Katou Yue (realnicemonster) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-11-15 13:30:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, angel sanctuary: katou yue, ₴ inactive: lucifer morningstar |
Who: Katou and Lucifer
What: Katou learns Lucifer's in Vallo and goes to kill him; doesn't find who he's looking for
Where: Lux
When: Backdated to early October, right after Katou's first post to the Network
Warnings: Language, mostly.
A dull roaring had filled Katou’s ears the moment he read that Lucifer was here, in Vallo, but he’d managed to keep it together long enough to figure out where it was he could go to find him. And maybe some things didn’t make sense - two daughters from two different worlds, the fact that the cold, unfeeling man that Katou remembered would own a club, of all things - but it didn’t matter. The only thought that ran through Katou’s head was Lucifer is here.
He had to kill him. Even if it meant throwing out yet another chance at life. He couldn’t live a life that had Lucifer in it. Not with that face, that voice.
The club was weird, Katou thought again as he made his way inside, hands shoved deep into his jean pockets. Kira’d always preferred small, tucked-away holes-in-the-wall to drink in: the kind of places that didn’t mind if a bunch of teenage delinquents hung out all day drinking. Maybe it was because, well, they’d been a bunch of teenage delinquents cutting class to go drinking in tucked-away holes-in-the-wall. But even if the two of them had lived to see twenty, Katou could never see Kira in a place like this. Let alone Lucifer, who’d probably never thought, once in his life, about having anything that might have resembled fun. He’d probably never even spoken the word.
Then again, ritzy assholes didn’t really seem like the type to have fun either. Katou snorted. Maybe this was the kind of place Lucifer would own, if he owned a club.
Any thoughts of the appropriateness of the club disappeared when Katou spotted Lucifer behind the bar. His aura wasn’t as cloying, wasn’t filled with that suffocating bloodlust, but there was still something in it that was familiar enough that Katou could recognize it, and from the moment he recognized it, he was blind to anything and everyone else.
“Lucifer!” Katou yelled across the room, extending the blades in the fingers of his false arm and charging toward him. He leapt on top of the bar, heedless of any bottles or glasses that might have been on top of it, brought his arm back for a killing blow, and then… froze.
Now that he was close enough to get a proper look, Katou’d expected to see those cold, soulless grey eyes, set in Kira’s face, and that was definitely not what he was looking at now.
Despite what some may have thought of Lucifer’s work ethic, he did occasionally like to participate in the hands on running of his club which included a rundown of inventory. Clipboard in hand, he idly checked bottles on the glass shelves behind the bar. The whiskey he’d ordered on a whim from a farm beyond city borders wasn’t quite as popular as the distiller tried to sell him on and he scribbled a note to reduce the next order greatly. Not yet cutting it out entirely. It needed another month or two to be given a proper chance.
A few bartenders moved around him, familiar enough in their duties that the whole thing was more like a dance these days. They could use another though and he made a note to have Rory check into hiring another at least on a part time basis. Perhaps a student from the university who could use the pay.
He would have liked to say that hearing his name yelled across the club in such a manner was unheard of but it happened far more than he cared to admit, usually with a tone of disapproval or frustration. Anger was not far off from either yet this call had an underlying tone of...homicide as well maybe? Lucifer turned to scan the club for the owner of the voice, a few patrons in the quiet hours before things really picked up casually glancing towards the source as well before returning to drinks and conversations.
The young man rushing towards him was utterly unfamiliar and yet Lucifer didn’t need to know him to be fully aware that he was a threat from the bladed hand alone. “Leave,” he commanded the staff around him, beckoning for people to get away from the bar before they were caught in the crossfire. His attention turned back to the young man, dark eyes fixing on the threat intently. Lucifer shifted his shoulders and his wings emerged to their full span, the celestial version of a warning that this was not a fight the other wanted to pick.
He mistook the pause for a reaction to his wordless threat. “Whatever you were set on doing next, I suggest you sit down instead and explain why you are causing commotion in my club,” he growled up at him, pointing at the seat just behind him, “as your other option doesn’t turn out well for you.”
The wings did nothing more than confuse Katou further, because Lucifer’s wings weren’t white, they were pitch black. Katou’s own wings - three of them, snow white and each longer than Katou was tall - unfurled in an unconscious response, except the expression on his face wasn’t a homicidal rage anymore, but a bewildered suspicion.
“Who the hell are you?” he blurted out, making absolutely no effort to move.
Lucifer’s head tilted slightly, eying the wings. While his siblings had their own unique traits to their wings, none certainly appeared as this one’s did. He was also used to every angel being a sibling which was not the case when the world was not his own.
“Who the hell am I - who the hell are you?” he demanded. Rolling his shoulders back, his wings snapped in again, disappearing as mysteriously as they appeared. His arms crossed over his chest, brow furrowing. “Has anyone told you that it is incredibly rude to storm another’s establishment and then demand to know who he is? Still, I’m Lucifer bloody Morningstar, that’s who I am. Now get off my bar and sit down.”
"No you're n-" Katou started, petulantly, before he realized that yeah, yelling at this dude while standing on top of his bar, especially now that he had no desire to kill him, was probably overkill. He took a step backward, dropping off the edge, his wings folding back in as he fell toward the ground.
