In the Library (Nexus Open)

[the_rebel_son]

Lucifer had spent most of the evening in his private library reading and slowly drinking his way through several bottles of wine. No one was around, and then people started texting him. It was an interruption that he eventually relented to.

Laying on the chaise, book open on his chest he answered, but really would have preferred to go back to reading. Convenient as it was, some days he wanted to melt down the cellphone, PINpoint and everything else. Make people go back to in person, prayers, and handwritten letters.

Sighing he relented to more texts and less time reading.


Dorian, I lived as a human for a lifetime. It does not make me human, nor a mortal. You stopped being human the moment you became immortal. There is a difference between recognizing what you once were and clinging to it. I know this from personal experience. I was born an angel of heaven but I am no longer, nor will I ever be one again. The moment I was cast out that changed forever. Madness and self-defeat lay on the path that looks forever back on what you were.

[Lucifer was painfully aware of this, for himself, and quite a number of angels who tried to cling to heaven. Some had broken free, tried to return, and either died in the void or were killed by God. It wasn't a good path.]

I would start by accepting that one of the key things that makes a human what they are is mortality, death, and the feelings that come with knowing life is limited. With the mortality gone, by definition it leaves you outside of being human.

(Continued from here)

Comments

[mayfairmonster]

Fine. Sometime other, then? [It is a little frustrating to have information dangled out there and then pulled back again, but he can understand not wanting to reveal something when it might not be well-received.]

It's a matter of perspective. Compared to most humans I'm ancient and seasoned, which you surely realize. [Which isn't him denying Lucifer's point, but it's difficult to let being dressed down like this stand without standing up for himself. He's listening and letting what the angel is saying sink in, but it's something that's bound to take time to take hold after so much time spent thinking of his life and immortality in very different terms.]

And if I'm a 'babe in arms', what does that make you, then? [His eyebrows rise, and a hint of something knowing creeps into his features.] Dad?

[The amount of restraint it takes to not call Lucifer something more suggestive in response to being regarded as something like a mentee or a son just now is not small.]

I've had more than a few unique living situations before. [But that doesn't change the fact that Lucifer's calling him family. The word sits oddly in his gut, but isn't unpleasant. It'll take some getting used to, given that the last of his actual family died in 1964.] But... thank you.

[the_rebel_son]

When you learn to keep the knives out of my wounds when you see them. [Lucifer was being serious about that. He was not going to expose himself to more pain for the benefit of someone with a track record of not listening.]

Yes, I realize you have surpassed being human. That was what started your irritation.[Lucifer sighed, eyes closing and opening slowly. He needed Dorian to understand what was in play.] Ancient is a meaningless word for me. I was ancient when the universe came into existence.

The Greeks did always accuse me of having a taste for young immortals. [Lucifer had caught on to what Dorian was avoid, smirking and just a little more aloof than usual.] Though, despite being nearly as young as you, I do not even permit Balthazar to call me Dad.

[Lucifer's control had returned and his words came calm again, placid.] I have seen all the living arrangements that have ever passed in my creation. Rarely is anything unique any longer. You are welcome.

[mayfairmonster]

All right. I'll make an effort on that end, then. [It is somewhat difficult when the tripwires sometimes feel like they're everywhere and there for his stumbling over, but it's a reasonable request for Lucifer to make.]

Then if we can't find a comparison there, perhaps you'll understand the desire to stand up for myself.

[That gets a small, libidinous smirk in turn.] No? Well, it wouldn't make sense if he did, anyway. Balthazar isn't the prince.

[Dorian has no idea what to do with the idea of being drawn gently into someone's family like this, so he'll let that comment sit for now with a small, acknowledging nod. It will take time to adjust to the idea of not being so completely isolated, but it isn't something that can't eventually happen, he's sure.]

[the_rebel_son]

[Dorian wasn't completely wrong about the tripwire but it wasn't by choice. Lucifer had endured so much hurt, torture, cursing, over billions of years. There was little about his life that wasn't constantly raw with pain. Still he is glad for the response.

Lucifer shook his head at Dorian's comment]

Stagnation is a poor way to stand up for the eternity you have to live.

[Lucifer's dominant and flirtatious side was coming out, as usual, when the banter turned sexual.] It does not make sense for you either. Is not your station in relation to me more of a concubine?

[mayfairmonster]

I've heard you. You want me to extend myself to capture the potential you think I have. To live up to what I need to become to keep from being cut down by something else like me, or more powerful than me. [In so many words.]

[He grins a little.] I'm just going with the word you chose first.

[the_rebel_son]

[Lucifer nodded an acknowledgement but left the topic to fall quiet.

Lucifer finally reached over and picked his wine glass back up, sipping from it while gazing at Dorian over the glass, so much like that first moment in Dorian's bedroom. The glass away from his lips and a coquettish smile appearing.]

No laws among the angels forbid a prince from being the king's concubine. Though, I would tread carefully. My King's taste runs not far from my own.