16251/The cold hard light

The cold hard light
Date of Scene:	08 May 2024
Location:	Central Park, Manhattan
Synopsis:	Lucifer discovered what Sin burned. Some things resonate.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Lucifer

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Sinister has posed:
This time of year in NYC is always slightly bipolar, but the population has known that since the first colonists settled the East river area. The lawns at this time of year are getting that fresh promise of greenery of new growth after the blistering shadow of winter has passed by. The month of April also loves to make it damp.

Daffodils pop up in the few beds cultured around the lawns. Tulips. The beginnings of lilac in some areas. The Strawberry fields...

And the zoo is always interesting in spring. Breeding programs continue, on those species that require a little extra help to potentially survive. There's early fundraisers at this time of year, to try and get extra funding for next year.

And of course, there's the homeless encampents, Hooverville as it got called at one point, spots sheltered and tending to be moved around from time to time, because the municipalities want the unsightliness of the down and out, to be out of sight.

Steel can bin fires still chase away the chill in those places, sheltered behind the trees. A park bench has a several large pepperoni pizzas set out for the locals and they keep an eye out for the man that's in the middle of all this.

Essex is staring at the low banked flames, his hands thrust deep into his pocket, austere, tall and silent as he regards the flickering consumption. The bed was cold last night, but it was for more than just he.

Lucifer has posed:
There is no real telling of where Lucifer settled for the night after events occurred. At one point he was in Lux, at another he was somewhere random in New York. Time is a different concept in his domain of Hell where he may have popped of to in order to drive out some of the anguish in his heart by torturing a few souls - and in some way in a needless fashion. Just a bit of extra oomph because he /could/.

From there, it's a matter of the Devil being present but jumping around place to place. Never really staying in one spot, never affording a stray thought. The Devil was on a mission to devour all the sin he could, all the greed, the lust, the pride...everything that he banks on to give him what HE desires from this miserable town. This pathetic world. There are a handful of good things...but it always comes with the bad. Always a price for what he wants. Always a consequence to his actions.

However, and perhaps finally, the Devil makes it back to Nathaniel's side. Well...not quite his side. Lucifer appears feet behind the stoic man and just pauses while watching him for a moment. Unsure on how to approach. How to apologize for the umpteenth time that his mind vetted a knee-jerk reaction to just LEAVE and DO as he wanted to escape the realities that had been offered to him. How does one apologize for such things...again. And trust that the person they likely should have ran TO was one of the ones they ran FROM...would accept the apology, and further them, with open arms..

There's silence, at least in the physical. The mental is an explosion of worry, of pain, anger, seething, broken trust....and the fact that he is, now, just behind the Doctor.

Sinister has posed:
"Get thee behind me..." Sin murmurs that, just loud enough to be audible in a deep, thick burr of a voice. "Dramatically apt, if rather meta..." he pulls something out of his pocket and tosses it in the flame, from which it jerks up and dances away, consumed by the heat into so much ash. Fleetingly, it was feather shaped, but very, very fleetingly. Such things overall are highly combustable dontchaknow.

"Hard to really know where to begin, I wager but..." he tilts his head, studying the flame again as it consumes and consumes. Only then a glance behind himself and back. "...I'm sorry for my part in that. Truly."

Hiss. Fizzle. The air smells a little like burned chicken.

Lucifer has posed:
"Well that populates some...odd memories..." Lucifer offers, his voice matching Nathaniel's own in volume. Loud enough to be heard, but only just. He tilts his head as he watches the other man toss something into the fire. As it burns and sizzles into ash and nothing more. The shape was interesting, but he's not really going to harp on that right now. If the man wants to burn a feather, let him do so.

While Nathaniel can't see it, Lucifer shrugs. "You always had your doubts. I really should learn to listen to them, and between the lines you offer when speaking. To find where your concerns lie and see if they are valid. In this instance, I latched onto a hope...a hope I never really knew I had or even needed. It took you doing what you did to open our eyes to the truth. So there's no need for you to be sorry, my dearest."

It's here he takes a few steps closer, but still a couple steps behind. Perhaps not wanting to push his luck. Plus, burnt chicken doesn't smell nice. "Would you believe me if I said that I am sorry I left you?"

Sinister has posed:
"I can't imagine that you'd lie at a time like this, not to mention it would be a tiny bit counterproductive," Sinister observes, leaning over the bin to stare at the contents a moment. Pointlessly, he blows on the low flames, as if that will make them do anything any faster. He looks to the side, where old food wrappers and bits of oil-soaked cardboard tend to get saved to be kindling and puts a greasy old donut box in, to be food for the unquenchable hunger of fire.

