The Infernal Serpent

[There's something squirming and deeply uncomfortable about that idea. If he's not the thing he's always chosen to be, what is he? What might he end up being at some point in the future? If what Lucifer's saying is true, how could there be any way to control the way he exists in, and passes through the endless shifting and passing of the sands of time? To anchor himself in it somehow, in however brittle a fashion?]

I don't know what it would mean to not think of myself as human anymore, [he confesses, calmly. What he does know, though, is that the idea of someone else telling him or trying to impose a meaning he didn't decide for himself is something he doesn't like.

His reflexive response to being confronted in this personal way is to bristle defensively.]

Perhaps I'm just not a very warm, caring, or gentle person; Perhaps the 'brokenness' [a maudlin word in his eyes, and one that feels like it brings a small amount of bile to the back of his throat to say] is the natural result of what's been done to me, [he suggests, but even he knows the explanation is something of a deflection. It's such a natural response by now that he can't pull himself back from letting it go.]

And trust like that takes time. Shared experiences.