The devil is on Cain's doorstep.
He's imagined this meeting happening a thousand different times in a thousand years. None of which looked like this. The screen door is a sheer barrier between the angel that unmade him and his last refuge. Lucifer doesn't open it and let himself in. He lingers on the threshold like a vampire, not one from the real world, the kind Cain has met and had meals with and killed, but one from a romantic myth, gentle-voiced and waiting for an invitation. He looks Cain over, one slow sweep up and down, like he's surprised this is the body Cain remains in.
He never tried to take another. It was a fitting casket for a damned soul. The curse he carried could not be tricked into being left behind.
"Can I come in?" Lucifer asks. He looks tired.
That may just be what immortality does.
Cain stays silent, one hand on the door handle. He has a stew coming to a boil in the kitchen. He has a fire to feed in the living room. The wind outside rattles the screen door but doesn't dislodge it. Lucifer has melting snow in his hair and collar, like he walked all the way here.
"How did you find me?" Cain questions, needlessly. In answer, Lucifer lifts his own arm and touches exactly where the Mark scars Cain. He leaves his fingers there, his eyes not dropping from Cain's face.
They are not Lucifer's eyes. It is not Lucifer's face. In Abel's voice, Lucifer told him that his brother was screaming for Cain to put the jawbone down, and that he would spare him hearing that but only if he struck quickly. It had never seemed like mercy, only a way to keep Cain from saying goodbye. He left Cain alone with a body already going cold and Hell to pay.
Cain's fingers tighten on the doorknob. He has never tried to kill an archangel.
Lucifer tilts his head. "Something's burning," he says. His eyes leave Cain's for only a moment to look at the home behind him, and then they're fixed on his again. Neither of them need to blink. Cain can smell the acrid warning coming from the kitchen as well as Lucifer can. With one movement, he shoves the screen door open an inch and turns his back on Lucifer to go back to his pot. He sees the tips of Lucifer's fingers curl around the side of the door, and that's all.
He grew up eating pomegranates and apples and lamb. It seems too recent that he learned to cook with corn and potatoes. He reserves no chopping board for meat in his kitchen.
The stew is piping hot. He flavors it to the dulled pleasures of a demon, too strong for most humans to handle. Colette used to-
He ladles the stew into a bowl for himself. All of her is his alone to know.
He doesn't bring Lucifer a bowl.
The devil sits on his sofa comfortably, watching the snow fall outside. His shoulders are damp with it. He hasn't bothered to dry them with whatever power he has. He looks up at Cain's approach, down at the bowl, and then frowns, as though he expected to be treated like a guest. Cain ignores him. He sets his bowl down to poke at the logs in the fireplace, crackling with heat, laced through with veins of burning wood. The flame-light dances across the living room, more wild than the electric lights but just as well contained.
"Are you going to tell me why you're here?" he asks Lucifer. He takes his time the same as the devil does, waiting, but someone has to make the first move and Lucifer seems content to watch him eat.
"Atonement," Lucifer answers. Cain sets down his bowl and wipes his mouth.
"No." Lucifer frowns.
"Not forgiveness." He repeats, "Atonement."
"And I said no."
"You don't know what I'm offering to do." Cain drinks. The stew burns the roof of his mouth, and it heals, and it burns, and it heals.
"We've made one deal. That was enough for me. I will never escape it." For the first time, Lucifer can't look him in the eye. His gaze drops to Cain's arm and remains there. It feels like having his skin peeled off to reveal what's beneath. Cain bears it with a clenched jaw. The Mark growls against his bones like a hibernating bear, glutted, but at any moment, ready to wake hungry for more blood.
"I can't give you your brother back," Lucifer says, apologetic, like he understands the loss. He never sounded anything like that the first time they met. Absently, his hand rises to his chest, fingers sweeping across his heart and then falling to a tight fist in his lap.
The devil is good at appearing like a broken man.
"I don't want my brother back," Cain tells him. There's another thing that surprises Lucifer; Cain can see it in his eyes. All angels are poor liars. They don't have a demon's intuition when it comes to handling meat. Cain doesn't owe him an explanation, but he has no one else to tell. No one who would understand what he means. If nothing else, they share the same curse. "I'm not the man I was when I picked up the blade. I'm the monster I became when I chose to wield it after. I wouldn't want my brother to see me now, and I wouldn't want to know what I made him when I cut my love out of him." Souls in Hell are torn apart. Souls on Earth linger and decay. Cain never thinks about souls in Heaven because he's not sure they have it any better.