Meanwhile his right hand pulls out his cigarette tin, stares at it and proffers it with a click to open the spring. Dilligently and meticulously rolled 'filterless' cigarellos line one side, cloves the other.

"And I can still be sorry for a dogged determination to prove or disprove a thing." There is a pause as he ferries one of the roll-ups to his lips, lets it hang there. "I'm just a cynical old fart that tends to believe that things never -just- happen. And a few other things..." an old golf club with the club-end long broken off, is floated over and he leans forward to stir the ashes. Tiny golden sparks dance up... linger longer than such faeiries should and fade out to nothingness.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer finally steps up to Sinister's side as the man ferries a roll-up to his lips to hang, unlit. A hand shifted closer, a finger snap, and flame appears so the man can light that cigarette while Lucifer procures a clove for himself. "I cannot lie." He simply says, working from the first thing Nathaniel said and onwards. Watching as the donut box offered to the steel can is slowly engulfed by the low flame within. Once Nathaniel has lit his own roll-up, the hand moves to Lucifer can light his own clove and then the fire is gone.

"Your cynicism is often correct. You've lived enough life times and seen truths of the world that most won't dare to believe. You see the world for what it is and how it works, never gloifying anything. People could learn a lot from you if they took the time to sit down and think about things with such perspective." He offers this, taking a long drag off his clove before breathing smoke first out his nose and then lets the lingering past his lips. "And you can still be sorry. I can accept your apology. And I can make my own. It just..." He sinks a bit, in stature anyway. "I cannot believe I was so blind. So needy. That...doesn't feel like me and yet...it also does. If that makes any sort of sense." A pause. "What brings you here?"

Sinister has posed:
"I suppose I should correct myself there," leaning in to toke on the smoke, then back as the silver-grey and sweet tobacco joins the charcoal brickette awesomeness on the nostrils. "I trend toward the thought that happy accidents usually only happen when you were absolutely not trying to make them happen. Those should be replicable, or you land where pattern recognition is afraid to tread...." he wrinkles his nose, staring at the flames and sniffs loudly. "Anyway. Aaah... thank you. I think."

There's a long silence though, when he is attempting to wrangle words in a line. "I don't think your reaction should be terribly surprising, even if it rather blindsided you. Social creatures are what they are and you /are/ a social creature. You could almost say you're the apex socialite. Once in a choir, a host, a flight, a flock. Solitude isn't natural, though it can be what it is. Given the sudden possibility that you don't need to self-mutilate, or pluck or ...." Sin shrugs, hanging his head a little to lean to the flame.

"As to what brings me here. Being grounded. I've found the place to be contemplative in the past. It's also where you can char away what should be cauterized."

Lucifer has posed:
"I still think the world could learn a thing or two from an outlook like that." Lucifer says this much and then leaves it there. Letting the silence reign between the two of them as smokes are enjoyed and the small fire crackles away.

As Nathaniel speaks again, Lucifer listens and gives a nod of his head. "I am. And as I said...latching on to my family visiting, breaking bread with us, tolerating us...and now I feel betrayed by all of them." Well. "Aside from Azrael...but I have a sinking feeling even she knew and just did not wish to meddle." Though, admitting such has him giving a scoff. "Suppose in a twisted way it fits. After all, I betrayed them at the beginning...but it was a hell of a long game to play to get me now..."

There's a breath and a sigh. A drag off the clove. Then, without warning, the fire in the steel bin blazes high - feet above the lid and likely threatening to be hot enough to burn the bin into liquid before too long. "So let it burn."

Sinister has posed:
Sinister nods softly, his cigarette flicked to the bin a moment before it becomes the smallest towering inferno to be had in central park. He watches it burn so very brightly and his cheeks are silently speckled with stars, which he wipes away with the back of his hand without a word spoken.

"Once again, I feel as if I must point something out. I don't think it was actually about you, love. It hurt, because of all that transpired. But I don't think this was a kick-Lucifer moment -- they seemed genuine, as estranged and awkward relatives go. I also know a thing or two about playing the long game. Probably not as long as you've had played a time or two, but..." he sniffs, cusses softly and swipes his cheek once more with the back of his hand, his expression afterwards grim featured. "You don't play your hand until you know you can make your trick... you use your little trumps to draw out the big ones and win what you bid, or your losses are doubled. I think both you and Nick were caught in a cosmic cross-fire."

Lucifer has posed:
The fire burns brightly for a moment longer and then it disspates back to a small inferno within the bin. Nothing seems damaged at all save for things in the bin being used as fodder. Silence comes from the Devil while Nathaniel speaks but soon Lucifer's ears seem to twitch and he looks over to Nathaniel curiously.

