Once a Virtue, Now a Sin

It was an effortless dance, one Tim knew like a moth knows the wind and night. He'd read up on everyone on the guest list, memorized names and faces and occupations and more, all while sorting case files, establishing safehouses, and patrolling. He was never one who rested easy. He greeted party-goers with cordial aloofness, careful smiles that pointedly didn't reach the eye, and a light handshake. It was all exactly what he was given among the 'upper-crust' of Gotham since he was a child, and he knew how to wield placidity like the sharpest dagger. Only rarely did a bit more shine through, when he waved to Damian in the crowd- also not of this particular universe, another one yanked through and out of place, yet as inexplicably loved as Tim by this world's Bruce- or spotted Dick's lithe movements in the distance and couldn't help the brief grin that stretched his cheeks. (Once an acrobat...) Eventually, Tim made his own way to the buffet table, plucking a chocolate coated strawberry from one of the bordering heart-shaped platters and spotting Vicki Vale from the corner of his eye. She registered him too and began working her way over, so it was a hasty bite into the strawberry and a rapid retreat for him.

He had been born in the limelight, all but learned to walk on the highwire and did it all with a smile. What was a gala, what was vigilantism, what was anything but the performance of a lifetime. And Dick was walking on air!

Light as a skimming swallow, flitting through the crowd and dipping in sprightly- then away again. His mood buoyant and celebrant. Even his ongoing disagreement with his dad seemed unimportant, with Dick greeting Bruce brightly before continuing through the crowd.

Humming to himself. Taking a moment to brush an arm around his siblings, and squeeze them to his side with an excited grin. This time, it was Tim that he caught in his one-armed hug.

"Hey there," he said fondly, glancing to the side and seeing Vale's quick approach, all but twirled himself and Tim into the crowd. He might be in a good mood, but not so good he was going to toss him and Tim to the Gazette. "Happy Spring Pride."

redhoodedalleydog

Jason had a different approach to Gala's. Be extra. It was semi formal he'd gone to the full 9's this time as his budget had allowed and more of his safe houses and after dark activities were stabilizing his income. He was still a son of Bruce even if not from this world. He'd extended an invite to Damian and offered his charge a ride as well. A prince should have time in the light too. Holding a flute of champagne he towered in his platform boots above most of those at the party. So he was an easy target for Vicky to spot after his siblings elegantly danced out of range. She seemed extra determined to get to him. Vicky was not the only reported on sight however, an intern from the Daily planet was bumbling around. "Run" Jason whispered down to Damian as Vicky would not be swayed away from him and the Daily planet report came tumbling after. Not that Jason would stand still for their efforts shifting occasionally deeper into the crowd. Like the reverse of a persistence predator always just barely out of reach getting snacks off passing trays and talking with the stunned guests about his boots. They'd eventually catch up when he allowed. Jason might not like gala's but he liked his family enough to help make it manageable and the food was good as well as free thus making it worth it.

damian-demonspawn

Earlier that week, Damian had most cleverly bribed Pennyworth by helping him with washing dishes, in exchange for knowledge on what his not-father was wearing to the gala. Upon returning to the safehouse, he had then commandeered a card and gone off to have a fine suit tailored to his requirements. Not quite matching, but similar. Both Waynes in blue, with bright flashes of red. He'd seen Drake's wave and offered a small, sharp nod in return. When Jason whispered his suggestion down to Damian, the boy paused to assess, then signed his assent and moved like shadow through the crowd. Not a good enough shadow, however. Several elderly hags cooed at him, one going so far as to rumple his meticulously-coiffed hair, and he scowled at them fiercely, worming out of the colorful cluster and over to the sidelines to safety. He spotted the butler, ever-diligent, and gave him a nod of greeting as well before noticing across the room Fa- not-Father. B. It was still so hard to remember he wasn't really home.

butlerofthecave

Alfred was looking out a window towards a roof top with mild concern on his face. He did notice Damian however and nodded back with a small knowing smile. He was not ashamed of accepting the bribe, some knowledge had a price. With some mental comparing it was easy to see the Wayne's would look good together. Damian had put a lot of effort into the suit. Similar but different. His stillness did not last long as he saw to empty glasses, guest questions about the food, refilling as needed, or passing out items that were not easy form them access given their location on the table. Finally as they waltzed by he was gave an amused eye brow raise to the boys avoiding the reporters. It was a circus he'd controlled for years. Today was no different.