"What about her?" Lucifer asks. He tips his head towards Colette's picture. Cain sets his bowl down loudly enough for the sound to echo. A few drops spill. There are no cracks in it. He doesn't let that happen.
"If you talk about her again, I-" Lucifer nods. Cain falls silent before he finishes the threat. That feels like mercy. He's not sure whose. "What are you here for if all you do is tell me what's impossible to have?" A half-empty bowl lies on the table between them. The wind howls. The fire draws shadows in the folds of Lucifer's clothing like wounds.
"I came to take it back."
Cain stares at him a minute, then bows his head and finishes his stew.
"The cost?"
"None," Lucifer answers, then frowns, "that I know of. I can't guarantee you would survive the exchange, if I uproot every tendril of it from your veins." Cain's expression asks plainly if Lucifer thinks this is something that would matter to him. Lucifer's answers with understanding. "It was meant to be my curse."
"And if you take it, it will devour you the same way it did me." It's not a question. It's a fact. Cain has lived with the Mark longer than a hundred repeats of his life without put together. He knows it. He has heard the scratching behind the door that only death silences, for heartbeats of time.
"That isn't your problem."
"You made it my problem." A rise to his voice he hasn't allowed in a century or more. Lucifer is unfazed. Anyone else who knew what he was would be begging by now.
"I'm sorry." The bowl is empty. Cain breathes out heavily through his nose.
"It isn't enough."
"I know," Lucifer says. He looks towards the fire. It doesn't reflect in his eyes. They are too bright from within. "I know," he repeats, softer.
"Why now?" Cain asks. He doesn't wait for an answer before going back into the kitchen and leaving his bowl in the sink. Lucifer stands to follow him. He inches too close to the unwashed dishes, staring at them like their presence irritates him. Cain is off-put for the first time by his behavior, by the devil standing over his sink like his hands are itching to reach in and scrape the crud off the silverware and douse the ceramics in dish soap. Lucifer finally looks at him again.
"Because I'm here."
"You have something good, and you want to ruin it." He makes an archangel flinch.
"No," he lies, "I want to fix what I broke." He leans against Cain's counter.
"If you love them, you'll leave," Cain says. Colette is watching them from the other room, forever frozen in a memory. "Let me be. The damage is done."
He doesn't want Lucifer to be happy. It's not something he deserves.
He steps out of the way of the kitchen door. Lucifer doesn't move. He won't leave.
Cain knew he wouldn't.
Bearers of the same curse and all.
"Give me the Mark, Cain," Lucifer says. Cain rolls up his sleeve. He does it slowly, dragged inch by dragged inch of fabric, until the sharp slice of the scar shows itself. Lucifer looks at it like an old friend with a gun to his head. Cain extends his arm.
Lucifer's palm is cold where he wraps it over Cain's arm. He covers the whole of the Mark with one hand. It wakes up suddenly, furious as it is cut out like a cancer. Cain can feel it fight Lucifer as he brings it back into himself. Lucifer makes a pained noise in the back of his throat, his grip on Cain's arm tightening. He shakes. Cain feels nothing, no pain, no relief. There's an empty hollow in his being that once soaked the ground with poison. Nothing will ever grow there, but the ring of dead grass won't grow wider. Lucifer lets go of Cain.
The Mark is gone, scar and whispering and urges and all.
The Mark of Cain no longer belongs to Cain.
Lucifer bears it on his own body's arm now, and deeper, where it will begin to rot him from the inside. It's an angry, throbbing red now like an infection. Cain spent all that time lulling it to sleep and now… Now, it's not his problem.
Lucifer breathes heavily.
Cain crosses him, their shoulders barely brushing. The stew is still warm as he ladles another bowl and brings it to Lucifer. Lucifer cups his hands around it like it will bring him any comfort. Cain stares at him.
"I hope you never know peace," Cain tells him. Lucifer shuts his eyes in acceptance.