1964-10-15 - Wickedness in Low Places
Summary: What, you thought angels had progeny all over? They don't. Just two. And one of the two doesn't. Surprise!
Related: If there are no related logs, put 'None', — please don't leave blank!
Theme Song: None
michael harper rosemarie lucian 


Mike tends to dress like a down at heels mercenary. But someone's explained to him about dress codes and how they work. And then he's managed to either find, steal, buy, or manifest a fairly sharp dark gray suit. Enough to pass for Lux - he's admitted and heads to the bar with his utterly easy saunter. So few beings are as utterly at ease with their own bodies as Michael, even when he's consenting to play by the rules of the physical world. He's got that odd, off aura though - the eye says he's just a thin blond Englishman, but for those with eyes to see, there's that aura of embers and destruction, a darker edge to his presence.

*

Harper is lurking at the corner of the bar once more, this time in a white halter dress and an illusion of blonde curls that brings to mind one Marilyn Monroe. At least to those who can't see right through the light-bending magic that builds the illusion, or who aren't familiar enough with her by now to know the mannerisms and the habits of the young woman at the end of the bar. For example, the way she keeps her back to the bar, all the better to watch people coming and going, or to listen in on conversations that are rightfully none of her business.

*

Probably the most dressed-down of all present in the club, Rosemarie descends the stairs with courier-purse over one shoulder and both hands occupied with…dare it be…a tupperware container. Inside? Freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies because…geez, why not? It's been dreary outside and leaving her apartment smelling of baked goods is no loss in the end.

Her palms soak up the warmth emitted from the cookies, stacked atop one another, and still soft enough to break over their own weight. The chocolate melts and spills where the chips part. With hair done up in a professional's bun and sporting a simple forest-green sweater-dress with black stockings beneath (boots, of course, no one wears sandals in this weather!), her cardigan is cream by hue and the lighter splash of color needed.

She has no power to see through Harper's illusion, but she can spot Michael in his surprising choice of clothing and even as she begins to walk across the floor over to him, she's wiggling her fingers in greeting. "Hi, M-M-Michael. Y-You look g-g-good!" Thus, the exclaimation, friendly and freckled, with a very light blush to accompany it. Harper is given another glance, mostly for the show of skin from that dress. She does make it work, Rosemarie admits to herself.

*

Someone is probably going to have a nosebleed. Someone who may or may not be in the room. Dress codes exist to be broken. Exquisitely broken by an irreverent fur-checked coat that shouldn't work. It has no business working any more than the loose golden hair or ostentatious swirling gold ring, but it bloody well does. He's smoking, though the stick caught between his fingers has no odor of tobacco or anything that would remotely bring to mind Marlboro Slims or worse. A halo of white-grey smoke wreaths him while he indulges himself. He's the other kind of Englishman, the one who terrified Thomas Jefferson and raised the Founding Fathers to clutching their rifles and decrees helplessly. For he's the Devil in every mode.

He's the Devil mixing poisons in a crystal bowl, throwing in this bit of extract and that pinch of spice. His is a madcap air of the alchemist not so distantly echoed in those first aeons when Michael made the divine dross and he spun diamonds. In this case, a ladle gets good use, a flick of the wrist surveying eddying backflows that catch liquors and additions. "Blackberry," he says, and his partner in crime is going to be his brother. "The black fruits in a purple juice. Blue container." All this without surrendering his cancer stick. Though the cancer blown out has more in line with a joss stick for a Buddha, helping move someone on to the next nirvana.

"Hello, ladies. Mind the orange concoction there. I doubt it's particularly stable," he looks up and those vast blue eyes hold all the radiance of the abyss in them. Human, yes, but barely, and not with coiling embers in orange rolling behind the summer-sky depths.

*

"Whatever you like," Michael says, mildly. The booze aspect of it really doesn't affect him, as it is. Then there's Rosemarie, and he grins at her, utterly innocent and unaffected. "Oh, hello. Those smell very good. What are they?" Someone's never encountered a chocolate chip cookie before, after all. He settles himself on a stool, comfortably hipshot. A little rumpled, but he's got panache to spare. "And you look very nice yourself." Hopelessly earnest and sincere, without a saving drop of his brother's irony. Someone has to play the straight man in that show of celestial comedy.