"Maybe it wasn't. It still feels like it. And I reserve the right to be upset at being in the cross-fire in the least. What's more... is Nick had his hopes it seems. To finally have some answers, to finally actually have a family. I hate what was done to him the most. Not by you telling him, but by what the deciept brought about."

After that is said, Lucifer shifts to stand in front of Nathaniel, facing him, lifting his own hand to swipe his thumb against Nathaniel's cheek. "Why are you crying?"

Sinister has posed:
"And I wasn't much of a comfort at that point, either." Nathaniel looks up at the sky a moment, narrows his gaze at it all and the bright sunshiney promise up there, fluffy clouds and vapor trails both, then down when Lucifer steps in front of him.

"I'm having feelings," he says a little thickly, but also slips his right hand into his coat pocket again and brings out a small cluster of primary feathers, black with a red fringe as they are. Familiar. They're tossed to the bin fire and pushed in to incinerate in so many golden glimmersparks.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer sighs, turning to flick his clove into the bin-fire and then back to face Nathaniel again. "I'm sure he'll understand. The three of us have been through much. Apart and together. It's staying together that makes these things tolerable. Sometimes people need their space, but given time, they'll come around again." He says this and then lofts a brow as more feathers are brought from Nathaniel's pocket and tossed into the fire themselves.

"Feelings enough to burn your own feathers?" Inquires the Devil. "I'm afraid I do not understand...well. In some way I suppose I do... I've been known to cut off my own wings at times...but this...just burning the feathers. Is it meant to symbolize something?"

Sinister has posed:
"Mostly letting them be properly consumed. The rest are already gone," Sin gestures at the bin with the last remaining primary, then relinquishes it, too, letting his hand fall to his side. "Bone takes quite some time to char down, sorry about the smell of extra cajun. Somehow, it's fitting that you conflagrated the remains intensely." He sniffs again, staring silently at the bin, then takes a couple of dragging steps backwards and kind of ... plonks himself down with fairly little in the way of grace, onto the park bench. Both hands come up to cover his face as he sits there, silently... shaking.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer blinks. Then blinks again. Then a third time. "Y-you..." He turns back towards the bin and then looks to Nathaniel once more. "You removed your wings? The whole of them?" Asking this and then looking away a moment. Not sure of how he should feel in this moment. There might even be a tinge of anger there. "Were those not something that came to you after taking in my DNA? Or are you just burning a few feathers in a sort of effigy to your ties with other angels..."

Sinister has posed:
"I removed my wings, yes..." Nathaniel replies that, muffled by his palms then eases back, staring skyward at the clouds again, hands going to his knees and expression tight. Pained?

There is a heavy swallow. Another.

"You could consider this to be conscious insurance policy, if it makes it any easier." On you. "If I am actually meant to have them, they'll return. If these were a /means/ to use me as I was used, that potential is severed. Isn't it."

That started out thick in tone, almost a growl and ended up as thin as yesterday's dishwater. He returns his face to his hands, pressing the heels heavily into his eye sockets. The Light is stark and cold.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer gets it. In some ways. In one distinct way, however, it feels like rejection. Those wings came from HIM, not any one else of the choir. And now they may be gone for good. It's the pain he senses from Nathaniel that causes him pause. To shake off his selfishness and look at the man in front of him as what he once was. Human.

Humans are fucking weird, man.

Silence is all that lingers, and Lucifer only makes noise of himself moving against the ground before he's sitting next to Nathaniel and turns enough he can grab the man into his arms to hold him gently. Whether the pain is physical, emotional, or both...he'll hold the man in attempts to comfort him. Then, finally, he'll break the silence only to say, "A good soak might help ease any physical pain you have."

Sinister has posed:
Yes, humans are mightily peculiar. They do all kinds of things in the name of one thing or another.

Altruism tends to be overly glorified, but this pain? Love is a powerful, powerful thing, but it can also be quite a fragile little bird, in its bone cage.

"It might. I don't know what I'm going to do about the bitter sense of loss though. That might take more than hot water and bubbles can provide, I'm afraid." Nathaniel's voice is quite quiet, still thick. Carefully controlled. "I can feel the nugget of what .... whatever it was that they ..." words not being helpful. "In my head, where they connected to my spinal cord. I've locked those neurones in an ossification. How long do you suppose it will take for that to stop... feeling so sickening?"

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer thinks on things a moment and then with a 'fwwhp', a single wing opposite side of where he's against Nathaniel pops out. He brings it around and braces himself before plucking a single feather from the span. It goes back where it came from just as quickly - perhaps to avoid the reminder that he has wings and Nathaniel no longer does. Not to mention, he's lucky his wings are still made of those feathers and not the leathery black they can become when he's not sure of himself.

