“in times of peace i can be,” is so important to me even if the line never aired…
bc i think it really sets cas apart from characters like lucifer who seem to thrive only when there’s a stronger enemy to fight, only within the confines of war (SEE: Amara and weak team spirit with the AW Michael refugees to the point he’s trying to reason w AW Kevin)
also
“war is what michael does”
something about cas and dean deep down wanting more than, “it’s all i know how to do” (killing)
daddy’s blunt instrument and heaven’s triple-edged blade, ladies and gents
i wish you wouldwrite a fic about chloe waking up in the middle of the night to lucifer playing the piano.
at first it comes to her in a dream.
the music comes through like a painting forming before her eyes; soft strokes of pink and purple, bursts of white and yellow, coming and fading with the cadence of piano. the colours overlap, the textures crunching and smoothing with the voice of it, however harshly or however gently the key is pressed.
chloe opens her eyes to a dark room, the impression of the music still pressed to the front of her vision until she blinks. she rubs at her dry eyes, huffs a sleepy breath, turning to read the clock sitting on the bedside table. 3 41. lucifer is not there.
she rolls to her other side, and only then does her foggy brain pick the music back up. it is not a dream. her bleary eyes focus through the door frame, and in its arch she can just make out lucifer’s silhouette, sitting on the piano bench, his face gently tipped towards the keys. he’s backlit in blue, pinpricks of faint starlight, a curl of the moon.
she gets up, leans a hip into the doorframe, and he lifts his eyes. his hands still on the keys.
“i didn’t mean to wake you.”
his last chord sings muggy into the air. chloe shakes her head. “you didn’t, don’t worry.”
he smiles, just a hint of it. he doesn’t say anything, just lets his hands wander into a key change and shifts a little to the left on the bench, a silent invitation which chloe takes without hesitation.
she’s not wearing much more than a loose shirt and a pair of plain underwear, and in the night it’s almost cold. chloe presses up against lucifer’s bare side, drinking in his heat, and he tucks his elbow close to his side to accommodate her.
he’s playing something slow and kind of sad, something that echos inside chloe’s chest and feels like more than a vibration on the air. she leans her head on his shoulder and feels the gentle pull of his muscles through her cheek.
“you okay?” she asks him. his hands pause, his middle finger resting on a black key, which is pressed a moment later.
“yes, i’m alright.” he doesn’t lie so she believes him. everyone has their nights, she supposes, that are bluer than usual. so she sits with him, so he doesn’t have to be alone in it, watching his hands do their sway across the keys.
“i still never learned how to play,” she says after a few minutes, more of a sleepy ramble than much else.
“put your hand on mine,” he says. he pauses once again to allow her to lay her hand across the back of his, her right on his. she curls her left arm around his waist to get closer enough, fits her ribs to his. he picks up where he left off, undeterred by the extra weight of her hand, her fingers over his.
his left hand keeps the tempo, so she doesn’t feel that, but she understands why its this instrument he comes back to over and over. dancing is not a word uncommonly used to describe hands on a keyboard and she knows why now; she can feel him use his whole body to play - arm and hand, swiveling head, rocking at the waist, even his leg on the pedal. he is not thinking. not about the song, or whatever cold pale sadness crept into him in the night. he is just feeling.
after a while, chloe curls her hand off of his and around his wrist. there, his pulse is steady and sure. she smiles. she closes her eyes.
she is carried to bed sometime after that, but not until after sound turns to colour again in her dreams; swaying purple, and twinkle of pink, and low, sad blues. but what lucifer hums as he takes her in his arms is brilliant, smooth and shimmering warm orange, like the freshest sunlight of the brightest new day.
RAMIEL: Impressive. This beauty, she kills the bad ones fast, and the good ones slow and painful.
CROWLEY: Ironic, seeing as it was made by an angel.
RAMIEL: There’s only one angel Michael wanted to kill, and he wanted that son of a bitch to suffer. Ah, the magic. It’s all in the rune work. The craftsmanship. Oh.
why would michael make a lance like that? “it kills the bad ones fast and the good ones slow”????
at first glance, yeah… maybe it’s torture
on second glance, maybe it’s a test to see if there’s any good left in lucifer? if he’s still more angel than fallen/demon?
it is also an unusual weapon in how quick its damage can be reversed
almost like it’s intent was to buy Michael time to make a decision, to rationalize a rescue that can be done with nothing more than a snap of a handle…
Okay, so. It's very interesting to me that the beauty of the earth itself is something that shows up in the Zachariah worlds pretty consistently? If you squint. The world being destroyed, bomb, pollution, even the Lucifer he reaches for is draped in garden imagery.
///
I think too about how the first thing lucifer does when he gets back to earth? Feeds the birds. There's something about it. Even the family is not something he's looking at with hatred.