It felt like a small luxury to lean into Dick's side, to return the smile. They'd patrolled together a few times- when Dick was in Gotham, when Tim dipped over to Bludhaven to help out there. "Hey, Dick, how goes? Happy Spring Pride, and Happy Valentine's Day." He also noted the extra spring in his sort-of-brother's step. "Have a 'someone special' in mind? You look about ready to spring into a triple flip." As Tim spoke, his eyes roved over the crowd, flitting from person to person before landing on Dick. Person to person, back to Dick. Person to- Oh, he didn't know those guys. Odd, did someone swap out their plus-ones last minute? But they also seemed a couple, with how the two men angled their heads together, roaming through the crowds as a unit. Now curious, Tim nudged lightly at the older male's side, slipping out from the hug with an internal sigh at the loss. "The fruit platters are especially luscious for this gala, go check them out," he suggested, brown eyes still trailing after the duo. "Have a snack off the bi patter on our behalf."

Feeling Tim press against his side, Dick couldn't resist kissing the crown of Tim's dark hair. He was in a good mood, the entire event space smelled of plum blossoms and he'd had a sweet, spritz of a cocktail.

"Happy Valentine's," Dick beamed, before giving an embarrassed laugh. "Is it that obvious?" A bounce onto and off his toes. "Mm, he's called Hunter and he sent me like a hundred blue roses today."

Even excitable, Dick noticed Tim noting the other guests. Cataloguing them in that incredible brain of his- and he also noticed Tim's lengthier pause, a moment ahead of the light press to his ribs. Gracefully, seamlessly, they slipped apart.

"Oh you know I have a sweet tooth!" Lies.

Cheerily, Dick tossed his head, feigning a carefree look towards the fruit platters. Bingo. Blue eyes found the duo that had caught Tim's suspicion.

Disentangling completely, Dick began wending his way in the direction of the two men. Trying to make it seem very much like he was not in fact casing them, just that massive platter of raspberries, blueberries and acai thank you very much.

Easy does it, shoot a look toward Bruce to get his attention, another little wriggle through the crowd and oh crap, one of them looked right at him.

Someone had caught at Bruce's elbow and was, admittedly, making relevant and not inane conversation. They deserved better than Bruce's relative inattention.

However, Bruce's thoughts were a considerable number of solar systems away, and he had been nodding quite uselessly for a few minutes now. Now and then, he would take a false sip of his drink, a subterfuge that was all but second-nature, before returning with a baritone hmm to the topic at hand.

It was during the execution of this maneuver that Bruce would glance towards the locations of his children, and in doing so, met Dick's eyes. Not a frantic look, but a warning signal.

It cut through the crowd, through years of training and experience, and every last inch of the tension and argument between them and whispered finely in Bruce's ear:

Something's wrong.

Tensing in a slow, preparatory clench of muscles through his body, readying for whatever might come, Bruce counseled himself again. He was in his civilians. Limit his responses accordingly. Draw on the necessary plan.

He identified Dick's target at the moment that the man reacted to Dick moving ever closer through the crowd- and Bruce had barely taken a half-step forward, not even bothering to quit his conversation when something ill-welcome was brought into the open.

The muzzle of a gun.

Not Dick's target. Second man. Aiming metal and murder straight at Tim with a warning shout that rang over the room, silence spreading with the shattering of a dropped glass and an audible gasp of horror.