*

"Define 'not particularly stable,'" Harper replies to Lucian's advice, quirking a brow as she leans over the edge of the bar to get a better look at it. Because of course that's what you do with something the devil himself says is less than stable. She flashes a brief smile over toward Rosemarie when the cookies come closer, wiggling her fingers in a wave that's more familiar than the face she wears.

*

"They're c-c-cookies," Rosemarie manages in a far more faint tone of voice in reply to Michael. Oh yes — someone's noticed the Devil at work, and it seems impossible to have missed him in the first place, but hey. Blame the cookies? "And th-thank y-y-you," she continues, more quietly still, nearly a whisper as she minces over to the bar. There's something about meeting those English molten-blues that sends skitters down her spine and out along her skin. The Shi'ar perks and simply surveys in her subconscious.

Upon that black marble bar, shot through with celestial mica spatterings and veins of golden quartz, she places the tupperware and lifts up the lid. Movement draws her attention to Harper and indeed, there's something familiar about the wave given to her. Still, she flushes a bit deeper as she returns the twiddle of fingers with something far less brave, a wee little wave from around her sternum as she settles on the stool next to Michael. The tupperware is scooted down towards and past Michael, including Harper by proxy of distance, and the brunette risks a glance towards Lucian in passing as she stutters,

"Y-Y-You c-can have one if-f y-you w-w-want." 'You' being everyone within reaching distance. She's not so brave as to risk any curious looks over the bar at aforementioned unstable orange brew. Eeep!

*

Berries pierced by a plastic skewer make an excellent start for the next phase of his brewing. Lucian waits for the juice to drip into the basin, adding trickles of crushed plum blood. He muddles the liquid and watches as currents unfold, patterns established by complex layers of scientific rules. The scent doesn't deaden the mind or flatten the brain's acuity to other hints present, including the indelible smell melting chocolate produces. Oh hello. He knows what those are. "Busy in the kitchen this weekend, Ms. Falcroft? I would imagine the cold weather calls for finding warm escapes. Are we all to bless our lucky stars for your largesse. Why tease us with such delectable things?" Not being two spoon deep into a crystal punch bowl, as it happens. Gracing Rosemarie that ghostly smirk, he looks to Harper and replies, "I believe it's prone to combusting into flames on its own, but I have that on poor authority. Useful to hold on to, in case of unwelcome guests and the sort."

He rests his elbow upon the bar and lounges, blowing out a ribbon of smoke. "Quiet the last week."

*

"……are you brewing a Molotov cocktail?" Mike's tone is all innocence, the pale eyes utterly without guile. That golden glint above his head *might* be his halo. He takes a cookie, tries a nibble….and then devours the rest with unseemly haste, eyes widening. "…..what're the little brown things?" he asks, once he's managed to swallow, coughing abit. "They taste wonderful." Rose's introduced him to chocolate…..and surely created a monster thereby.

*

"Ha!" Harper laughs at Michael's guess. "Spectacular. That'd make a great drink, actually. One of those shots you can set on fire with a match or a lighter, people can toss it back. Molotov Cocktail." She's not shy about helping herself to a cookie, though in deference to Rosemarie she lets the illusion melt away in a shimmer of golden light as she reaches for it, winking at the other woman.

*

Lucian's commentary is enough to make Rosemarie tuck her chin and boy howdy, there is another shade to deepen that blush further.

"It's b-b-been quiet, y-y-yes, and c-cold, so I thought — Oh!" How cute, that little squeak of surprise from the librarian at Harper's sudden appearance. Not Marilyn Monroe in the least, but that young woman who dove behind the bar a few weeks back. She blinks a few times, translucent in her shock, before gamely accepting that this is…okay. This is Lux. The barkeep doesn't seem bothered. It's…normal?

"Chocolate," she adds, looking to Michael and letting her attention linger for a moment before shifting back to Harper. "You…j-j-just — " Nope, can't explain it, never mind. She folds her hands in her lap and turns to Lucian for an answer, given her perplexed expression.

*

"Enough moonshine in there to constitute a near thing, and the firebird venom makes an excellent base, if a tad unstable." Lucian sounds so utterly nonchalant, his smooth tone heavy with amusement. "Finding something that doesn't cause combustion to the digestion system while consumed is easier than you might think." He doesn't so much as bat a gold-tipped eyelash when Michael demonstrates an inability to use his esophageal muscles properly. Perhaps an innate awareness of their celestial limitations fails to stir concern, or he's a right heartless bastard except when plucking up a cookie from the Tupperware container whether permitted or not.

