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I NEVER FELT CONFIDENT ABOUT telling the boys that everything was going to be fine, but now - more than ever before - I knew that saying something like that was out of the question. I wasn’t sure that we would never be fine again, but it was starting to look like it was at least going to be a long while before that was the case.
I walked upstairs, pushing past Phoenix, without another word to anyone and made my way up to my office. Technically, it was our office since we each had our own desk and chair in there, but I used it the most often.
None of the others had much of a need for it since they never had that much on their plate, but I always wanted it to be that way. That is, until now.
Now, I would’ve killed for the ability to share the burden with someone else. Maybe I didn’t really want to share it with my brothers in particular because they didn’t deserve to suffer like I was, but I wanted to share it with someone. At least that way I would have someone by my side to let me know that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t have that option now, though, since King Victor was - as far too many people now knew - gone and Princess Edelweiss still couldn’t know what was happening.
Honestly, I was getting to the point where I was about to tell her just so she would go to Heaven and maybe then the angels would back off since they had their little toy back, but I couldn’t do that. As close as I was to my tipping point, that was too far.
Not to mention, King Victor would’ve had my head if I allowed something to happen to his daughter, let alone if I was the reason something happened to his daughter.
I sat down at my desk and hit my head on the wood a few times before burying my face into my hands and allowing myself to let out a scream now that it was muffled by my palms. I rubbed my eyes until I saw red before finally looking up at the ceiling.
I wanted so, so badly to start yelling expletives so loudly that they could hear them in Heaven, but then I realized it wouldn’t work. They were too busy listening to their gospel music and the lies that they told themselves to hear something coming from anyone in Hell, let alone me.
“What else are you planning, Gavin? Huh? What else do you intend to force us to go through before you’re finally done convincing your ‘people’ that you’re the almighty one?” I called, unable to stop myself from asking that.
I didn’t get it. I. Didn’t. Get. It.
Gavin had everything at His fingertips. He could create anything and anyone he wanted - even a woman to fit His idea of a perfect lover, if He so desired - and He had hundreds of thousands of people that adored Him and hung off of His every word like flies attracted to honey. Why - why did He need all of this, too?
If He was mad at me and my brothers, then He, His father (I refused to call God my father - I didn’t enjoy doing so back then and now I despised it), and the rest of our brothers had already done plenty to make sure that we knew our relationship with them was irredeemable. If He was trying to prove something to us, He’d already proved plenty of times that we were no match for him. We all knew we would never be a match for Him, God, and the rest of the angels made sure that our reputation could never be mended even before He went dormant.
Why did Gavin still feel the need to make our lives miserable?
Why couldn’t He leave us alone and let us move on with our lives?
Granted, I also knew that just leaving us alone wasn’t going to be good enough for King Victor. He was going to keep fighting until we were seen as equals... somehow, I had a feeling the whole world would end before that ever happened.
Before the war, I tried to support King Victor in his ventures to reveal the truth and repair our relationships with the angels, though I never agreed with it, but I didn’t know what to do now. I couldn’t bring myself to turn against King Victor’s desires, but I also couldn’t bring myself to keep supporting them when I could see plain as day the kind of trouble it was causing.
To be fair, I didn’t know what I was doing about anything at this rate. I felt equally as lost as I did when I first fell before I met King Victor’s father - the “original” Satan.
Sometimes, I wondered if it would’ve been better if Satan was still here. At least then we wouldn’t be making as many waves as the king tried to fight for something that could never exist.
No, our only problem would’ve been that we didn’t have harmony down here. We never would’ve been allowed to see each other as family, the Angel Hunters would still be expected to slaughter angels for no good reason, and the minions would never exist because Satan never would’ve taken those kids in like King Victor did. Who knew where the Bauers, Finn, or Eddie would have ended up if Satan wasn’t below the lowest circle of Hell, never to awaken again.
Then again, I wasn’t so sure that I preferred that over this. I had grown attached to the little family that we had - especially now that Eddie was in the picture.
I groaned as I found myself lost in my thoughts and tried to shake myself free from them. I could feel my emotions running a thousand miles a minute and I never enjoyed that feeling. I much preferred having my feelings turned off if it meant that I didn’t have to feel like this.
As I bent over my desk to try to get some work done, I heard a knock on the door. It wasn’t soft enough to be Eddie’s knock and it wasn’t rhythmic enough to be Roscoe’s knock, so I figured it was either Phoenix or one of my brothers. I knew it wasn’t the Hunters. As much as I wanted it to be one of them, they never would’ve knocked before entering... except for maybe Newt, but he would’ve sent someone in his place rather than going himself (probably Athena).
I sighed and regained my composure before spinning my swivel chair around and calling for whoever it was to come in. Shortly after, Lachlan opened the door and revealed himself. I could immediately tell by what heq2 was wearing that he was planning on going out somewhere, and I had a decent idea of what kind of somewhere that was, but I was hoping I was wrong.
I’d worked so hard to try to help my brothers heal from their pasts, to heal from the things that allocated them to their respective “sins”. Lachlan in particular always had a problem with going to parties and partaking in... activities that no prince should’ve ever participated in - at least, not to the degree that Lachlan did. Sure, he was the prince of Lust, but the problem was that he didn’t have any kind of self-control on his own - none of us did. He really had to work to have it and he was doing better with it now, but that was because he wasn’t putting himself in those situations where he could be tempted.
I didn’t want to try to restrict my brother - at the end of the day, he was an adult and there was little to nothing that I could do to stop him once he got his mind up to something - but this worried me. If he relapsed in his progress, there was no telling where the other six were going to end up... actually, there was also no telling where I was going to end up and Wyatt and I definitely couldn’t afford to go back in our progress.
The world would surely end if that happened.
“What do you need, Lachlan?” I asked him coolly.
“I’m going to a party.”
I knew I should’ve seen that coming, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.
Instead, I was so taken aback by the announcement that I almost fell out of my chair. I stood up and walked over to him, folding my arms across my chest and watching him closely. He seemed to shrink down a little bit as I approached him and my heart sank a little bit more.
I had a love-hate relationship with when my brothers were scared of me. The sadist part of me relished in their misery, but the part of me that I was always fighting to push to the forefront wanted to cry out in agony when I saw the looks on their faces. The looks on their faces was always the worst part, I think, other than the sheer knowledge that I had that kind of influence over my little brothers.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Lach?” I asked him gently. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinched away and backed towards the door.
“Not really...” He lamented.
“Then why are you doing it?”
“Because... because I really want to. I need the stress relief, Lucifer.”
I sighed and looked down at him, “I’m not going to try to stop you, Lachlan, but keep in mind that you’re responsible for what you do tonight - no one else.”
Of course, I was still hoping that he would end up realizing that what he was about to do wasn’t in his best interest. I had no desire to try to control him, but still.
There was a reason that he ended up having to stop going to parties all together.
Lachlan smiled a little and wrapped his arms around me. I hugged him back, giving him a light squeeze.
“Trust me, Luci,” he replied (I grimaced at the nickname, but let it go for the time being), “I’ll be fine - you know I will be.”
I watched as he pulled away and headed back out of the room, teleporting downstairs once he was back in the hall. I sighed and hugged myself as I stood there for another moment or so. I wished that I could say I knew he was going to be fine, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that at all.