Annoyed and angry (2)

His grace prickled uneasily when he grinned. "Raphael, what do I owe this pleasure?"

She looked at him as if it were a burden to be in his presence. "Michael wants you to stop altering the ecosystem of this country."

He couldn't help but scoff.

"Oh, that's nice," he said, making a show of looking around as he edged closer. "And where is he? I'm sure that he hasn't just sent you to play messenger, right?"

Raphael scrunched slightly her nose at Lucifer's closeness. "You are not Michael's only concern, Lucifer," she snarled. "Michael cannot ignore his own responsibilities to come here to deal with your tantrums."

Lucifer's grace flared for a second. He moved his hand slowly towards her and smirked. "Hasn't anyone taught you to respect your elders, little sister?" His hand brushed her cheek, letting his grace linger a little closer to his fingertips, enough for Raphael to feel it.

She tried to look unfazed, but Lucifer saw how her wings twitched as she stepped into Lucifer's space. "You are not my brother," she spat.

He hummed nonchalantly while backed away. He would not confess it to anyone, perhaps to Aaron, but that felt like a stab on his grace. "I take that you don't agree with Michael about my situation, then?"

She glared at him as she turned slightly away from him. "Michael just does not want to destroy Father's work yet," she said, and there was something curious lingering in her tone. Something familiar.

"Oh, I know what's happening here." He touched faintly her arm, making her look directly at him. "You wished that when I got out of the Cage," he purred, "I had destroyed everything, yes?"

Her eyes grew colder, guarded, as she spun around, an angel sword in her hand. The movement looked natural, practiced on her– but she was the Healer; she wasn't supposed to learn that. She aimed to slice his face but he twisted back, grabbing it easily with his naked palm. He regained his balance and pushed her forward, moving the tip of the blade towards her chin. His grace poured from the grip, bright drops rolling from his hand.

"You used to be wise," he murmured against her ear.

The corner of her lips quirked up as she looked at him with pity. "Are we going to talk about what we used to be, Lucifer?"

His teeth flared in a sharp smile, his grip tightened on the blade, but a thunder cracked above them and he remembered Aaron. He darted his eyes away from her for a second before he smiled, ready to make some remark and─

"Or perhaps you're not so stupid," Lucifer said after a beat. "Perhaps you want me to kill you so Michael will bring all Heaven down to me." The way Raphael's feathers flicked was the answer he needed. "Perhaps, unlike Michael, you want the Apocalypse to start." He leaned even more into her personal space, pushing the blade up until a trail of grace bled from her chin. "A little kamikaze of you, don't you think?"

"I will do whatever is needed to bring our Paradise." She flared her wings dangerously, but he pressed them down using his own. Lucifer smiled, remembering her puffing her wings in annoyance when he took her favorite asteroids away. She was a beautiful fledgling.

His eyebrows knit in realization. "Your pride is the only thing that impedes you from stabbing yourself, right?" He released her; the tips of his feathers lingered against her wing for a moment too long. "And what does Michael think of your little plan, um?"

Her wings fluttered once, clearly angry at being manhandled. He thought she was going to snarl at him but she glanced away and, for a moment, her eyes glimmered with something ancient ─ something weary and sad. Not looking at all like the little sister of his memories. "Michael does not know." She looked up at him, eyes hard and angry, but he also noticed some longing, a desire to be understood. Lucifer remembered that sentiment. "We are tired, Lucifer," she confessed.

He glanced briefly at the side, not being able to hold her stare. "So you don't think that Father will return as Michael does?" His eyes skimmed her form. "Or is that you don't care about the repercussions your actions will--"

"Father is dead," she said bitterly, surprising him the sudden interruption.

Lucifer hummed as he played with Raphael's sword. He supposed that it was easier to think that way. Easier than thinking that He simply did not care. He wanted to smile at the innocence of that statement.

He drew his eyes away though. The sky was clearing. "I suppose your plans were hammered when Michael came to talk to me."

"Please," she scoffed. "As if we wouldn't have thought that you wouldn't try to backstab him whenever you could."

"Oh, I can feel the love here."

Confusion showed on her face momentarily before he waved his hand for her to continue; he had spent too much time around humans.

She scoffed. "Our plans were hammered when you started meddling with one of those mud monke--"

Lucifer moved fast and pressed a palm against her chest, up above her sternum, and sent her core deep insider her vessel, along with her body to the ground. Raphael gasped as she grabbed his arm, trying to move it away.

It had been a trick they had used in the old days, when they, Michael and Lucifer, taught her how to control her energy properly. Before, she could spend days trying to free her grace, but now it would merely last a few seconds with her being powerless. But a few seconds were enough.

"Be careful of your words, Raphael." His voice was a soft, dangerous rumble. "I don't want to destroy you."

The air around them grew thicker as Raphael tilted her head, her eyebrows knitted in confusion. "Is really that pet so important?"

"He is." Lucifer pushed her down to the floor as he answered without thinking, surprising her.

Her face contorted in disgust. "Why?"