Feeling like a monster.

The feather is offered to Nathaniel. "How long do you think it'll take for you to accept this and what you know it can do? Maybe the wings will come back. Maybe they won't. But you shouldn't have to suffer the physical pain of the loss. That's not something anyone else but an angel or devil should have to face..." This and then he waits for acceptance or refusal.

Sinister has posed:
The doctor is very still, save for the occasional tremble. They're a little like afterspasms, really. The feather though, looking for all the world like an oversized swan pinion, is gazed at almost without seeing it, his head bowed over in the 'comfort' of the arm.

Slightly unfortunate wording makes his jaw wince a little, as the lofty white is taken between finger and thumb and twirled, so the cold light plays on it juuuuuust so. "You know, the physical pain I could deal with. I deal with that all the time. Can switch it off. It's the psychic that is worse. There's a hole in my head and it aches."

He closes his eyes, still twirling the plume in finger and thumb, listening to breathing, his own and the devil's.

Willful things, they still cried out when they were severed and contained in bone.

He also won't lie. "You know... it hurt the most I think, that you flinched from me. From them. I think it 's what made me realise I'd been being used as a goddamn tool." Still hurts.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer sighs out. He's not sure what to say. There's nothing comforting he ever wants said to him when he cuts his own wings off. So how could he possibly provide comfort to someone else that has done the same?

Its the last thing that Nathaniel offers that cuts even deeper. "Nathaniel I...I wasn't flinching from -you- per se...I was simply... there wasn't anything in that moment that I wanted more than to destroy anything and everything around me. It...it wasn't you. I left to keep you and Nick safe from myself."

Yet that's not the point, Lucifer. It doesn't matter what you meant. It matters how it made Nathaniel feel. Idiot. "I'm sorry.. I truly didn't mean to make you feel that way I....you aren't a goddamn tool. Not to me. You're my rock...even if sometimes it may not seem like it. I can't...I can't do any of this without you."

Sinister has posed:
"You could you know. But let's not test that possibility. I don't think I could put up with an existence populated solely with myself. I'm terribly egotistical," Sin, sometimes it just doesn't quite ring a hundred percent true, when you're ugly sniffling and everything is a roaring mess.

He lifts a hand though, puts it over Lucifer's heart and taps there with his index finger in silence. Thud-thud.

"I'm stronger than you think I am. And you're not as invincible as you make yourself out to be. But I didn't mean a tool to -you-. I meant to--" the others that had a part in this. Because Uriel -did- tap him hard on the head through the Grace which Sin lacked. But had a spark of, borrowed from that particular sibling.

"That's why. That's why I had to do this. This way, we'll /know/. I'll know."

But od's teeth, the loss is horrible.

Lucifer has posed:
Lucifer smirks, just a little, and rests his head against the side of Nathaniel's own. "That hole in your mind will fill, love. We will see what comes of what you have done...and until then and beyond you have me by your side." He offers, then turns his head to kiss where it had been resting.

"Now. Heal yourself, and lets go home so we can pamper each other properly and let this whole mess be behind us." This much more, as he looks beyond to the burning steel bin once more. To those who use it as a source of warmth and light. A breath is taken. "I know I cannot fill such a loss. I know all too well what that loss feels like. I just do not know what to say...usually because there is often not anything I ever wanted said to me in the times I have cut off my own. But I will be here to take care of you as needed."

Sinister has posed:
Sinister bonks. Headbonks are an odd thing with this pair that usually translates to a softer gesture not long in its wake. And there it is, the kiss -- the benevolence.

Softly: "How about... this too will pass. When you fall, I will be there to catch you. When you rage, I'll be there to calm you down. I'll stand in your way, at your side, behind you. Mostly though, I think..." he exhales, puts arms around the devil and holds on, palms where wings are hidden, the feather in his fingertips. "...You're not alone any more."

Lucifer has posed:
"Mmn...I can roll with that. Just as I will stand by your side through all things. You are not alone anymore either." Not fully repeating the other man as that seems a bit cliche in a sense. Feeling those arms around him, he shifts to have his other arm wrap around Nathaniel as well so they're in a full embrace - or as much of one as they can be in from their angles. "I love you, Nathaniel Essex."

Sinister has posed:
"Warts and all," Sin murmurs back to the last of that, resting his forehead on a shoulder. "And I you, Samiel. Let me burn." That last brings a chuckle, because that's been an epithet or an oath for a long while.

The hollow will fill? One can hope so. It may be an interesting time, for a while.