///
The first snap of violence comes only when a hostile angel tails him. The snake only bit when it was challenged. Snakes in the garden... is it really such a strange thing for a snake to live here, too?
LUCIFER: "It's beautiful out here, isn't it? It's funny. The things you don't think you'll miss at all you end up missing the very, VERY most."
And he pets the tree.
s11
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The nature-loving angel is the one you don't want to look at?
///
s13, drilling into the recesses of his head:
These are the things Lucifer marvelled at:
"...a chance to live in paradise..."
13x07
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You break everything you touch. Reminds me of his conversation with Jack, about humans and angels being oil and water.
(Fall at their feet. Don't dominate.)
//////////////////////
But as far as nature goes, you wonder if Zachariah might've suspected that, or at least seen it. How Lucifer may not have cared for the people, because he SAW their destructive tendencies. But the awe for nature... even some of the parts of human nature... realer than you think.
The Lucifer Zach reached for vs the Lucifer we know
//
Zach's Cas vs the Lucifer we know
"Beauitful, isn't it?" // "Beautiful out here, isn't it?"
///
"...stars...galaxies... a whole universe out there... You have to live your life for you. This is our chance to escape our past, our sins, and start over."
13x23
EDIT:
Sorry to bring this back around to The Little Prince but... somehow reads like a shadow version of
What if uncontained angels are too powerful and too autonomous, but inside vessels they localize, recursive folding that imitates the very nature of the soul system. But it’s a cage that makes angels a bit more traceable, trackable, narratable…
But the whole thing is a snare, a big booming engagement dressed up as domination. But once an angel inhabits a human body, they’re bound by consent myths, exposed to human chaos and the systems…
…and slowly redirected into caring about outcomes Chuck already controls. Humanity becomes the honeyed medium: the matter to make it matter.
If Michael and Lucifer are busy destroying each other inside human skins, they’re not challenging the system that trapped them there. It was never about good versus evil. It was about removing two uncontrollable rival powers by turning them on each other.
Chuck does that bc each angel has a crack in its chassis: love, loyalty, DRIVE, intent. He’ll give the angels just enough status to feel that their orders are important, no matter how little sense the orders make.
(And a memory, or just an echo of love, but a utilitarian, duty-sort that evaporates, so they’ll chase it… maybe forever.)
And humans he’ll give free will, enough to really feel the weight of witnessing, as he coerces them down a maze where they feel just enough in control of each turn to absorb the blame.
As stars near the end of their life cycles, their fates diverge. Red stars burn more slowly and steadily, cooling and dimming as they exhaust their fuel.
I love how in s12 Rock Never Dies, Lucifer IS using Cas as a stand-in for Chuck.
Here, Lucifer wants Cas's reaction, his attention. He's throwing his feelings of abandonment onto Cas.
He beats up Crowley, then he kills Tommy, THE ONE WHO HAD RUN TO CAS:
Then he looks to Cas... to SEE if Cas reacted.
And like, he throws Cas onto a couch. Clearly, Lucifer doesn't want Cas out of commission here.
He wants Cas to watch him kill the people to get a reaction out of Cas. THAT'S what the "weak/pleasureless/dutybound dullard" line is all about. It's the goading, maestro.
Lucifer finds it difficult to ruffle Cas.
//
In the shared mindscape in s11, Lucifer isn't torturing Cas per se, something that shocks even Crowley.
(((Aside// One of the things I noticed upon rewatch is that, a few flares of unruliness aside, Cas's predominant feeling for Crowley in season 10 turns out to be... pity.
Surprisingly, Crowley responds to that, as shown here in his complicated mess of behavior as he jumps in to help out… And Crowley is hilariously frustrated with Cas. "Snap out of it!"))))
But back to the Lucifer of it all. Even though Lucifer’s letting Cas be, he immediately moves to brutalize Crowley. "You want to put me back in the cage!" Lucifer screams. He also echoes Chuck: "You plotted to replace me!"
(Chuck will, in fact, say this TO Lucifer later in s11: "I know you plotted to replace me with the angels!")
///
Later, Lucifer faces off against Amara, the person with the twin fear that he has: being ignored, put into a CAGE.
But interestingly, she has no sympathy for him. (Hey, hey did betray her. But so did Chuck...)
She spends most of her time torturing Lucifer and brutalizing him beyond comprehension:
//
In the heat of battle, she rips Lucifer away from Cas and throws him away without a thought.
And even though she spent most of her time in season 11 creating discord and evil on the earth in similar measure to how Lucifer does (toxic fog that turns people berserk, storms, burning religious wellwishers to a crisp), there is peace and forgiveness waiting for her.
No one looks for Lucifer or even considers offering him a path to redemption/forgiveness.
It's no wonder Lucifer focuses his anger on Cas. Cas was the most stable presence he had in eons.
