The hotel is closed now. It has been for some time. The doors are boarded up, and the lights are turned off, and it’s all but a forgotten relic now. That’s exactly how he wants it. It’s a private place, though he goes there infrequently-- once every 365 days. He has the key, of course, not like he needs it, but it’s part of the ritual. It’s important.
The lobby is quiet, just as it was back then. There’s nobody at the front desk now, no computer, no guest book, but the little silver bell remains. It still works. One tap suffices to make it ring out, soft chime reverberating through the room. Yes, I’m here for the banquet. I’ll just walk back on my own, if you don’t mind? Of course not, please and thank you. He gathers his parcel and steps through the doors.
The hallway is empty too, but that required a lot of work. It took hours, maybe days, to haul out the bodies and clean away the smears of blood and gore that coated the walls. The banquet hall itself had been only somewhat less of a disaster, but now it is pristine, clean and beautifully decorated from last year’s celebration. There are lots of bright colours, a series of vibrant decorations that all surround and draw focus to the central point of the room.
He sits there, setting down his parcel and untying the bow.
“Hello, brother,” comes the soft whisper after a stretch of silence. “Wait until you see what I’ve brought you this year.” The paper crinkles as it falls away from the cardboard box, and he smiles. “It’s a candy cake. No, really. It’s made from candy. Isn’t that the most absurd thing you ever heard of? As if either of the two confections were insufficient on their own, they’ve thought to combine them. But I knew it would be something you liked, of course. I confess, there was a great variety, and I wasn’t sure which one to choose, but I knew you liked caramel and chocolate, so here we are, hm?”
Silence echoes, but he still smiles.
“Oh, you know how I don’t care for so much sugar as you do, little brother, but yes, I suppose I’ll share in one piece with you, for the sake of the occasion.”
Two plates, two forks, two gooey pieces of candy cake. Only one is consumed before both are set aside in favor of lying down across the cool floor.
He sighs, arms outstretched, and closes his eyes when the tears threaten.
“It was a bit rich, I think. Don’t you? Of course not. You like things like that. No, no, I did not forget. I was simply surprised at how overwhelming it was. Perhaps it’s because I do not indulge in such things on near so much of a regular basis as you. I try these days, in my way, I suppose. The lady who sold me the cake was very rude to me, and you know what I did? Nothing. I thought you would like that, and I wouldn’t have violence sullying your holiday. I would like to think you would be… that you might be...”
The warmth where his hands are pressing the floor alerts him to how his trembling fingers have begun to rub the charred blackness.
“I love you.”
A haze clouds his vision, and he blinks against it.
“I miss you.”
Every year, he comes, promising not to cry, and every year, he breaks his own promise as the grief overwhelms him and fractures the very core of his mentality, just as it does now.
Tears fall.
Lucifer turns over, pressing his hands into the burnt imprints of Gabriel’s lost wings, and he cries his agony aloud until his grace expands from the confines of his vessel and threatens to tear the entire area asunder with the force of his pain. Then he stops and just lies there in silence throughout the night. His fingers trace the last remnants of his beloved younger brother, now scorched into the floor. Lucifer remembers every curve, every line of every feather, harder and colder now than when he last touched them in Heaven.
Perhaps that is where Gabriel has gone now, to some secret part of Heaven where lost angels are welcomed back into their father’s arms. Perhaps it is beautiful there. Perhaps he is wrapped up in light and love and happiness.
Lucifer would like to think so, but he’ll never truly know. He’s locked out, all he has left are cold, burnt wings and the sticky sweetness of his memories that choke him every year.
Fill, Team Castiel/Lucifer, Mourning
The hotel is closed now. It has been for some time. The doors are boarded up, and the lights are turned off, and it’s all but a forgotten relic now. That’s exactly how he wants it. It’s a private place, though he goes there infrequently-- once every 365 days. He has the key, of course, not like he needs it, but it’s part of the ritual. It’s important.
The lobby is quiet, just as it was back then. There’s nobody at the front desk now, no computer, no guest book, but the little silver bell remains. It still works. One tap suffices to make it ring out, soft chime reverberating through the room. Yes, I’m here for the banquet. I’ll just walk back on my own, if you don’t mind? Of course not, please and thank you. He gathers his parcel and steps through the doors.
The hallway is empty too, but that required a lot of work. It took hours, maybe days, to haul out the bodies and clean away the smears of blood and gore that coated the walls. The banquet hall itself had been only somewhat less of a disaster, but now it is pristine, clean and beautifully decorated from last year’s celebration. There are lots of bright colours, a series of vibrant decorations that all surround and draw focus to the central point of the room.
He sits there, setting down his parcel and untying the bow.
“Hello, brother,” comes the soft whisper after a stretch of silence. “Wait until you see what I’ve brought you this year.” The paper crinkles as it falls away from the cardboard box, and he smiles. “It’s a candy cake. No, really. It’s made from candy. Isn’t that the most absurd thing you ever heard of? As if either of the two confections were insufficient on their own, they’ve thought to combine them. But I knew it would be something you liked, of course. I confess, there was a great variety, and I wasn’t sure which one to choose, but I knew you liked caramel and chocolate, so here we are, hm?”
Silence echoes, but he still smiles.
“Oh, you know how I don’t care for so much sugar as you do, little brother, but yes, I suppose I’ll share in one piece with you, for the sake of the occasion.”
Two plates, two forks, two gooey pieces of candy cake. Only one is consumed before both are set aside in favor of lying down across the cool floor.
He sighs, arms outstretched, and closes his eyes when the tears threaten.
“It was a bit rich, I think. Don’t you? Of course not. You like things like that. No, no, I did not forget. I was simply surprised at how overwhelming it was. Perhaps it’s because I do not indulge in such things on near so much of a regular basis as you. I try these days, in my way, I suppose. The lady who sold me the cake was very rude to me, and you know what I did? Nothing. I thought you would like that, and I wouldn’t have violence sullying your holiday. I would like to think you would be… that you might be...”
The warmth where his hands are pressing the floor alerts him to how his trembling fingers have begun to rub the charred blackness.
“I love you.”
A haze clouds his vision, and he blinks against it.
“I miss you.”
Every year, he comes, promising not to cry, and every year, he breaks his own promise as the grief overwhelms him and fractures the very core of his mentality, just as it does now.
Tears fall.
Lucifer turns over, pressing his hands into the burnt imprints of Gabriel’s lost wings, and he cries his agony aloud until his grace expands from the confines of his vessel and threatens to tear the entire area asunder with the force of his pain. Then he stops and just lies there in silence throughout the night. His fingers trace the last remnants of his beloved younger brother, now scorched into the floor. Lucifer remembers every curve, every line of every feather, harder and colder now than when he last touched them in Heaven.
Perhaps that is where Gabriel has gone now, to some secret part of Heaven where lost angels are welcomed back into their father’s arms. Perhaps it is beautiful there. Perhaps he is wrapped up in light and love and happiness.
Lucifer would like to think so, but he’ll never truly know. He’s locked out, all he has left are cold, burnt wings and the sticky sweetness of his memories that choke him every year.
I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry.