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

[the_rebel_son]

[Lucifer's brow cocked up, brow furrowing as he sighed.] Physically you have already changed.

[Lucifer's gaze finally comes back to Dorian sitting in the chair. His eyes are critical but also unfocused because he's lost in internal thought.]

Perhaps, but I often think it is the willingness to change and walk into the unknown that most lack, not the ability to seize their potential.

[It wasn't that Lucifer himself had no limitations, there were still rules that governed him, but there was never a sense that anything was outside of his grasp or ability. He could always make things work over time.]

That never hurts. [Lucifer sips his wine trying to think of how to explain his existence, what he did, and more importantly how he managed to be this way with incredibly powerful enemies bearing down on him constantly.]

There is finesse that must be learned. Being immortal is like playing chess, but the objectives are different. You are not trying to destroy the other army. You are trying to change it to your color so it turns on the others for you. It takes time to build the skills and resources to keep track of everyone you need to watch.

[Lucifer grinned, devious, and malicious.] For example, there is a high probability that, through my taunting and inciting his rebellion, Michael will turn on God for me. I have not been in heaven for billions of years, but my presence still influences how it works.

[mayfairmonster]

In what sense do you figure that? Because I can't die? [Does he not still have a human body and all of its component parts? The immortality is an aspect of his Lucifer's magic, surely.]

[Dorian considers that, leaning his chin more heavily into the back of his hand as he does.]

There's a way that our circumstances differ here, Lucifer. You're a king waging an extended war with all of your people and children along for the ride towards the inevitable end to it all. [There are other obvious differences too, but this one does stand out to him.] I've always been more free when I've been able to keep to myself and live anonymously. I've made it a point not to surround myself with too many people or allies. Every man on my side or turned to my colors on my behalf is a beacon pointing out where and who I am to those people interested in something about me to satisfy their own ends.

I don't shy away from dealing with threats, but for practical reasons I've learned not to attract more attention than suits my wants.

[Most of what he wants at this point is to live his life in the way he wants, and to have as many opportunities to strike back at his Lucifer as possible.]

[the_rebel_son]

Your immortality, ability to heal, and I suspect, as other immortals learn over time your perception of the senses has changed."

[Lucifer had been able to prevent anything too obviously disrespectful, but the eye roll and laugh that come with his next comments are unavoidable. Though, to be honest, the laughter is more remembering that he had to explain something similar to Balthazar at one point.]

Different how, Prince? [The title came out with a smirk, but he was trying to wake the other immortal up.] Or, have you forgotten you lay in the bed of a princess because we do not use titles enough?

[The next comment Lucifer sighs and gives the other immortal a look that is both disappointed and a little disgusted.] You believe that hiding, having no friends, no allies, and isolating yourself is Freedom? You may want to go downstairs to the unabridged dictionary and read. It is ok, I will wait.

Wait? You strip your life down to near nothing, but you wish me to believe you are not shying away from threats. Have you ever listened to yourself talk about this, because you sound like a fool.

[mayfairmonster]

Those things are an aspect of a curse in my case. Nothing about my body itself makes those things happen, [he corrects, neutrally.

And then his stare hardens.]

I'm living my life the way that works for me. You've only known me so long, Lucifer. However much experience you have, or in whatever ways you see me as being similar to immortals you've seen in the past, you don't know what I've been through, how my life works on a daily basis, or the things I've lost along the way over the years.

I do what's necessary to protect me and mine. I could spend all of my time hunting down threats, turning people to my side to fight them for me, or chasing whatever little problems may blossom into real threats sometime in the future. If I did, that would be everything I spent my time on. The world always has something interested in a being like you, or a person like me. Constantly trying to anticipate them isn't how I want to live the life I've been given.

[the_rebel_son]

You are splitting hairs, Dorian. Whether it is genetics or a curse, the way your body behaves is no longer human. A case could be made for immortality changing the mind from mortal and human once it expands passed a normal lifetime, as well.

[Lucifer meets his hardness with intense neutrality, and a sorrowful sigh.]

But, it is not working for you, is is? [He wishes he could feel more compassionate but the defiance and denial aggravates.] You are, from all I can tell, a hedonist.. afraid to reinvent yourself, who braces themselves in discomfort with a lover, who spends all thier time with someone yet, I have not heard one expression of affection. Something is broken Dorian. You can say it works but your behavior does not agree.

Me and Mine? Do not be so blind to ignore that my own interests are now woven into that statement. It is one of the reasons I continue to speak with you, even when you are impetuous, rude, and mean to me.

[He had been speaking quietly, calmly, and somehow that only deepened.]

That is one of the reasons immortals find thier own that they can trust. It means fewer things for everyone to watch, and fewer which will attempt to disrupt.

[mayfairmonster]

[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.

[the_rebel_son]

[Lucifer nodded, compassionate. ] It is not an easy task. I have never had anyone to guide me, always have been the first. It is difficult, but not impossible.

[However, the next sentences are like a switch has flipped. There is fire in his eyes, though not literal yet.]

Have you forgotten who you are speaking to, Dorian Gray?

