Chapter Text
Michael studied himself in Samael's full-length mirror and grimaced at the still noticeable slump on his right shoulder. He gritted his teeth and straightened his posture with an effort and raised his chin to mimic his twin's imperious bearing. He hadn't impersonated Samael in several millennia, but it wasn't hard to fall into the role once again. He just needed to polish his act a bit and practice the accent his brother was using now.
"Hel-lo, " he purred, shaping his mouth to fit the cadence and timber of his twin's speech patterns. "I'm Lucifer. Morningstar. Morning-star." He tilted his head and said, "Hello, detective."
He practiced Samael's mannerisms and habits, his speech and his personality until he was certain he'd be able to pull off the ruse. He'd done it before, multiple times. He'd gotten so good at it that he regularly fooled their siblings. Samael hated it. Michael's habit of impersonating his twin had been the start of many a fight between them. Fights which had always ended up in a draw, with both bloodied and bruised.
He'd actually been glad, when Dad had made him cast Samael out. No more would he have to deal with his twin's selfish, arrogant attitude. No more would he have to see Dad's favor lavished upon his twin... and not him. No more would they play jokes on Amenadiel, tease Uriel, spar with Remiel... no more would they groom each other's wings, help arrange each other's hair, sleep warm in each other's nest... Michael swallowed and shoved the unwelcome memories aside and locked down the anger- yes, anger- that came with them. If only Sam had listened to him...
Now this arrogant fool had nobly gone back to Hell to fix a problem that was his fault to begin with, and suddenly everyone was lauding him for his sacrifice. Well, fine then. While Sam was wrangling his demons, Michael would make sure that he would have no reason to return, and nothing to return to. And maybe, just maybe have a little fun along the way while he was at it.
After all, Michael had been the good son all this time and had nothing to show for it. Maybe it was time that he raised a little Hell of his own... and finally got his V-card punched.
"Hello, Chloe," he said, doing his best to mimic his twin's sensual rumble. "I love you, darling..."
Michael struck a sensuous pose, bracing himself against the ornate frame of the mirror, and smirked. Even naked, few could tell he and his twin apart. Samael's little human pet would never see him coming, but he hoped he'd see her coming...before he broke her heart and destroyed his twin's reason to return. A tingle of pins and needles began prickling in his fingertips, then it suddenly raced up his arms and Michael pulled away from the mirror with a gasp, staring wide-eyed at ...
.... the image on the mirror that reflected not Michael's naked body, nor the warm, sunlit penthouse that Samael had called home, but his twin, wearing his signature black suit and white dress shirt standing in a dark, ash-flecked, black basalt cavern in the bowels of Hell.
Both images frowned at each other, and simultaneously said, "What the..." There was a sense of something pulling at him, ripping at his soul, tearing him free of his moorings... he gasped and grabbed at the mirror for support...
"...Hell."
As quickly as it had started, it stopped, and Michael came to himself, holding onto that same mirror... wearing a black suit with a white dress shirt. In a place of stifling heat and falling ash, in a body that did not hurt when he stood up straight and..... he unfurled his wings to check and yep.... with wings of snowy white, rather than midnight black.
"What?" he stared in disbelief at the wings, the clothes, the body... that was exactly like his... but wasn't. Somehow, something had pulled his soul from his body and traded it for his twin's. He was stuck in Hell while Samael was back on earth. In his body. He stepped back from the mirror he'd been holding onto and glared upward.
"Is this your idea of a joke, Dad?" he demanded. There was no answer.
Lucifer adjusted the cuffs of his "pain suit" as Chloe had started to call it- classic black Prada jacket and pants, a precisely tailored, crisp, white shirt and blood-red pocket square- and glared darkly at the mirror. For a change, it showed a true image, not the twisted, funhouse style image that mirrors in Hell typically displayed. As its King, he should hope that Hell would do at least that for him, if nothing else. He supposed he could have put on his battle armor, but this outfit was no less a form of armor than the soot-rubbed, Hell-forged metal set he had in his armory. It was of little consequence, either way. The demons he intended to punish couldn't hurt him unless they got their hands on some Infernal weapons, and Lucifer had those securely warded. None could touch them. Those who tried, died horribly.
He had deliberately not reconfigured the basalt cavern that was his palace to something more comfortable, more familiar, because he didn't want to be comfortable here. He didn't want to be there. His heart, his entire being, longed to be .... home. He wanted to be in the only place, and with the only person, who had taught him what that even meant.
My first love was never Eve, Chloe. It was you. It was always you.
His eyes flared in red anger at the audacity of those demons who were so soft-headed that one Hell-bound priest could convince them to break the Ban he'd had in place for thousands of years to come and fetch him back. And then Dromos took it into his Hell-rotten brain to try and depose him in favor of his infant nephew. No. Just, no.
Dromos, he'd found quickly enough. The fool had the audacity to take up residence in the Lower Throne Room and was trying it on for size. He was currently shackled to the wall, awaiting Lucifer's punishment. As soon as he found the rest of them, he'd do the same to them. Then in full view of Hell's denizens, he'd cut them to pieces with his wing-blades. That should be brutal enough to prove that he meant business. Angel feathers were anathema to demons and were a guarantee of a painful death for those unfortunate fools.
Lucifer's grim ruminations were cut short when the image in the mirror wavered. He glared angrily at his surroundings and grumbled, "don't you start your shenanigans now!"
Another flicker, like the ripples in the surface of a becalmed lake, made him frown and he touched both edges of the mirror, frowning as his image...changed.
His naked body stared back from his bedroom in the penthouse, an identically confused frown on his face. Lucifer saw sunlight streaming through black gauze curtains, lighting the golden stonework and black marble flooring, warming the buttery leather of the sofa he could just see through the open doorway behind ... himself. Lucifer glanced back behind him to verify that, yes, he was still standing in his dank, dark, ash-dusted cavern and he hadn't inadvertently changed it into a representation of his penthouse.
A shaft of longing hit him so hard that he ached, body and soul, to be there. In his true home, with the one person who held his heart whole in her hands, whether she knew it or not. He became aware of an odd sort of pins and needles type of tingling in his fingertips. He frowned at them as the tingling became painful, and he snatched his hands away from the mirror with a gasp. The tingling sensation raced up his arms.
"What the..." both he and his mirror image began. Then pain lanced through him as something reached into him and grabbed his very soul, tugging at it, ripping it free and...
"...Hell?" Slamming him into a body that looked like his, but wasn't.
The posture was off, and as he tried to straighten it, his spine and right shoulder protested - painfully.
What? I thought .... No. NO way... This can't be...
Lucifer rolled his shoulders forward, grimacing at how painful the right side was, and unfurled his-? Wings.
They were black.
"Bollocks!" he swore. He was in Michael's body. And Michael had apparently been impersonating him. Again.
"If you've done anything to hurt her, you bastard..." he snarled at the wide-eyed image that stared back at him, his white wings flared wide behind it. The image flickered and began to fade, but Lucifer thought he saw the lips mouth, "not yet..."
Then it was gone and his-Michael's- naked body was reflected back at him.
"Well, at least you manscaped this time," Lucifer grumbled. "Hope the waxing was painful enough for you." Giving the image another glare, he went to get dressed.