"You let the chocolate seep down the back of your throat and eat more."

*

Since it isn't the bartender with the metal arm. Gods only know what he does on his days off. Mike takes another cookie. "That does sound like something very combustible indeed. It won't hurt human digestion?" He's not going to pretend to be human, other than not wearing the wings and halo openly. He nips a chocolate chip out of the cookie, and then asks Lucian, "…..do you have a liquor that tastes like this?" Inquiring minds…..

*

Lucian doesn't eyeroll. He interrupts to say, "Several."

*

"I did," Harper smiles crookedly to Rosemarie, taking a bite of the cookie. "It seemed rude to hide who I was when you were bringing cookies," she explains. "But. That's sort of what I do." Cookie held in one hand, she waves the fingers of her other hand in a delicate twist, as a smoky curl of colored light comes to her call, forming a chocolate chip that promptly melts into a green bottle of liquor before a snap of her fingers banishes it all.

*

Rosemarie simply nods to herself, giving Harper a concerned consideration that slowly melts into a more simple interest. It's like…trick mirrors — except in the young woman's hand. Ooh.

"Have m-m-more," she ventures softly to all, reaching out to push the tupperware a smidgeon further away from herself. Oh, she ate enough cookie dough while baking to feel it, no need for a pastry in her case. Cookie pusher, that's the librarian for you. "Q-Quiet though?" The question's for Lucian, for all that she can barely meet his gaze.

*

The cookie is not something eaten at speed. He can bother with devouring the crumbs later. "The currency of the world is neither truth nor favours, but cookies. One has to think bakers hold an unfair advantage. You've all been safe in the past several days? No more men hopped up on their own self-importance causing you unwanted despair or disdain?" Lucian finishes up with his preparations, and caps the lid of an infusion that smells faintly of vanilla. Goes beautifully with the crushed berries and bourbon, the splash feather-bright against the palate.

*

Michael turns that puzzled stare on Lucian. "Can they really threaten you and me?" he asks, as if the idea is barely within the realm of possibility. But then, they are the eldest, the most favored. Not impossible, though. Michael has been wounded in the past, attacked, bound, though there are no scars visible. "But for me, no, no one's bothered me."

*

"Nothing I haven't been able to handle," Harper shakes her head to Lucian, taking another bite of the cookie. "A John Constantine gave me a charm to put under my bed, I tried it out at one of my safe houses. It seems to be working all right so far. I've run into gangs," she notes. "They've got my info now, which is putting a bit of a crimp on most business. Except for the Chinese, who don't give half a damn except to screw over the rest," she muses. "But no more angel sightings, at least."

*

Rosemarie's doe-eyes shift from each speak in turn until there's no one left but herself to chime in with her own observations as to recent quiet-tude in her life.

"It's b-b-been quiet f-for m-m-me." Well…relatively quiet. A bout of laryngitis made for a rough few days at work, but then again, nothing a cup of water didn't help and restocking the shelves rather than sitting regally at her information desk.

*

The name rings a bell, a whole host of Hell's bells in fact. Might as well have a carillion chiming noisily at the top of Lux's tower. Make a mental note, Lucifer: add bad belltower. "Us? Hardly. What will they do, irritate Father enough to bother showing up?" The derision coils underneath every word, visible to anyone who wants to turn the statement over to reveal its dark underbelly. "Make a nuisance more than anything. However, those niceties mean less for those who haven't been obliged to stand in the deafening silence of judgment." He dashes the cigarette finally onto a tray, and rather than reveal grey ash, it produces a very fine dust more like sand than anything else. What the hell is he burning? It tastes good at any rate. "The gutter mage. Walk a light step with that one, he's as oily as Mephistopheles and a fair bit worse to look on. Their coats smell about the same."

*

Michael gives Lucian a look. Mild, as so many of his expressions tend to be. But it's staring incredulity by his usual standard. Did the Morningstar just warn him against a *human*? "That's a…quite the thing to say. That bad, eh?" he asks Lucian, before looking to the others. Then he ponders. "I should summon that grigorim," he says, musingly, as he rolls his shoulders as if stretching tight muscles. "Teach him his place."

*

"I always walk a light step," Harper shrugs to Lucian. "But I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment, so I'll take what help I can get." Finishing her cookie, she reaches for her glass to wash it down, quirking a brow as she looks over at Michael. "I think…I would appreciate it if you didn't. While I was here," she clarifies. "I've been very much enjoying not having every single step watched and hunted."

*

She's pretty sure she remembers what they're all slant-wise referring to now. It must have been that sword-bearing loony-bin who walked in with the gun-toting disciples behind him. Even thinking about it makes Rosemarie's pulse hop up a few beats. Still, she soldiers on, resting her chin in her hands while her elbows go to prop upon the marble bartop.

"C-Can s-s-someone explain to m-m-me w-what a…" She pauses for a second, attempting to remember the word. "Gr-Grigorim is?"

By the vein of talk, it's not necessarily a positive thing and someone was daydreaming in catechisms as is.

*

"Rather the company be aware of what they deal with. Do you believe sorcerers do things from the goodness of their heart? I have a bridge to sell you." It probably goes to Jupiter and involves a big long ladder into the sky, fastened to a La Grange point by a lot of double-sided tape. Lucian sucks back the blessed taste of flavoured smoke through the filter, and the dancing explosion of a hundred springs contained in that pressed collection of natural filaments briefly blinds him to all else. There are cookies, and then there are cookies, his appreciative look mantled by the weak copper-flame flicker in his dilating pupils. No, angels don't get high. "We could simply embark on a campaign of sending them all off the planet. That would make quick, easy work. Then allow this retirement to be far less… objectionable, really."

He taps the cigarette holder. "Grigorim. They're called the grigori widely, their original name being egregori; the wakeful ones, the watchers. Enoch went and assumed they held a role watching over the matters of humanity, and some came along to admire certain ladies. These women with their voluptuous mortal perfection charm them, and Semyaza — also called Shemhazai and a dozen other names besides — decides, why can't a fine angel like myself not sleep with a willing devotee? So he does. He tells his angelic friends, who split between trying and not. Those who do singularly violate the word of the Father and fall. The real problem becomes their offspring, divine and mortal, who end up as the nephilim, those wicked creatures who threatened communities with gargantuan powers until God summons up a great flood and does away with them. It's a terribly convoluted story with the simple truth at its core that mankind, the children of Eve, and angels do not copulate without certain consequences bad for the whole of humanity. General idiocy on that part, but Enoch was had a stick up his backside the size of a sequoia."

*

Mike's gone bland again at that, no more expressive than a plaster saint. But then, someone's begun to trail his wingtips in mortal dust, and that can't happen forever without a little besmirchment sticking. "I'd like something with mint in it," he suggests, after a moment. Lucian's explained it best, though he does add, "And some are determined to undo what they see as their error…..by erasing those mortal descendants who carry angelic blood."

*

"Which apparently includes me," Harper concludes, raising her glass and taking a bracing drink. "Predictably, I object to being erased from existence. And I'm usually very good at preventing that all on my own, honestly, but it seems like actual angels may be the limit to my ability to fight and kill things." She frowns slightly into her glass, pensive. "I think I'm all right with that? all consequences aside."

*

Someone's lit a fire beneath her stool — or maybe that impression is given for how Rosemarie can't seem to sit still suddenly. Thought she was red before? Well. Who knew that ear cartilege could turn such a brilliant shade of pink? There's no hair to tuck behind her ear, but still, she attempts it, looking down at herself in the pristine bartop's surface reflected back in more somber shadowy hues.

"Oh d-d-dear," she whispers, a breath of true fear found in the breath. Talk about cookie jars — imagine if she's caught with her fingers in one by sword-wielding loony-bins. Her gaze lands on Harper. "Y-You're…angelic? Who…?" She peters off, the implication of her unfinished thought to be precisely which set of wings done deviated from the Master Plan.

*

"A habit of groupthink, really. Convince them the outsider presents a threat to you and your way of life, the group reacts by circling the wagons. Aggressive behaviour is justifiable, especially in the context of villifying the unwanted element." The Morningstar would know a thing or two about that, a long history of misdeeds responsible. He pours out the concoction of blackberry bourbon goodness into a tumbler. The volume isn't deep, but that he pushes over to Rosemarie. Next, to Harper, last to Michael because Michael is always last to get it. Because that.

He smiles ever so thinly. "They're of course fools one and all. The Watchers delude the masses that any angel could simply consort once with a seductive human girl and abominations result. If that were the case, you'd have a race of nephilim overwhelming the masses. Not the truth, naturally. Only two were even capable, and the rest are strictly demons."

*

Only two. Lalalalalala. Second eldest has a pokerface worthy of a fallen statue of Ozymandias….but it's such a far cry from the usual open curiosity he might as well have a stamp on his forehead. He does not, however, look at Rosemarie. Instead, he takes another cookie and contemplates it, turning it over in his hand.

*

"No idea," Harper shakes her head to Rosemarie. "I was left at a convent-run orphanage as an infant, no one ever knew who my parents were. So it's sort of a- Wait, what?" She has her glass halfway to her lips when Lucian's words sink in, lowering it and leaning forward. "Hold on, I thought there were basically infinite possibilities for who exactly was at fault, but you're saying there are only two angels who could have been responsible?"

*

Rosemarie gladly takes the blackberry bourbon-filled tumbler slid with professional ease to her in slightly-trembling fingers. Down it goes and she does appreciate that lovely fruit-and-amber melange. Not a cough this time, like as not due to nerves and not paying any attention to anything but the warming burn when it hits her stomach. That's all a bubble anyways. The Shi'ar Warbird in her subconscious is slowly turning over this new bauble of worry in its talons, wondering precisely what it means in the end.

She looks from Harper and back to Lucian and pointedly also not at Michael, so blandly considering a cookie as he is. You know what? Let's have a cookie after all. Stretching across the suited angel's space, she snags one and takes a bite rather than immediately contributing to conversation. She's equal parts intrigued and, frankly, somewhat terrified, as muted as it may be due to Shi'ar steely spine.

*

"Do you really think Father was about letting his greatest creation interfere with his least responsible one?" There lies the guise of the Morningstar burned away through a steamy haze of shattering revelations and burning leaf, fed on the dancing darkness of his summer-night eyes. Look too deep and lose oneself in the abyss behind his pupils. Their faint copper magma edging remains, a boundary of stars and the hellish pits that were his to command. All the situation needs is the spark to ignite the situation.

"Go ahead, ask him." He rolls his shoulder to Michael. "Did you ever consort in all those long years looking down on your favourites, or were you only interested in the perils of the battlefield? If the lineage is purely divine and holy, an uncorrupt vessel, then the lines are decidedly clear. Oh, there are infinite possibilities for the fallen, demons, infernal powers corrupted. But not the angelic. The rules are terribly clear and no one likes pissing off the management." He goes for another cookie with a good bite. "Unless Dad's pulled a fast one. Not that he has ever."

*

There's the faintest glow to him, the ruddy shimmer of dawn light on lowering clouds. The wings are a suggestion in ember and shadow behind him, the kind of 'seen out of the corner of the eye' image. "No," he says. "Not then. I have sired no children on any creature." It's not so much the obvious poker-face now as a kind of faint wistfulness.

*

Pity that pigeons aren't creatures in the lexicon of angels, but classified as a vegetable.

*

Rosemarie must have gotten Harper's share of enough sense to be afraid, because Harper doesn't seem to be the least bit intimidated by the implications of the conversation. Not yet, at least. Not when she's chasing down the truth. She looks to Michael for his answer, then slowly turns back to Lucian, eyes narrowing.

"It's you, isn't it?" She sets her glass down, head tilting slowly. "That's why the wizard wouldn't say anything. That's why he was taken aback when he looked into it. That's why they're so damned dead set on destroying me. Because the-"

Falling back in her stool, she claps a hand to her brow as her thoughts start to tumble over each other, leaping to conclusions only for her to tug them back again.

*

Rosemarie is avidly munching away on that cookie, sneaking a sideways look over at Michael when she catches sight of those wings. But wait — a straight-on focus makes them disappear, whereas a weird peripheral interest lets her see those phantasmal pinions in rosy-dawn hues.

Oh yes, the librarian has Harper's share of fear, at least for a little bit, as she listens to the two angels speak of offspring. Harper's also the one to say aloud what she's haphazardly considering, given her pointed dark-eyed stare at the fallen angel that's slowly changing colors towards a more burnished gold.

"Lucian…?" she asks in a tremulously-quiet voice.

*

Lucifer Morningstar doesn't quail from his past. Not by a longshot. Neither does he flinch when Rosemarie or Harper focus his way. Whatever else transpires around the bar, Lux's usual clientele have less reason to care about them. It's not as though the full miraculous span of his starshot wings fill the room in their sublime splendour, raking the walls under a cascade of moonglow caught from the most ancient satellites spun around long-ago stars. Cobweb filaments of a nebula swirl around him in a blink. To think his name is to give him a message. To believe his name is to offer power, and he draws that in whether he wants to or not.

