lux-signifer came to dance with the archdevil
—— No frigging way.
Golden veins sear through the pupils of the not-quite angel’s eyes, sowing the inky disc with cracks that shine as brilliantly as the Devil’s Grace once did and revealing only a mere speck of what Gabriel has become. Anger lights the ichorous irises ablaze, and lips curl back from bared teeth in a snarl. The mere presence of this being that he has grown to loathe is enough to draw the monster out, the monster born in Heaven and hardened in Hell.
There are no words to describe the bitterness that sows itself among the rage, the pain that scorches itself into the ex-Messenger’s features and leaves burns of hatred behind. His posture stiffens, his weight pressed forward on the balls of his feet almost as if he’s readying himself to lunge, to attack. The word ground out in spite of the locked jaw and clenched teeth holds the weight of the world in its irony.
"Brother."
Oh, this couldn’t be true.
Icy blue eyes were narrowed at the… thing that was once his little brother, his family. This was worse than any demon or monster Lucifer had ever created; for this one had the blood of an angel running through his veins, but with the twisted and corrupted mind of a demon.
There was a bitter taste in the mouth of the Morningstar, one of despair and anger, of madness and hatred for the thing that kept the face of Gabriel, and yet was not him, would never be him. Fist clenching, he had to keep himself from letting his Grace show through and his wings unfurl, ready to fight to the death if the brunette attacked him.
“—No, you aren’t my brother.”
Teeth ground against each other, a bitter bark that could pass for laughter bursting free from his lips like the stutter of gunfire.
"What? Don'tcha like the new look? You helped me try it on, after all. Three years in Hell, in one'a the deepest circles. What a party."
He remembers all too well his brother's face in the moments before oblivion set in, before his Grace exploded from the mortal coil and reformed in the underbelly of Purgatory (and before the Leviathans had torn him apart and bound his Grace to Hell). He remembers even better the last words he heard before he died, the mocking utterance that ended them: Amateur hocus pocus, little brother. The words that had reverberated in his skull every second that he'd spent in Hell.
B r o t h e r. If only Gabriel could poison the very syllables of the word.
