They bought new couch cushions.
Lucifer is making the most of them. He's found a comfy seat, and he's not leaving unless there's a fire. He's spent too long sleeping on top of the original cushions (stiff, lumpy, covered in dog hair) to not enjoy these. They've even replaced the ones that lie against the back of the couch. He can sink right into them.
He's bundled up in the heaviest blanket they have. It's not really necessary, since the apartment's heater was fixed a few days ago, but he misses huddling with his siblings for warmth, closeness excused by necessity. The blanket is an okay substitute, as is the now empty but still hot mug he has tucked against his chest.
Gabriel is somewhere on the edge of his awareness, giving himself away as he putters around the kitchen. ("I do not putter," he says, "I glide. I even sashay on occasion. I'm not an old woman tottering around, looking for her spatula.") Lucifer cozies himself down into the blanket and the soft cushion.
His eyes drift aimlessly around the apartment. If he wants to turn the TV on, he'll need to leave his bundle of heat and get the remote, so that's not going to happen. He should find something to distract himself with, though. It's not good to let his mind wander, because he knows exactly where it'll wander to and lock the door behind it. He shivers and clutches the mug closer. Maybe he should ask Gabriel for more. It'll keep him warm.
His eyes fall on a spider crawling its way into a corner of the ceiling. They have a few spiders. He's never seen that one before.
He watches it settle into place. The angle is just right for him to lay his head back and still see it perfectly.
It's still for a minute, and then, it begins its work. It lays out a long thread from end to end of the corner. It crawls back and forth, anchoring smaller threads to it.
Lucifer used to do this back when the world was still new. There were very few things that could calm him down, but taking a seat and watching a spider weave its web always worked. Though, they used to be much bigger back then. Not to him, really, the difference between a spider a few centimeters or a few feet wide was nothing to his true form, but he imagines that most humans might find those old beasts distressing. He misses them.
The spider is building the frame of its web. Very carefully, it glides through the threads it has already set up. It isn't a very large web, but it isn't a very large spider, so it must feel like the perfect home. Lucifer shifts his feet under his blanket to make sure they stay in the warmth.
Back and forth the spider goes once it has built the frame. It must connect each of the outside threads to the center, long spokes of the web that will keep it stable. Lucifer's eyes follow it. It's as relaxing as he remembers. Back and forth, back and forth, with only the pause of the spider checking that the threads are stable, and then back and forth again for another spoke.
He finds that his breathing has fallen into rhythm with the spider's motions. It's created the outline of its web. Now it needs to fill the space to strengthen it. A spiral outwards from the center that Lucifer is compelled to watch. It begins. One small loop. A larger one. They grow as the spider works its way outwards.
"Are you spacing out?" Gabriel calls from across the room. It's a casual check-in, but as always, Lucifer can hear the underlying concern. If he had, Gabriel would have to be the one to try and pull him back to reality. Lucifer calls back to assuage his concerns.
"I'm fine, Gabriel." He doesn't feel at risk of forgetting where he is or seeing things that aren't there. His mind is fully occupied by the web and the spider weaving it. It keeps spiraling out further from the center. He keeps his eyes on its progress. He inhales slowly as the spiral begins and exhales as the spider makes a full loop.
He hears his brother walk across the apartment to him. Gabriel leans against the wall behind the couch, following Lucifer's gaze. "Huh, that's a pretty one. You think he came in from the cold?" Lucifer looks at Gabriel, trying to put together an answer. His eyes drift back towards the web before he can. "He probably crawled under the window. Lucky he picked our place and not somewhere else. None of us will knock him out of his web." Lucifer nods. Gabriel's voice is very soothing, a familiar pitter-patter of words like light rainfall against the walls of the apartment.
The spider has finished its initial journey. It rests again. It still needs to lay the sticky capturing thread down before it can fully relax.
"You're sure you're okay? You seem out of it." Lucifer hums a reply. He's waiting for the spider to begin again. He has to watch. He needs to. He's transfixed.
Gabriel lets him sit in silence, observing his brother.
"I wish Michael was here to see this," he finally says. "You got yourself all tangled up in a web again. I can't even remember the last time you did that." Lucifer feels Gabriel's fingers drifting through his hair. Accepting the touch comes easily like this. He is so relaxed. He is so safe. "Hand me your mug. You don't want to drop it. Any loud noise and you'll snap right out of this." Without thinking, Lucifer hands it up to Gabriel. It isn't much of a loss. It cooled significantly as he held it, and besides, he's perfectly warm all on his own.
Gabriel leaves his side to take care of the mug. The spider begins the next stage of its weaving. It has spiraled out, and now it must spiral back in, armed with thread meant to catch and hold its unsuspecting prey. It's just in time, too. Lucifer's thoughts were beginning to wake up again, and as the spider starts, he sinks away from them. His eyes follow it around and around and around.
Gabriel's back. He has his hand in Lucifer's hair again. "You always did love pretty things. Including yourself." The new threads shimmer, more prominent than the others in the web. "Get as comfortable as you can. You're caught tight. There's no point in fighting it." There's no point. Lucifer couldn't look away if he wanted to. "Each time he goes round, he's making that loop a little bit smaller, and there's a little less room in your head for thinking. Look, there he goes, another circle." There are still stray thoughts that cross Lucifer's mind, but they're few and far between. Mostly, he's made of empty bliss. "And you know what happens when he gets to the last one?"
Lucifer hums. It isn't really a question. It isn't even really an acknowledgment. He's not sure what it is, except that he knows Gabriel would want to hear him. As a reward, Gabriel keeps petting his hair. "When there's nowhere left in the web for more thread, there's nowhere left inside you for thinking. Won't that feel good?"
The spider makes another loop. There's only a few strands left to complete. Lucifer tries to think of a response for Gabriel, but it slips out, doesn't fit, there's just not enough room inside his head. He's better off not thinking. He tilts his head against Gabriel's hand instead, inviting more of his attention.
"Almost through," his brother murmurs, as Lucifer's eyes follow the final spirals of thread. "Five, four, three," the last of Lucifer's thoughts are pushed out, "two, one," and Lucifer is gone. He's a shimmer of spider silk, the waver of a web, but he's not a person. He might be an angel, tangled up in the Host, bound by the constant ebb and flow of his siblings' love. It is very quiet here compared to Heaven, but he still has one brother left to speak to him.
"I didn't think that would work so well," Gabriel muses. "You've been so twitchy about feeling like you're in control of everything, but you melt the minute a spider spins in front of you. You and Michael are exactly the same, stubborn subby assholes." Lucifer has zero clue what his words mean, but they're said gently, with maybe a hint of teasing, and that's all that matters.
"You stay right here and focus on how deep you're breathing. I want you to be just as deep as you were when I left." His hand leaves Lucifer's hair, and Lucifer makes a noise. "I need to check the oven timer, that's-" Lucifer calls for him again. He doesn't want to be alone. He'll get cold. Gabriel clicks his tongue. "Fuck it. It's your fault if dinner's crispy. You'll eat it and like it." Lucifer nods obediently.
There's a buzz that draws his eyes back to the web. A hapless fly, circling near, drawn in by the shining threads. It gets too close, a wing catching the web. Soon, all of it is tangled up. Gabriel chuckles.
"Look. It's you." He moves around Lucifer, kneeling in front of him. "Eyes up. Keep watching." The spider dips down its web as quick as lightning (or as Raphael when someone tries to steal food off their plate.) It catches the struggling fly with one leg, drawing it in close. There is no escape anymore. "Is he taking it back up to the center of the web?" Lucifer nods. The spider returns as quickly as it went, prey held tightly by its pedipalps.
"Good. That's where you are. Right at the center of the web." Gabriel reaches for Lucifer's blanket, but when he begins to pull it free, Lucifer whines. He's warm underneath. He doesn't want to give it up. "Hey, calm down. Where are you?"
"The center of the web," Lucifer murmurs. Gabriel pets over his blanket-clad thigh.
"The spider's caught you?"
"Yes," he responds. The spider turns at the center, prey still held firmly.
"He's going to start wrapping you up," Gabriel continues as Lucifer watches the spider do just that to the fly it's caught. "Bundling you up tight in his silk. Turning you over and wrapping you up more and more. You won't be able to move." It's hard to see from so far away, and Lucifer's eyes aren't that good, but he's seen the process so many times that it isn't difficult for his mind to make up the lacking details. The gentle handling of the prey as it's turned over and over, coated in silk, squirming and struggling like it doesn't understand that its fate has already been decided. Lucifer understands. He doesn't fight. "You can't move now?"
Lucifer can't nod. Gabriel doesn't get an answer and after a moment, he laughs. "Fair enough." He smooths his hand down Lucifer's leg again. "You're trapped, but you're warm." He laughs again. "Not sure the fly would agree, but you? You're very comfortable."
This time when he goes to pull Lucifer's blanket back, Lucifer doesn't protest. He's still bundled up in his mind. Gabriel strokes his thighs and drags his sweatpants down enough to get at his boxers. He works Lucifer's cock out through the hole at the front. Gabriel wastes no time in spitting on the head and then swallowing it down.
Even paralyzed, sounds escape Lucifer's throat. He's watching the spider keep wrapping its prey up, watching the web sway slightly and glitter overhead. He can hear Gabriel's messy slurping and feel him sucking his cock.
There is nothing Lucifer can do but enjoy it. Gabriel takes him at his pace, since Lucifer can't even thrust into his mouth or touch his head.
Gabriel is messy. He gets the front of Lucifer's boxers soaked with spit as he slides down his cock. Lucifer has no argument against it when it feels so good.
Gabriel pulls off when he's close enough to feel it, right at the edge. He circles the head of Lucifer's cock with his tongue to keep him there, and then asks, "What's he do next, Lucifer? He's got his prey, he's wrapped you up, and now what?"
Lucifer knows as well as Gabriel does. He can't answer, so his brother does for him.
"He bites," Gabriel says, and then his mouth lowers to Lucifer's thigh. He finds a soft spot and bites down through the fabric of his boxers. The pain races up through Lucifer's sleepy senses, not pulling him out of his trance but enhancing it. Gabriel's teeth are hard against the meat of his thigh, and another wave of pain has Lucifer coming. From the noise Gabriel makes, Lucifer accidentally came in his hair, but that's not his fault. He has no control over anything right now, after all. Not even the smile he has to bite back.
He relaxes as Gabriel grumbles. "Spider roleplay is officially over. I just washed my hair." He still makes sure to tuck Lucifer away and wrap him back up in his blankets, so that he won't get cold as he rises out of his trance. "You are free to move." Lucifer exercises his new freedom by getting a look at Gabriel and his come-stained hair. He glowers up at Lucifer. Lucifer grins back.
"You did-" He clears his throat. It's going to take a minute to get used to speaking again. "You did stick you head next to my cock."
"I should have told you you couldn't come," Gabriel mutters. "Or-" He sniffs the air. Lucifer does too.
Something is burning.
"Shit!" Gabriel leaps to his feet. Lucifer does not. He's still very comfy, and just because he's smelled smoke doesn't mean there's a fire yet.
The spider has caught itself a nice dinner, at least, even if the four of them are looking at a charred disaster or ordering pizza again. Lucifer hopes it becomes a permanent fixture of their living room.