accidental video;

[expunger]

[Gray. The opening shot is all dim gray and dusky, a boring shot of a concrete wall stained with black ash, before too-bright blue-white light knifes through the picture again, causing horrible screaming static for a brief moment. Everything whirls before the PCD lands, now pointed up at a derelict ceiling. From far off, noise can be heard:

Comments

[abrotherlikeyou]

[He's not sure why he goes to her. But he does. She's the only one who needed Michael half as much as he does.

He says nothing--there's nothing that can be said.]

[expunger]

[Raphael is already standing at the head of a fallen dragon, one wing broken, watching blankly as it struggles to get up. With a raise of her hand, its good wing breaks, leaving it to collapse on the ground and roar in rage.

There is nothing to say.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[He lifts a hand, thinking of breaking its tail or dislocating its jaw. But he crosses his arms instead. Let her destroy it if she needs.]

[expunger]

[Raphael stands there for a long moment, watching it struggle to its inadequate feet and start to come after her.

One leg, broken. Another, broken. It falls. She never moves a muscle.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[A gash opens in its side; the scent of blood will attract other creatures.]

[expunger]

[Inelegant. Unwieldy, as Lucifer has always been, but she says nothing. The nothing rings out in the vacuum as invasive as a church-bell's chime.

The creature struggles for a long, long time, bleeding out slowly and unable to move without excruciating pain. Raphael watches its throes for five, ten, fifteen silent minutes before finally making a movement. Steps, two, ten, to the dragon's head, moving sluggishly now in the blood loss and pain. She holds out one hand to its forehead, her own skin sizzling on burning-hot scales. With a thought she shares some of her own fire, the fire that still hasn't stopped burning, that hasn't let up the agony a single second of a single day of a single week of three agonizingly long months of her life. The bellow it lets out sears the landscape, vibrating the rocks and scaring off any approaching vermin for the time being. One eardrum nearly bursts, but she doesn't feel it. It doesn't matter, not really.

She steps back again and watches it scream.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[He doesn't even speak up to warn her that sharing the fire may make things worse--not in spreading the embers, but because sharing that agony is a large step down a very dark path.

But no. She'll learn on her own, and he doesn't have it in him right now to care what happens to her. Not beyond keeping her alive. Michael is gone. The peace is gone. The hope, the plans. He's not back at the beginning but it sure as hell feels that way.]

[expunger]

[It takes twenty minutes to die. Twenty very long, very slow minutes. When it stops coughing and shuddering, Raphael makes no motion to face him. Let him speak first, the needy brat.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[But he doesn't.

Michael is gone. Lucifer can't reach him; he may never reach him again.

There is nothing in the world that he can say in the face of that, especially not to her.]

[expunger]

[The silence stretches on interminably, as Raphael stares at the corpse and wonders. Her vessel's stomach is churning sickly, but she can't figure out why. Her steady hands tremble infinitesimally when she moves them, every part of her coiled and quivering to strike.]

It is unnatural to be made to mourn the same loss twice.

When we make our way out, I will burn this world to the ground.

[abrotherlikeyou]

Good. It deserves your wrath.

[Rare as it is to get Raphael angry. He takes a breath to say more, but doesn't. Confiding anything in anyone has the same appeal as chugging curdled milk.]

[expunger]

I am surprised you haven't destroyed the city already.

[abrotherlikeyou]

You have such narrow expectations, brother.

[expunger]

He was one of the few threads tying you to stability.

[abrotherlikeyou]

[And how he wants to tear her wings right off for bringing this up. But he just moves away from her, to inspect the carcass.]

Yes. He was.

[He keeps his voice as level as he can, never betraying the panic he's felt ever since Michael simply disappeared.]

[expunger]

You will have to live with no shadow of Michael in your life or at its edges.

[And Lucifer has never done that before. Even for Raphael, at first, it was hard.]