Wednesday, December 21st, The Midnight Channel (Last Night!)

[thepull_mods]

Who: The Port's Latest Shadow Televisions Stars! And Thousands of Home Viewers!
When: Midnight, Wednesday December 21st
Where: In front of your Television Sets or Streaming NV TV. (Digital Cable? You'll still get the analog effect.)
Summary: Full Plot Details Here
Warnings: Please Put 'em In the Subject Lines As Necessary, Kids?

Comments

trigger warning for violence and reference to AGI slavery

[paterelohim]

[A vast blindingly white room. In the middle there is a chair and in the chair there sits a man. Something about His face is strange- no matter how long you look at it, you can never quite remember the features. Made of light and shadow and then, nothing familiar at all, nothing at all that could ever be any human in the Port- at least, not what you can see from the way He’s looking down, studying the floor.

-camera cut to rain, water, men and women running fleeing for high ground, screaming, children falling in the streets, getting trampled, drowning. water rising up and up carrying sheep and children and filth, rising fasterfasterfaster. a single ark sails by and they scream, reach out, call and beg in vain and hope and pray and choke on water and tears-

The man looks up. His eyes burn like stars.]

I don’t understand what the big problem is. [The Voice sends chills down spines, makes skin crawl. It sounds like lightning and revelation.] You whine and cry about bad things and good people. You want to know how this can happen.

[

[abrotherlikeyou]

[It has been so long since he heard That Voice, and hearing it now makes him feel as if his vessel might just-- just this time, he'll lose control and it will be gone and he'll be nothing but Lucifer without skin wrapped around Essence--

He sneers at the screen and mock-salutes it, not caring a whit that it's just a recording it can't possibly be real.]

Now that's a familiar tune. I wonder who they'll blame this one on?

[This is my will-

No. No, no, no.

-and my will be done.

It yanks at hooks eternally bedded in his being, the desire to please Him, the desire to have eternal favor at the Throne again. But the Voice also stokes those flames eternally licking at Lucifer's Grace and he grits his teeth against a sound, a cry.]

Mmm. No...no, I don't think so, Old Man. You know what they say: you want something done right, well, you'd best get up and do it yourself.

[paterelohim]

[Anna, Balthazar- Castiel's spared only by virtue of getting sick and staying inside, Michael has a stamp of approval that burns under the real Chuck's living skin like a cancer. Gabriel is MIA and has been for days- and He's never been happier to know it.

Which just leaves one.

So he runs.

He runs and runs and somewhere in the city, he finds what He's looking for: Lucifer. He finds Lucifer, having already seen the shadow once and shouted it down in languages that have been dead for centuries or were never alive, having already pissed the shadow off with His denial of its relevance to him.

Why would he accept the damn thing? Chuck's spent thousands of years not being That. Thousands of years and deaths and pains and weaknesses just to be the opposite of That, and long since decided to never be That again

[abrotherlikeyou]

[After all this time, after spending every second actively or subconsciously thinking about Him, remembering His face, it's still such a blow to see Him that Lucifer can only stand and stare at Him.

He isn't ready to face Him. He hasn't won Michael over. They're not in the right world. But here He is, anyway, and it is the Father that Lucifer has planned on hunting down ever since he was cast aside.

He looks for Michael, terrified that his brother might strike him down again. But no, it's just God. The God he remembers so clearly, with the exact same expression he last remembers. It wrenches deep inside him and for just a second he feels so very young, and frightened.

He draws himself up straighter and cocks his head to the side with a smirk.]

It's about time. You know, your little order was a page right out of my book. But that's nothing new, is it, Dad?

[paterelohim]

Silence. [A raised hand, and Lucifer hit the ground face-first with enough force to crack bones.

Its eyes burned with starlight. Not distant, twinkling starlight, but the harsh fires of a boiling sun burning through oxygen and gases at billions of degrees and rising. Angry and infinite.]

You saw me last night. I know you did.

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Lucifer feels a cracked cheekbone starting to knit, feels blood pouring down his face when he tries and fails to get up. His vessel can't seem to figure out which way is up right now--just from one blow from Him.

But it hasn't dampened his hatred at all.]

What makes you say that, Daddy-dearest?

[paterelohim]

[Chuck watches from his hiding place, mouth open as the Thing bends down and reaches a great hand out.

All It does is touch him. That's it.

A single hand, laid gently on Lucifer's raw, weeping Grace.]

I will teach you respect.

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Immediate panic, so that Lucifer is trying to scramble away from that touch on his hands and knees.]

I thought respect was earned--

[paterelohim]

You are mine. I created you.

