stilljustandrew | [detroit!AU: Summoning]

I didn't intend any insult is what he was going to say, but the words vanish before that smile like water droplets flicked onto red-hot iron.

Andrew shuts his eyes.

He laughs again, low and dark.

"Or wait there, and I'll come to you. I don't think it'll be much longer."

The air is beginning to stir, swirling the dust of the two broken circles around his feet in a spiral pattern. A glimmering brightness begins to shine upward from the lines being created.

"We have a few things to discuss in the meantime, anyway."

He could turn and try to break the door open, hoping Lucifer won't be able to keep warping the wood from inside the circle. He could make a dash across the room and leap through the window, risking a broken leg to get away. He could try to talk his way out of this.

He could keep his eyes shut and wait to be annihilated.

"Like what," he manages, in a strengthless whisper.

"Don't you remember what I told you when first we spoke?"

He smiles at Andrew, even as the air in the room begins to grow charged and heavy with building power.

"You can stay by him. Sam Winchester does not have to be alone."

Andrew opens his eyes and looks up.

Lucifer smiles down upon him.

(Prince of the Air - the Lightbringer - Son of Morning)

The gleaming brightness is growing stronger still, spreading outward through the room and banishing all shadows with a pure white fire that causes the flames from the oil to seem dim in comparison.

"It's true."

The walls and floor tremble at the quiet power underlying his words, his assurance.

"I don't intend to kill you, Andrew Wells. Despite the arrogance of this insult, you've served me far too well for that. If you wish, I will even grant you that which I offered before -- a place at Sam's side, in my service."

Slowly, Andrew's shoulders slide down the door as his knees give way. He ends in a little crumpled huddle on the floor, staring up at Lucifer.

(beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night)

(Fairest and Fallen)

Please, he dimly hears himself think. Please --

In the blink of an eye, everything around them grows still and hushed as the thunderous power permeating the room seems to hold its breath.

Lucifer stands a mere few paces from the edge of the outermost circle, looking across the flames at Andrew, and it's the hidden yearning seen so rarely on Sam's face that shapes his expression now and which shines like a ray of wistful hope through his beautiful, trusting smile as he holds out his hand.

"Andrew?"

It's the smile that does it; the smile and the beckoning hand. And the fire between them, lest he forget what's behind that smile.

He's been here before.

Oh Sam, he mourns silently. Sam. Is this what he did to you?

Andrew closes his eyes again -- in grief, in despair, in cold sick fear -- and tries to speak. A whisper is all he can get out, and it takes him two attempts.

"No."

His hand slowly lowers.

Lucifer studies him, his expression turning distant and remote, the smile now gone as though it had never existed.

"A pity." The merciless ringing tones of bronze are back in his words, causing the walls to shudder beneath the harsh clamoring onslaught as he continues,

"But willing or unwilling, I have use for you yet. And so--"

Light fountains up from the coruscating spiral at his feet; light explodes outwards around him as great wings unfold from his shoulderblades and begin to beat, once, twice, causing a whirlwind to scream through the room with each thundering blast--

--and snuffing out the remaining flames of the holy oil entirely.

The wind of those wings flattens him against the wall, lashes his face with his hair, drowns his cry of terror with its thunder.

When the holy fire dies, the last of his nerve fails him; he lurches to his feet and makes a panicked break for the window.

The awful presence grows, doubling in magnitude as the light swells and flickers like shadows on the bottom of a pool.

(For an instant, the image of another pair of wings dances through them, there and gone.)

An iron-fast grip closes around the back of Andrew's shirt and yanks him up short, shoving him with a brusque efficiency into one corner of the room as the figure turns toward Lucifer. His smile's as perpetually amused as ever, and his eyes are very cold, and very hard.

"Yeah," he says, stretching the word into a long drawl. "About that."

"Gabriel."

Utter and absolute shock rings through the single word as Lucifer stares at him.

"You? You would choose to finally interfere, now? For this?"

He throws his hand out, indicating Andrew.

Andrew blinks the blur out of his eyes -- sweat or tears, he can't tell -- and clings to the wall as though standing at the edge of a pit. Which, he's aware, he very much is.

The newcomer is familiar -- but not a trickster spirit after all, an archangel, Gabriel. And he may be here to protect him, but in this revealed aspect, he's no less terrifying than Lucifer.

"Um...yeah," says Gabriel, as if this were the most obvious answer in the world; his eyebrows tick up on the yeah for extra emphasis. Folding his arms as he shrugs, "'Cause, last I checked, this whole apocalypse you're starting up?"

He untucks one hand long enough to sketch a quick circle in front of himself, finger pointed down.

"Involved our Dad's work. Not this guy."

Lucifer's smile is terrifying and beautiful at once.

"He was the one who chose to call upon me. I answered his prayer, not to put too fine a point on it. He's mine, Gabriel. And I intend to have him."

One eyebrow arches even higher.

"Just because he wanted to pick up the phone and say hi?"

"Oh, I'm sure you realize he did more than that."

A cold, keen edge threads through his voice, whispering of bright steel and distant battles.

"You've gotten better at questioning, brother. There's still a place for you, too, if you want it. I wasn't the one who turned away, remember?"

That note in Lucifer's voice -- Sam Winchester's voice -- sends a helpless shudder through him, and Andrew turns and hides his face against the wall, leaking tears.

"Please." He's not aware of whispering it aloud. "Please no."

The rippling water-shadows on the wall go still. Gabriel's smile tilts at an unpleasant angle before it vanishes altogether.

"Yeah, funny thing about that," he says, and there is nothing of amusement left in his voice. "I never stopped knowing both sides shared the blame."

"But not you."

There's no hint of a question.

"Never you. You stand apart, rejecting all equally."

A beat.

"Until now."

Gabriel unfolds his arms, and with the movement comes a new shiver to the shadows like a pebble tossed in a lake.

"Really?" he asks, cocking his head. "That's what you think this is?"

His gaze flicks to the spent holy oil in a quick, automatic judgment of caution; then, he takes half a step closer. Not enough to put himself far away from Andrew. Not enough to give the Morningstar an opening.

As he pulls a face of exaggerated contemplation, "Because...way I see it, all I'm doing is calling the plays as they come. And this one is way out of bounds, bro."

"Yet out of your jurisdiction, if such it ever were."

The air stirs again, whispering around all three of them.

"But not mine. It is my vessel who is the reason for the connection, after all."

He darts a bright, laughing glance at Andrew.

"Isn't that so?"

Andrew flinches as though scalded by his gaze.

"Don't --"

"Don't what? Speak the truth?"

Lucifer smiles, even as the look in his eyes hardens.

"Because it is the truth, and we all know it." A beat. "Put not your trust in our Father's messenger boy, Andrew Wells. If he could have preserved his vaunted neutral balance by giving Sam Winchester over to me himself, he would have gladly done so."

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