"This is a hostage situation!" The man steadied the grip on his gun, staring Tim down . "Nobody move!"

Amateurs, Bruce deduced. Shit. Not what experienced opponents would say. And the man looked to be past Tim's standard kick range. Dick was equidistant. Bruce was-

He froze, gazing straight at the second gun, and there was a blaze of genuine hate in his eyes. Fixated on the weapon, before slate eyes slid to fix on the first man.

"I take it I'm the one being taken hostage," Bruce said icily.

Watched the grip adjust on the gun. He needed to break this down by half the distance without causing a chain reaction. He inched his foot forward-

"Don't fucking move!" Bruce's gunman hollered. "Shut up!"

Bruce stilled.

Tim had watched as the gun emerged from the man's inner jacket, the holster hidden under the arm, watched it aimed at him as his eyes steadily gazed into the gunman's. A curl of ice rolled down his spine, and he suppressed the shiver. Bruce was being aimed at as well. Dick was halfway between them, maybe fractionally more towards Bruce. Good- Dick was swift, and could get to Batman quickly. It would make the most sense, especially if he flipped over the table for extra air and to cut distance, like the showman he was. It would be believable for Dick to save Bruce, even if it was a bit flashy. With a calm of seven years of vigilante work and an additional three years of roaming Gotham at night, Tim let his bag roll from his wrist to his fingertips. "I suppose you're both trying to wring money from Wayne Enterprises," he started amicably. "What with Bruce's name on the company, and my perching up at the top. Right?" Tim took a tiny step, not towards the gunman, but to the side. The gun stayed steady on him, adjusting when he did. Tim was hoping to angle for that open patch of the room, a slim area where no one would be there. "We'll come peacefully, of course," he continued. Another tiny step. The gun stayed on him. "The company has a fund for things like this. You don't need to-" The gun aimed at him cocked with a click that echoed in the quiet, cutting Tim off and causing him to freeze. In his periphery, he could see people slowly sinking to the floor, leaving him towered above them. Well, as towered as 5'7" could get... But that was good. Only he would get hit, Dick could get the other guy down, and Batman- Bruce- would be fine. This Gotham could more than function without one extraneous Red Robin flitting about. What mattered most was Batman. "You talk too much," the gunman said, finger shifting to curl around the trigger more definitively. Tim nodded, shrugging a shoulder in false modesty. He even had the other gunman glancing at him more. All the better. Focus on the bouncing birdie, focus on the tool of the Bat. "Yeah, usually," he agreed easily.

There had been a moment, suspended there out over a three score fall, sixty feet of pitiless gravity, where the performance had fallen first. Where the lights and music and joy died before the Graysons. The horrifying gulf between the wonder and the orphan where there was no smile, no quip, no pretty kick of the heels and tumble turn that could make it better.

That moment came and Dick could see, could pinpoint each shiver of the gunman's hand that said the moment would take no hostages. No prisoners.

Tim chirps were better mannered than Dick's, but they were still chirps and Dick felt all of nine years old, baiting and baiting and baiting a rogue whilst Batman sliced shadow swift into position. Bright colours, gaudy against the grit and grime of Gotham.

Tim's shrug. Flit of his wings. Gun primed.

Dick's gaze lurched to B's and time became a dizzy thing. Ran in circles, exhausted itself into a panting heap, as a moment of instantaneous understanding passed between them.

Batman giving Robin his standing orders: save him.

Terror flashed across Dick's face, but there wasn't just orders-

There was- there was Dick's baby brother, a flurrying heartbeat of a boy playing look at me with a bullet! Look at me! Look at me, it's the performance of a lifetime.

Dick came off his feet so easily. This was who he was. This was what he did. Through the air with the greatest of fears, the daring young man on the flying-

Concussive, Dick slammed into Tim. Knocked them both across the floor. The gun went off.