"Mm, just wait until you learn about the fifth chorus." Maddening bugger behind that sublime smile, isn't he? He pulls in a deep draw of the cigarette and proceeds to stifle it by merely invoking a shot of flame that reduces every atom into vapor. "Since I'm quite certain Amenadiel and the rest of the host have not fallen out of favour to become family men, I should expect a Christmas card. Though the fact is, Ms. Falcroft, the lineages are terribly old. My children lived long, long before this era. They do not live still, for the most part."

*

Whereupon Michael turns that guileless blue stare on Harper for a long, long time. There's no expression in his face - doing things with your facial muscles to express how you feel, when it comes to being in flesh is a learned behavior, and not on he's very good at yet - but it's not an attempt at dissembling. IT's the most genuine reaction he's shown yet, that calm observation. And quite possibly the most disturbing. He watches Harper for a good little silent while, and then he squints, and says, finally, "…..I think she does have your eyes, now that you say that."

*

"That's why I manipulate light." Harper levels a steady look on Lucian, still piecing things together. "Jesus Christ. Shit. I'm not the antichrist, am I? I'm not ready for that. I mean that on every level, that is way past anything I signed up for, and I spent half my life being trained as an assassin by a secret government organization." It's not that she really thinks that she is, it's more that she really needs to make sure of that. Michael and Rosemarie aren't even on her radar just yet.

*

Ms. Falcroft flinches a little at that sudden shot of flame that removes the cigarette from existence. The flicker-flash of wings drawn from condensed photons is imprinted on her after-vision as is and even as Michael levels his observation, she's giving Harper a stare. Oh yes, it's a stare.

…the young woman doesn't look like the antichrist, but, then again, if she's got Lucian's light-bending powers and Lucian's eyes and that barkeep still manages to give her the goosepimples something fierce on an elemental level, maybe Harper is, in fact, the end of the world.

*

"One of Meresankh's, then. She ever was the one to show the affinity to the sun," Lucian says ever so quietly. They might dread to hear the deeper notes but time is so old, so far, that he hardly carries much wistfulness that his brother has. His shoulders may twitch slightly as the press of time bows on them, or the desire to ruffle those feathers in their magnificent rattling halo builds up. Not as though he loses a word in there. He gives Harper a burning, loow look. "An assassin. Yes, well, that would be inconvenient to pursue. Have a drink, it truly helps deal with the news."

*

Michael considers Harper for a little longer, even putting his head on one side for a moment. It would be cute, save for that distinctly raptorish air. "No," he says, finally. "If you were the AntiChrist, I'd've heard, and I'd not be down here with all of you." When that birth occurs, it'll be Defcon 2 in Heaven, and the General will no longer be kicking his heels on a beach with an umbrella drink in hand. All leave cancelled.

*

"Great," Harper points at Michael. "Good. Well. I can deal with this, then." Especially once she reaches for that drink and takes a healthy swallow of it. "You know, I feel like this would be more of a letdown if it weren't for the fact that I was already not thrilled with the whole angel blood thing since it came with imminent threat of death. So I didn't really have time to…"

She waves one hand in circles beside her head. "Didn't really have time to, you know, build it all up to be something magical and beautiful, because it was kind of not great in the first place. So going from yeah, sure, you've got some angel blood to, and technically that angel is the devil is not- Not the most terrible thing? Sort of?" At least that's what she's telling herself. Regardless of the fact that said devil is across the bar from her at the moment.

*

Speaking of drinks: Rosemarie pipes up in a voice gone rather hollow from her spot, still holding her cookie with one bite taken out of its roughly-circular shape.

"R-R-Rum for m-me, p-p-please…" She believes Michael, in the end, knowing of his intended vacation and more than ready to believe that he's the Archangel of War given of what she knows of Lucian existing in that confusingly-all-too-appropriate checkered-fur coat, with his eyes of impossible event horizons in blues and hellish oranges. No, Harper's not the antichrist. Still…yes, it's time for a drink. This is all way over her librarian's paygrade and now she's beginning to wonder about whether or not she'll eventually be classified as collateral damage at the hands of sword-wielding loony-bins.

