a second pillow tossed to him which, now primed, Lucifer catches. Despite the price tag on the cushions around him, Lucifer grins ferally back at his brother. "You know, Michael, this means war, don't you?"
And after that, a restaging of the Rebellion begins. One with less swords and far more pillows…and explosions of feathers.