His son and the gunman. His mother and the revolver. His son, body cocked like a pistol, and his father, stepping between bullet and Bruce. His son and the gunman. And Bruce was frozen. Too far- too late- to intervene. To take his place between his son and the gun.

His father had been shot first. His mother had died first. The bullet breaking her open as his father bled to death beside him.

Jaybird's frail body in Bruce's arms. His failing strength. Carrying his boy home in a howl of grief. Burying his son. Burying his son.

His son. His eldest son. Staring at him with all that fear in his eyes, pleading, begging, Bruce kneeling in the alleyway like whatever distorted mitzvah his mother's blood might bring him.

But Dick's survivor's guilt was bone-deep, was as venomous as Bruce's was, and for the fear in his eyes, Bruce saw the decision too.

Saw Dick lunge for Tim.

The explosion of sound surprised Bruce more than the crushing jolt that hurled him to the floor.

Stunned, Bruce's hand spasmed with sudden hurt. Turning his head, slow, strength seeping out, Bruce stared dimly at his palm where his glass had smashed. The star-shards glistening in his hand, and incongruously, the maraschino cherry rolling across the marble like a single blood-wet pearl.

He drew breath, and it brought a fresh spasm of agony to his starving nerves. Bruce cried out. An engulfing nova-bright haze of pain.

He felt the blood bubbling up in his lungs. Gasped for air he could not keep. Fighting his way through the massive scarlet light, feeling a pink froth gathering on his lips, Bruce's voice spilled out of him: "Tim-"

Lung. Pierced by the bullet. Left- or… right? Slipping down into shock by the second. Cries dimming as breathing became drowning.

He had never been so aware of his own pulse, throbbing like a thunderstorm through his body. Each heartbeat bringing a fresh gush of blood. He couldn't feel the heat of his own blood anymore.

"Dad-" Father between Bruce and the bullet. He wanted his father, he wanted his parents so badly.

damian-demonspawn

It all fell apart so swiftly. Those thrice-damned men. Damian had heard their calls ring out, how everyone hushed like sheep at the snarl of wolves. Fine. Consider Damian Wayne al Ghul a Great Pyrenees. Slinking through the statuesque crowd was simplistic, due to his slight stature, and the skirts parted for him like multi-colored leaves in the forests he had trained in, with barely audible rustles. Peeking between two jacketed popinjays, he zeroed in on the gunmen, their inexperienced holds on firearms. Drake and- not-Father were the ones at the receiving ends, and Drake was talking. He was good at that, good at distracting. Damian had once loathed him, desperate for approval from Father, longing for a place in the puzzle of family, and then he'd learned, while he could wear the Robin mantle, his father would not acknowledge him. Refused to. Drake, however, was fairly upheld. It took time, but Damian had grown to understand why. Confident things would be fine, despite being in civilian persona, Damian's tensed shoulders lowered fractionally. Only for a sudden burst of movement from Richard, the blast of a gun going off- And then Bruce Wayne fell. Unthinkable. Impossible.

"BABA!"

The scream tore his throat apart, and as if the gala had been capsuled in a crystal ball he'd shattered on the floor, a sudden roar of panic surged through the place. Damian fought against the sudden rush of people, of terrified animals, tearing through them with sharp kicks to legs and elbows to straying arms that impeded him from his goal.

"BABA!" the boy shrieked again, voice high through the venue, though he barely registered his own keens, and he broke through it all, slipping on the blood and falling to his hands and knees beside his father. There was too much, too much! "Hold on," he begged, green eyes glittering star-bright with dampness, blinking through the blurry vision as he stripped his jacket off, used a knife to slit the lightweight spring fabric into pieces, pressed the strips to the fount of red on his father's chest, felt it stain into his hands. Damian had been lax. He'd had an advantage, being unseen, and didn't use it. "You have to live," he croaked out, voice catching on sobs he couldn't keep within. "I forbid y-you to die, you hear me?" Both Waynes on the floor in blue, with bright flashes of red. Too much red.

redhoodedalleydog

Jason for being so tall began to shrink the second guns were pulled. His two brothers like 2 birds dancing, distracting, flittering between one post the the next for a direction, to save, to try.