*

|ROLL| Lucian +rolls 1d6 for: 3

*

"I rather think myself to be sublime, thank you." Lucian doesn't leave a hint of irony anywhere in a forty-mile radius. Meteors hit the earth with slightly less impact than that cloistered smile. He certainly has a job to find a bottle of rum, something without label and covered in dust. Yes, Rosemarie, that rum embodying a summer storm and a warm embrace in the same measure, twenty-seven years of perfection. He pours her two fingers and slides that over, holding back the bottle in case she decides to curl up in the corner with it.

"Technically the Devil is an angel. Firstborn. Michael?" He nudges. More alcohol. "Drink. You have that peaky look again. Wait until you have a pastrami sandwich and, in case you need me to…"

And he goes abruptly silent like that.

*

They can see an idea dawn. Literally. Michael's head is momentarily surrounded by shimmering golden light….and it's unmistakable, not the subtle effect of the wings. Then that perturbing lack of expression fades into an actual beatific grin, and then he wraps his arms around Harper and hugs her - a big, affectionate bear hug. "That makes you my…..great-niece?" The thought of it apparently tickles him immensely, and any ick at the thought of Lucifer disporting with mortals is apparently dispelled.

Then Lucifer stops in mid-thought, and Michael looks over - concerned, glowing, and still holding the child of Nephilim like Harper's just a big teddy bear he got for Christmas.

*

Normally, Harper would probably object to sudden hugs. But she's a bit perplexed at the moment, especially as she realizes Lucian referred to the other man as Michael. Who is giving her a hug. And calling her his niece.

"Michael," she echoes, looking between the angels without moving. "As in…You know, it's funny, all the pictures show the two of you fighting." When in doubt, be a smart-ass. She is Lucian's spawn.

*

Two fingers of darkly-sweet liquor will do in this instance and even as Rosemarie sips at it, finding the taste to be all too familiar, her irises are bleeding fully gold. The Shi'ar wants in on this conversation, even if it can only do this by wrenching her wandering thoughts away from tropical doldrums in aged spice and sweetness that burns like a fuse into her innards. There she does that uncomfortable shifting on the stool, even as she glances to Harper again.

Lucian's…great-granddaughter. Well. …life just got weird. And all she wanted to do was drop off cookies. The barkeep is given a lingering look, implying in the best of Warbird ways that Lucy — you got some 'splainin' to do.

*

Pride of place there, Harper. Someone gets moved up the Nice and Naughty list for Christmas, also known as 'that dark age rolling around.' Michael is still near the box of 'bad angel', especially given glowing in front of the customers is uninhibited and unnecessary. Trust Lucifer to drag at that damn thing to make it go away.

Good thing he can read bird. Good thing he can read damn near anything. Scribbles are easy, so is body language. "A very, very long time ago in the first age of men — the Greeks like to call it the golden age — I cared for a woman. Another was set to be sacrificed to father by a backwards tribe, and she went among the Lilim after our time together. That's about the only one Mazikeen ever liked. The third, that was her," a nod to Rosemarie, "foremother about nine eons back. The last was left to the kingdom of Dream. She bestowed hope in dark times, and for that, I gave her the only peace I could. None of them have been in the last seven or eight billion years or so. Rather defeats the purpose of maintaining a residence below."

*

The light is starting to bleed in….and Michael's isn't the pure dawn light of the Eldest. No matter how mild his manners or how light his touch on mortal skin, he is what he is. And that, in the very crudest terms, is the destroyer. It's that ember glow, low and red and perfect to play on mortal nerves. Like the red cast on the horizon that foretells a stormy day to come. But he remembers himself and suppresses it hastily. Manners, manners.

He explains, after having regained his own stool, "We did fight. Bitterly. But only because it was my job. It was not a personal animus. All has its purpose, even his departure from the Presence."

*

Harper is familiar with many shades of light, sensitive to it as she is, and when it builds around Michael she can't quite help but soak it in for a moment until he dampens it again. "That, I understand," she nods quietly, pushing a hand through her hair. "The job is the job. You don't always get to choose your targets." Back to her own drink, she takes another long swallow before leaning over to liberate another cookie from Rosemarie.

*

And now Rosemarie knows — and shall consider over the rest of her rum. She's prone to silence as is and defers to both Michael and Harper in lieu of continuing the conversation, quickly descending into worries of her own on certain matters.

The rum is wonderful, delicious and warming and in the end, it will soothe her enough to encourage remaining on her stool rather than retreating away in a cloud of startled feathers.

Still, she'll add quietly, "It's a sh-shame, f-f-f-fighting." Not that she has any right to weigh in on such weighty things.

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