It is a choice to remain broken. Nothing done to someone forces them to leave the shards at thier feet to step upon and rend flesh.

[Lucifer's voice dropped, low and just a hint of aggression.]

You do not know if we have shared experiences because you do not share and have not cared to ask what I may have endured.

[mayfairmonster]

[Dorian allows the silence to spiral between for a moment as he turns the idea over in his head. Where would he even start with a change in perspective like that?]

The only things I've met that were immortal but inhuman were something else-- like a demon, an angel, or a god. There's no map for taking the first steps forward.

[That question brings the crease back to the immortal's brow. People can choose to remove the shards of glass from their feet, but he's seen the stains and gashes his actions have left on his soul. They exist and, as long as the portrait still does, always will.]

But aren't you scarred by some of the things you've experienced? Has it not left a mark? Changed you?

[Dorian shakes his head.]

I mean that in the sense of time spent together. Obstacles overcome. [Kind of like what they're doing right now.]

[the_rebel_son]

[Lucifer allows the silence to hang because thought is required for the conversation they are having.] No, I can say there is no map for the first to step outside of boundries, but there are ways to proceed that nurture growth and others that grow stagnation.

[The angel is quiet, gathering himself in contemplation before he speaks. It is a low but determined and strong voice that answers.] Yes, I am scarred. They have cut whole portions from my being. There are marks but they are what encourage me to push forward, not weights that drag me down. Those who would challenge me can see them, and know they will find no surrender in my presence.

[Lucifer sighed at Dorian's comment.] Trials and time do nothing if you do not know the person who passes them with you. Friendship and trust take more than actions.

[mayfairmonster]

So. Am I align myself with divine things, then? Refrain from explaining my experience in any human terms anymore? [The way Lucifer does?]

You're a rebel. Every mark that's on your skin is something to propel you forward to your grander purpose. [There isn't a drop of sarcasm in Dorian's tone. The more he's learned of Lucifer's story, the more he's come to see the strength and beauty inherent to it: how the angel is the crucible in which all of the possibilities for his world come together and are eventually poured out in whatever new shape they'll come to take at the angel's hands.] The life I've lived isn't like that. People can't see my scars. They've always ever been mine to bear, and mine alone. Each new one is a weight on my soul I can't shrug off. [Because the portrait won't let him. Every new gash will forever be there before his eyes whenever he visits the canvas in his attic.

A beat.]

You'd want to know more about me, then?

[the_rebel_son]

Do you believe you are God-like? [Lucifer is curious. Divine wasn't the only way to exist as an immortal, though it was probably the most common.] I was once a Celestial angel, and would have described my experience in that way. Now, I am Fallen. The views I have of the time before the Fall can no longer be in Celestial terms. The person describing them has changed.

So few of my scars are visible on my skin. Nearly all of them are unseen, especially the wounds that do not scar, nor heal. [Lucifer's lips pressed thin.] No, people do not know your scars because you hide them like most conceal their shame. However, they might as well be your sandwich board sign for how they are visible in your behavior.

[Lucifer stared at him like he was stupid.] If you were not such a closed off bastard who believes he is an island surrounded by nothing but things out to get him you might have seen that weeks ago.

[mayfairmonster]

There isn't a word for what I am. [It's not intended as a boast (although that may be impossible, given who the comment is coming from).] Plenty of people have traded their souls in exchange for immortality, but what does that make someone? [Is there a word for an immortal without a soul? If he has to get entirely technical, only a demon of some sort seems to come close-- and he knows he isn't that.]

[Despite himself, that earns a short, hollow chuckle.] The things that happened to me affected me. Taught me lessons. I can become something new around those wounds, but I can't change that they happened.

[Dorian tips his head, frowning. There's a defensive response forming in the back of his throat, but Dorian bites it back, sighing.] I'd think you would understand what it is to open yourself up to people when you've done the same to so many, only for it to end badly.

[the_rebel_son]

Athánatos ánthropos. [Lucifer answers without missing a beat.] The Greeks have words for it.

You keep saying that to me as if you have endured so much. You sound like a self centered toddler spouting that repeatedly at someone who has spent billions of years being tortured and cursed. [Lucifer frowned.] From all I see you did not become something around them, you have only become controlled by their damage.

[Lucifer openly laughed because the comment was too absurd to allow to pass.] Do I appear closed off to you Dorian? With that comment I can only imagine you have learned nothing about my presence. If I allow my wounds to close me off, imprison me, the one who wounded me would get his way.

[mayfairmonster]

What does that mean? [His Greek isn’t as good as some of the other languages he has under his belt.]

[Considering how he’s spent the last year, Lucifer isn’t entirely wrong about that. He can admit it to a certain degree, but it does sting. Dorian drops his head as those words sink in, bringing a hand up to push his dark curls out of his face in a self-soothing gesture. His face falls slightly, as his thoughts go to one very specific, very recent source of trauma.] Because there’s no way to undo what’s been done. And that was [he was] —I lost everything.

I’ve lost plenty of people before but never— not like this.

[It’s not another deflection. It’s a real, deep-seated, and raw pain that surfaces now in his words and around the edges of his expression.]