But the flight had triggered two chain reactions. A miss fire and an actual shot. He heard Bruce cry out and that'd sent a chill down his spine. Batman didn't make sounds like that often. Bruce didn't make those noises.

The fallen sheep of the family had complicated feelings for Bruce but this one was not his own. This one was at least trying to be halfway to decent with him and Damian. Trying to grapple against the blurry morals that now left him on the floor. The justification of deadly force being deployed as means to an end. Jason felt a growl try and bubble up as he kept shrinking into the now chaotic crowd but he crushed it before it could bloom. His bones felt ablaze as his other half yearned to take it's own flight. Jason's heart shattered to not go rushing to his charge to comfort Damian. His world and yet...

Comfort was not what was needed right now. Action was. The only other heroes in this building could no longer leave it without breaking cover. Only he could. So he turned and away from the blue and red mix ducking under one table as a man and out the other as a wolf dog running through the crowd towards the doors budging people away from slower ones trying to negate some of the trampling that was happening in the panic. His family needed Red Hood right now. Surely still more red couldn't make things worse. And those who'd hurt his family would pay dearly for what they'd just attempted. They were pretenders, and they would know a real monster very soon.

The blow to his body came from a different direction than Tim was expecting, and he crashed to the ground under pure muscle, head cracking, bouncing against the marble floor. Sparks flew in his vision, and he groaned out in pain, but... the shot hadn't hit him. Finally, he registered a part of what had happened, with Dick on top of him, crushing him to the ground, with Damian's panicked scream and the resulting frenzy, and he shoved dizzily at the older hero, heart in his stomach. "You were supposed to go for Bruce!" He had a concussion, and Bruce was- down. At least down, if not worse. "Dick, you- dick!" Tim was nothing. He was nothing compared to the hero of Gotham, the one everyone looked up to, the hero Gotham desperately needed. Dick had made the wrong choice. Bile rose in his throat, partly from his aching head and partly from his roiling emotions. If he lived and Bruce didn't, Tim would never forgive himself. He would have been more than fine with his uniform, neat and tidy, in a display case. Batman's being hung up, though, was completely unacceptable.

butlerofthecave

Alfred had been refilling the snack table. He hadn't been looking over his shoulder. He never had to at these events. He wasn't watching his son or his grandkids like how he does in the cave. He never had to at these events. But something somewhere along the way had gone a miss. His security team failed. The safety he'd personally vetted had failed. Sharp gasps drew his attention upwards towards the scene.

The world felt painfully still as he saw the weapons being pulled. Bruce trying to make peace. Dick trying to save his adopted father. Tim trying to distract. He couldn't find Damian. Where were Damian and Jason?! He couldn't look for them though. His eyes were locked onto his son who stared down the barrel of the weapon what they hated most.

It was happening again. His family was going to be taken from him again. He was like Bruce too far to save his son.

Then Dick was moving faster than light. Thunder erupted and he heard his little boy cry out in pain before being joined by Damian's howls of agony. Alfred fumbled in his pocket to dial 911. He demanded medical assistance this instant. At the Wayne Spring Gala. Shots fired. Bruce Wayne is down.

"Get me medics now!"

And with that Alfred was moving with the crowd towards his son jumping over tables and weaving between fallen patrons of the Gala until he was on Bruce's other side.

"Im here. Medics are on their way. The crowd is pushing them out. I think they got spooked." Ever the faithful reporter. "Im here Bruce. I'm here son. I've got ya." Alfred's hands were working faster than his mind as he pulled knife to cut open the suit and see the wound for himself putting pressure while he tore his shirt to plug the bleeding.

Alfred's vision was blurry. He realized as droplets fell he was crying. He shouldn't be crying but how could he not? That was his boy!

