“…I still care about you, you know.”
A sound that might’ve been a laugh escapes him; it sounds more like a scoff as Lucifer holds some distance between them. He tosses back the glass of whiskey he had and turned towards his twin—the other half he had missed so much over the many millennia it had been since last they spoke.
“You care,” he repeats with tension in his voice that only came when he got emotional. And this was one of those buttons that make the corners of his eyes want to water and he fights it, with fists clenched until his knuckles were white. “You broke. My wings.” He said, a tremble to his voice as he stood to his full height of six three.
“Then you, and the rest of the family, didn’t speak to me unless you had to, for so long that frankly, I’ve lost count. I guess I’m just too evil for your tastes, aren’t I?” Amenadiel calling him evil five years ago had stung. Now he had hung himself on it since then.
“If you care, you have a strange way of showing it, Michael.” There’s an edge to his voice that simply… sounded broken. But he hadn’t left. Or told Michael to leave—that alone spoke volumes about the situation. He takes a moment to get a cigarette out and light it, doesn’t speak again until it’s settled between his lips and he’s tucking the little metal case away. “What are you doing here, anyway? On Earth, I mean. Father have you running errands, or something?”
He knows he shouldn’t have said those words the second they left his mouth. Not because they were not the truth (they were) but because he had no right to say something like that. Not after what he had done.
Michael couldn’t stop the flinch at hearing Lucifer speak his crime out loud, a pained expression flitting across his face before he managed to smooth it out again but there was still some of it left in his eyes. “I know.” A thing he would always feel guilty and revolted about. How could he have done this to his brother? To his other half? Just thinking back to that moment made him feel sick every time. The feeling of Lucifer’s wings breaking beneath his hands, the sickening crunch... He had to stop that train of thought before he truly lost the content of his stomach.
“Some of us couldn’t enter hell unless given express permission.”, Michael admitted quietly once he felt like he could open his mouth without throwing up. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried a few times to break through but His power had been too strong, not allowing him passage into his brother’s realm (prison).
All in all this conversation was going better than he could have ever hoped for. He had expected to be thrown out (literally) or at the very least be punched a few times before he could even say one word. “I left Heaven soon after.... After.” It was obvious which ‘after’ he meant: Lucifer’s fall. “I couldn’t stay there any longer.” Not with how just being in their father’s (and some of their siblings’) presence had made him feel sick to his very core.
“And over time I’ve slowly built a life on here...I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it but I actually founded Tenebris...” He gives a small shrug as if it was no big deal - which to him it wasn’t even if humans would disagree considering how famous it was. Music had always been important to him and had always reminded him of his twin, the latter which might have been the biggest reason why he had decided on a record label of all things.