Now? No. But you can’t deny that you act as it suits you depending on who you’re talking to, or the reaction you’re looking for. There is distance in that.

[the_rebel_son]

It is the Greek term for a mortal who has been granted immortality by a spirit or god. The closest literal translation is immortal mortal.

[Lucifer shook his head.] You do not even acknowledge nor, perhaps know, what I have lost.

No, torture cannot be undone, but wallowing in it as if it is perfume instead of shit only adds to the problem. As far as I can tell you would rather continue to wallow for the sake of complaining instead of standing up and moving forward.

[Lucifer's expression has turned flat, but he isn't about to give an inch.] Before too. I have only pushed back when you have treated me as a child that has endured less than you or insulted me directly. If anything has kept you at arms length it is your own behavior. You probably would have had me in your bed sooner if your reaction to me drinking in your bedroom was not to bristle and insult me.

[As Lucifer spoke seriousness welled up in his tone. He would not bear the weight of Dorian's behavior.

[mayfairmonster]

[The hurt in Dorian's face shifts back to something harder again at that, and he picks his head up.]

Why do you keep assuming that we're the same? We aren't. However many similarities there may be between us, we've still led fundamentally different, individual lives and responded to them differently.

[The suggestion that he might be behaving childishly doesn't anger Dorian as much as the refusal to take a conciliatory step.]

Of course. You couldn't have any fault in any of this. I should have known.

[the_rebel_son]

[Lucifer sighs heavily at the hardness and sits up crossing his legs on the chaise. The wine glass he hasn't been drinking from gets set aside because he didn't need it.]

There are many reasons we are more similar than you think. So many you would deflect, but there is one... [Sorrow wells up in Lucifer's eyes with an intensity that his gaze drops into his lap, even his wings sag toward the ground in the pause.]

Most creations call me the Father of Mankind, but in my own....it is not merely words. Cain, the first born human, was my son and, his mother, my wife even if God gave her to another. Humanity is born from my blood. They are a mirror of what I am.

[Lucifer sighed and with it came sorrow with such weight it is tangible in the air but he forced himself to meet Dorian's gaze.] You know so little of me, dig in knives you do not even realize you are holding, and expect me to be unaffected.

[He blinked slowly, sighing.] Do you always behave in this way toward those who would see relief to your suffering?

[mayfairmonster]

[He's not unsympathetic to Lucifer's pain. Some of the frustration and confusion in his face relaxes at the sight.

But what he's hearing still confuses him. And after opening up a deeply vulnerable place in him and it not going well, he's feeling raw and frustrated.]

That's your truth, Lucifer. That doesn't make it the truth I perceive. We can't make claims on each other's lived experiences like that, however they may feel.

For what it's worth, though... I am sorry about your son.

[(Bizarrely, the response that wants to bubble up first after that comment is to tell Lucifer that he isn't his father.)]

When they won't admit that they may have made mistakes in all of this, too, yes.

[the_rebel_son]

You have not understood what I meant, but for the moment that is not important. [Lucifer sighed again to vent his emotions and keep them under control.]

Why are you so afraid of someone understanding, possibly even living, what you have? You are so adamant about it that you get angry everytime I try to explain why I can sympathize and understand your life. It is so extreme that you would rather tell me I am wrong than ask what I have endured that might give me understanding.

[Lucifer gave Dorian a pointed look, verging on aggressive.] I have admitted what I have and have not done directly to your face but you do not hear me. You seem to prefer to be offended than to realize I have accepted you into my own family. I would not waste my time speaking to someone so arrogant and insulting if I did not find them worth my time.

[mayfairmonster]

Isn't it important? Why not explain?

[Part of the answer to that question probably isn't one that Lucifer is going to want to hear. If other people share his experiences, it makes them less unique. And he's been unique for so long on Earth that it's become a core part of his identity.]

Couldn't I ask the same about why you want to insist that we are the same? I don't deny that some of our experiences overlap, but--

I've never met anyone like me, and neither has any of the people I've met-- until I met you.

[He caught small inklings of what Lucifer's saying now earlier, but having it spelled out so directly is a little surprising.]

--into your family?

[the_rebel_son]

It is very important. [Lucifer shrugged.] However, your behavior is exhaustingly juvenile and the subject is too personal to endure your constant jabbing for the moment.

[Lucifer had a completely different perspective on uniqueness. Perhaps it was age. Billions, perhaps trillions of lives had passed creation in the time he had existed, commonality was a given, though exact duplication was not. Shared experience did not threaten Lucifer's sense of individuality. The questions brought some wry amusement to Lucifer.]

Someone has to pull off your blinders to see what exists beyond the few years you have lived. It seems you think your life has been long, but for an immortal you are still a babe in arms. If you do not learn to exist as an immortal you will not survive. [Lucifer frowned.] Unfortunate as it may be, most immortals are not as kind or forgiving as the angels in my family, and they will expect you to know how to act. You still have a lot to learn.

[The incredulous, what are you stupid? look returned to Lucifer's expression.] You live in my home with my daughter, and have shared my bed, even by human terms that should have been enough to understand.

[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.