"I love you." Alfred murmured maybe too softly as he continued to do what he could. Where are those sirens?! Curse this damned cities roads.

It was not the pain that narrowed Bruce's awareness to shards, but weakness. Bloodloss, catastrophic enough to numb his limbs and crush his senses until everything faded, even the edges of his own skin. Focus twisted inwards to keep himself alive.

Some instincts rest deeply. Almost blind, rasping for air, Bruce heard his baby keening.

Damian. Bruce's focus shattered outwards, snatching at fragmentary impressions.

He'd been shot. Badly, he realized. Damian was kneeling in his blood, pressing tiny hands into Bruce's chest and pain blossomed again, drawing a low moan.

Too deep. Pressure agony and pointless. Stabilizing needed. Wait for the- wait for-

He meant to lift a hand, to catch Damian's wrist, but couldn't feel below his elbows clearly.

His son kneeling in the blood of the father. Bruce choked, the pink froth at his lips flecking. No. Damian couldn't- not- alleyway. Gun. Damian couldn't witness this. Couldn't be left in the cooling puddle of Bruce's blood, he couldn't.

The sensation of drowning eased, if only perceptibly. His dad was here. His dad was here. He was safe.

He tried to calm himself, rally his senses to grasp what was happening-

He'd been shot.

Tim. "Safe?" Bruce wheezed on red breaths.

He'd been shot before. Not often this- this badly, but- he'd had worse. That felt right. Clawing for oxygen and precious mental capacity, there were other priorities.

Each word was punctuated with deep scoring pauses, but he asked what he needed to:

"Dad… th' babies…"

butlerofthecave

"Safe. Yes." Alfred agreed while looking over to Dick and Tim, their was shouting going on. He thought he could hear the mercy of sirens approaching. "Scared but safe. Damian is here. We've got you." Alfred knew Bruce could tell his half truths as well as full lies. "I don't know where Jason is but everyone else is safe." Uninjured and safe are two different things. "They need you right now. Don't you going leaving them." 'Don't you go leaving me.' Alfred internally begged. "Think of them all and how much they need you. Stay with us son. Help is almost here. Say their names. List all your babies." Alfred gave Bruce a task to keep him focused and conscious. Loosing eyes and the mind was not ideal in this.

There had been a gunshot, and immediately Dick looked down at Tim, sprawled beneath him and panic rose nauseously in him. Had he been too late?

“Were you hit? Where were you hit, Tim—” Dick's hand searched his little brother for injury frantically. He'd hit him so hard, unable to temper the force and if Tim had been shot then…

You were supposed to go for Bruce!

The horror was a dawning thing. An illuminating, unpreventable realization as Dick scrabbled off his brother and looked-

Smelt. Saw.

God. Heard Bruce's pained sounds. Smelt the iron-burn of blood. Saw the blue suit jacket bruise purple with Bruce's blood.

It was happening again. It was happening again. Just like with Jay. Just like with his parents. Just like before.

Dick, you- dick!

Guilt and duty grappled in Dick, left him unable to speak as he stumbled to his feet. Stared as Damian shouted the sky down for his dad, for their dad- and Bruce was struggling- and-

"I'll be back, I'll be back, Tim," Dick promised, voice thick, unable to answer Tim's accusations.

For now, he did the smallest of mercies. He met Alfred's eyes for a moment, and then picked Damian up by the middle and prepared to pull his kid from their father's pooling blood.

damian-demonspawn

Pennyworth's appearance was a small relief. Damian shifted his hands out of the way as larger moved in. An assassin's hands, replaced by a battle medic's. Blood on his hands, seeping into the knees of his pants- it was too much, Father was losing too much-- Hands around his waist, hauling him away. Damian howled, thrashing in the grip as he was lifted. "NO! Richard Grayson, put me down now! No!" Damian was a writhing creature, a wailing thing of blood and salt and bone, and he fought. "Let me stay with him!" Blood on his hands, always on his hands. He should be used to it by now. Numbed to it. This was anything but numb. "Richard, please! Why are you doing this?!"

