Title: nature vs nurture
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: spoilers for season 5
Pairings: none stated
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 275
Point of view: third
Prompt: Lucifer/Michael, after all of the long years, he's still too proud to ask for forgiveness
"I did nothing wrong," he says every time they meet, from the Garden onward. "I did nothing wrong, and I shall not repent. I am blameless in this."
"And what of all that happened next?" Michael asks, each time. The same lines, nothing new, millennia after millennia.
Lucifer shrugs, eyes gazing past Michael to the Earth, to the kingdom he claimed when a serpent twined around Eve. "Your father gave them free will, brother. I offered them a choice."
"He was your father, too, upon a time," Michael says.
"Yes," Lucifer agrees. "Upon a time."
And now here they are, wreathed in brothers, angry and hurting and knowing that the time has finally come.
"Will you repent?" Michael asks.
Lucifer's humanflesh is ripped and torn, blood seeping out. Michael's wings are arched, dripping bile from a thousand demon corpses.
"I did nothing wrong," Lucifer whispers. "Not then and not now," he continues, voice getting stronger with every word. "I was right—they are not worthy of our adoration. They are weak, and flawed, and look at what they have done to their glorious Garden!" He glares up at Michael, and where any other angel would have swung with God's Sword, Michael pauses.
"You are in Sam Winchester," Michael asks, "and still you say that?"
Millennia pass in a handspan of human heartbeats, and Michael lowers God's Sword. "Upon a time," he says, "we flew the cosmos together."
Lucifer nods. "Those were good days."
"For the wrath and the pride, I forgive you," Michael tells him. "Will you come home with me?"
Lucifer strikes, and Michael dodges, and they will never fly the cosmos again.