[Lucifer runs but he can't escape; the Being catches up and pins him to the ground with a soft, almost gentle touch. The simplest touch, like laying His palm against Lucifer's skin, of pure, searing Holiness against burnt, bleeding, raw and still-weeping Grace necrotic with Hellfire.

The gentle contact of a hand to Lucifer's cheek, that sends pain knifing through him and pins the angel to the ground.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[Lucifer can laugh off so much pain. There is no mortal (or immortal) who can compare to the agony of Hell.

Or so he thought. The touch of his father has never hurt Lucifer before. It has never been remembered as anything but comfort, and safety, and an utter lie...but not pain.

His first acid bath in Hell does not compare to this. His first ten thousand years in Hell's crawling, leech-infested pools of kerosene are like baby's first bubble bath compared to the simple weight of God's hand on him.

It's worse than Hell, and he can't even breathe to scream, it's as if Nick's lungs have dried into brittle gravel in his chest. He bleeds from his nose and ears, blood pours from his eyes as he sobs and pushes feebly at God, wanting to hurt him, to make it stop, oh Father, stop, his thoughts slur into nonsense and then into garbled noise.]

[paterelohim]

[The touch of his father shouldn't hurt, it wouldn't have, but the horrible Hell-scarring runs so deep that it's worse than a demon touching an angel's grace, or a human looking at an archangel's true form. So much worse

[abrotherlikeyou]

[There's a sound like wet mud slopping onto pavement, as Lucifer shudders and coughs up blood and flesh. He doesn't call for help yet, it hasn't occurred to him that he can. Who could help? Who would even if they had that power?

But then God's thumb brushes tenderly against his cheek, and he feels Nick's skin split open like overripe fruit, exposing muscle and frantically pulsing veins.

Help help help

The prayer is thoughtless, desperate and blurted out to the universe. That's the worst of all; a very distant part of him is aware of how helpless he is. It's an even crueler torture than feeling Nick's bones drying up (a femur snaps like a twig in a stove), even worse than feeling his wings erupt into flames.

But he can't think, can't scream. Can't put words to his terror and anguish, not even to spite Him.]

[paterelohim]

[Chuck bites down on his fist and almost throws up. The Creature growls and cups Lucifer's face with both hands, feeling the destruction under his palms.]

You make a mockery of prayer.

[Then, even as Chuck stares in distress, the Thing makes Lucifer's wings spread out by force, twitchingly straining against the unDivine force dragging them out painfully and making them cruelly to unfold. It lays a hand on one of those six scarred wings even as Chuck bites back a noise of outrage. Outrage at that Thing existing, at it touching what's His, laying its hands on wings that He painstakingly crafted Himself so many aeons ago, at It having the fucking GALL to murder His own child right in front of him.

The prayer is still searing through his head, a punch to the stomach that he was never expecting.]

[abrotherlikeyou]

[His wings. His tortured, breaking wings, and then God stretches them out as far as they will go and Lucifer sobs and screams at him to stop, stop, Father, stop--

But He doesn't and Lucifer's bones snap and splinter. The Hellfire springs to life and the second eldest can't even scream any longer, his throat is hoarse and raw with it. But his Grace, his Essence, goes on just as it had in the Cage, that same horrifying sound that had echoed through God's being for so many thousands of years.]

[paterelohim]

[Finally it's too much and Chuck runs out from his hiding place, screaming at the top of His lungs with an unhinged vehemence.]

Get the fuck away from him, you freak!

[The Shadow, already angered by Chuck's powerful internal denial and rejection of It, responds by telekinetically hurling Chuck into a wall and continuing to torture Lucifer's wings, moving from the first to the second pair, then the third, eying the fourth and final set. From beyond, Chuck picks Himself up and staggers closer, looking up at the towering Thing with considerable fear in his eyes.]

Leave him alone.

[It looks up from Lucifer to focus its flaming gaze on Chuck.]

You have no right to be here. [Pause.] Or every right.

[Whatever It's about to say next, Chuck knows it'll blow His cover. Silently, without any movement at all, Chuck lets Lucifer pass out from the pain. It's less cruel that way, letting him escape the horror while Chuck can fight with this monstrosity on His own

[aslandish]

[ It's not what he expects. Having been torn from his world the first time, one might think he would be more accustomed to being summoned thusly. The fact is, he's not -- it's still an alien feeling to be drawn to another place, any place without willing it himself. He remembers, though, and having said farewell to those in his own world after setting all to rights once more, he arrives, not with heaviness, but a lightness that is almost expectant.

Or at least, until he perceives what is roaming about the Port. Finding the thing is easy -- the shadow that has no right to that face or identity -- as its stench reaches to the very heavens. Streaking across the city, a beacon in a decaying world, he stops for nothing, his teeth bared the closer that he draws