A sob ripped from his chest as his wretched brother dragged him farther from the one they loved, along with one last raw cry that rent the air.

"BABAAA!!"

replaysgf-deactivated20210116

TO BE CONTINUED !

#reblog

the moon is a loyal companion

#reblog

Bippity bippity boo! You are now a child too!

Lucifer doubled over, his body glitching out. His form spiked off in random directions, black leather wings sprouted off from his back, covered in eyes, then feathers, then they decayed and fell off, shriveling up into dust. He changed, body shifting a hundred hundred times over, through different forms. The chd form he'd taken on with John, an adult man with long curly blond hair and giant wings, a small ring covered in eyes darting around, a flame sparking angrily, a cherub, a glowing orb, a single feather, pure electricity, a planets core small enough to fit in the hand, a human heart, a kitten, a black void of nothing that seemed to stare back at you, and on and on it went, he wasn't in control.

Fuse felt the distortion from their temporary palace, and in a moment was brushing gently through Lux's proverbial gates. As he moved into the main area of destruction, two large sets of black feathered wings formed and flared, and a greataxe, flickering with fuchsia flames, seared itself through the planes into hand. "This may hurt a bit, and I'm sorry, dear brother," they called out. "I just need to- pin you like a butterfly." The axe grew more, and the flat of it slammed into the devil's side. Fuse figured they could diffuse some of the overload with a bit of smacking, and then get close. He knew about shapeshifting troubles, being one himself.

That seemed to do something at least. The sparking stopped for half a second. The jolt seemed to have stopped the flow.

But it started right back up. More erratic than before, tugging on the axe, attempting to pull it inside the form of the devil.

"No, you can't take more energy. I'm taking that from you, Lucifer." The Sin stomped on the sparks with a boot, moving in a single step and battering him with the flat side again. "You need to remember who you are, my lovely king," So Spake Lust. "Lucifer Morningstar, limitless, above these silly anons who think to control you." They came closer and closer, gradually, shrinking the length of the axe's handle to keep the repetitive blunt hits accurate, steady. "Heartbreaker won't steal the mystery of love from you, because you're better than that. Think of who you love, think of infinity and yourself, and draw in." Fuse sank their hand into the swirling mass of her king, searching, hunting for his core. There. Quicker than thought, Heartbreaker shifted from axe to dagger, slipping in to lightly, barely pierce that center of chaos, pinning the great fluttering beast of The Devil. "Think of your love. You know who you are," Fuse whispered. "I know who you are, those who love you limitlessly know who you are. And so do you. Draw in. You have a form you greatly prefer."

And one final explosion, a supernova of the first star, and everything was sucked back in. Collapsing on itself, folding over and over to infinity around the dagger, trying to take the tool with it.

Would he still be him when he returned?

With a great effort, Lust heaved back on the dagger, wings flapping like mad to try and tug it free, or at least keep it from fully sinking into the black hole of infinity. As long as it wasn't absorbed into Lucifer's core once everything resolved, things would be just fine. He just had to keep hold of it... "Come back to me, my king," she called through the maelstrom, teeth gritted against the pain of potential absorption.

There's something really concerning happening with Lucifer's grandson, Damien...

Let's tackle one problem at a time~ Right now, Lucifer is the bigger beast of the equation, even if he's not a dragon.

Bippity bippity boo! You are now a child too!

That seemed to do something at least. The sparking stopped for half a second. The jolt seemed to have stopped the flow.

But it started right back up. More erratic than before, tugging on the axe, attempting to pull it inside the form of the devil.

Bippity bippity boo! You are now a child too!

#Fuse: I just need to beat you up a bit out of love #Fuse: and then I can sink my energy into yours and untwine the knots