"If you're Lucifer, then I'm the Queen of England," he started again, now that he was on the ground. Except this dude was taller than him and now Katou kind of wished he was on the bar again. "You're too…" he looked him up and down, looking for a suitable adjective, except there were too many of them. Other than the vague similarities in the feeling of their aura, and the fact that they both had black hair (though his Lucifer's was longer) they had absolutely nothing in common. "Old," he finished, which felt like a nice, petty dig. Lucifer was apparently as old as time, but he only looked to be in his early 20s in Katou's world.
Lucifer drew up straight and then bowed slightly in faux reverence, touching his fingers to his brow in a small salute. “In that case, your majesty,” he shot back dryly before standing up straight again. The mockery didn’t stand long though, Lucifer’s eyes going wide and mouth dropping open. “Old?” he demanded. “You better mean in years, not in looks.” Feeling petty after that particular jab, he grabbed the nearby bottle of whiskey where a bartender left it and pulled it out of the newcomer’s reach. No whiskey for him.
“You’ll find around here that more than one version may exist. I am the only version of Lucifer Morningstar here but I have come to the unfortunate realization that there are others out there who fail to measure up,” he muttered. “Now before I give you anymore information, you tell me who you are and why you felt the need to make such a scene in my club.”
"Pretty sure Lucifer has been around since the beginning of time, so no, don't mean in years," Katou said, shooting Lucifer an innocent smile. He slipped into one of the seats and shot a look at the bottle of whiskey, wondering if he maybe should have made a grab for it before it got taken away.
Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that that other guy mentioned something about there being different versions of people too, but Katou had brushed it off. Lucifer was Lucifer no matter where he was, wasn't he?
Maybe not.
"I'm Katou, and obviously I came here to kill Lucifer," he said. He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and put it in his mouth, and leaned back in the chair, feet on the bar, before he moved to light it. "But you're not who I was expecting. So uh, no hard feelings, I guess."
“The other meaning is looks and if that is the case then I will have to find a punishment befitting that crime.” Of course he didn’t mean anything serious but omitting the part was by far more fun. This man had after all come raging into his club to kill him.
He picked up two clean glasses and set them on the bar before reaching for a different bottle from the one he’d moved. “Would that not be my decision to make?” he asked casually. “Seeing as how you came here to kill me when I, at least the me that is this version of Lucifer and not him, did nothing to you.” He opened the bottle and started to pour, the smooth motion broken by him stopping to swat Katou’s feet off his bar. “Where did your mother raise you, a brothel?” he demanded.
“Hey, it ain’t my fault that you look your age.” Katou said, grinning like the asshole he was. He lit his cigarette and took a drag.
Lucifer probably had a point about that being his choice, but Katou found that he was more than a little disappointed that this Lucifer wasn’t his Lucifer. It was stupid, especially since he hated Lucifer, but…
But it still kind of sucked, and Katou was a little put out about it.
He scowled when Lucifer mentioned his mother and blew smoke in his direction, but he took his feet off the bar anyway. “So when you say Lucifer Morningstar, you mean King of Hell, right?” He gave Lucifer another once-over, frowning a little. “Because you seem… I don’t know, not very Father of All Evil-y or whatever.”
Was this how Amenadiel felt before their relationship improved? How his siblings still may have felt about him? Lucifer’s eyes narrowed and he gave brief consideration to taking hold of Katou’s foot that hadn’t yet cleared the bar and pushing, sending him end over end. “Still prettier than you,” he replied deftly though being an opinion and not the truth allowed him to say as much.
Lucifer didn’t recoil from the smoke, an eyebrow arching. Cigarettes were a favorite vice, legal in comparison to a few other favorites that allowed him to indulge more often. “I am the King of Hell but I am not the Father of All Evil regardless of what the stories say. Taking care of Hell is hardly a choice job but one forced upon me and I prefer to be up here among people,” he stated. It was the latter of the titles that hit a sore spot, one that followed him through the centuries through no choice of his own.
“I do not deal in souls, I do not want souls, I do not tempt people to Hell. They wind up there through their own actions, at least in my version. However I do deal in desires and deals though the latter is never more than the asker can give when I should happen to call on them,” he added. The glass he’d just poured for himself disappeared in one gulp. “I will not apologize for whatever your Lucifer has done to you as I am not him and unfortunately I have found there are versions of me out there that are right bastards.”
Katou snorted. “No arguments there,” he said. He’d never been especially fond of his looks - he looked too much like his biological father, which, in life, had bothered him more than he ever cared to admit - but he could change his looks now with a thought and still had clung to this face, even when he’d forgotten why. Apparently he was sentimental toward it or something. For a moment, he considered changing it, just to see what Lucifer would do, but then decided that was probably too much work.
Katou frowned, watching Lucifer drink the whiskey. “Well, human souls don’t go to Hell in my world, usually,” he said after a while. “Yours truly being the exception. They usually end up in Hades, and then Uri,” that being Uriel, “decides if they can go to Eden or get reincarnated again. Hell’s just a buncha layers of increasingly gnarly demons. And God’s a goddamned psychopath so, you know, most angels wound up pretty messed up one way or another.”
The worst demons in Hell were, by far, the seven Satans, who’d been angels that had followed Lucifer in his rebellion, but there were plenty of angels who ruled up in Heaven that were just as bad.
“You gonna pour me one of those?” he asked, after a brief internal debate.
Usually that comment raised a protest when it hit a mark, others so fond of their looks, but Lucifer felt brief disappointment when Katou waved it off. Well there were other avenues to try and that made it all the more challenging, which he always enjoyed.
He was reaching for the second glass to pour him a drink, listening to his explanation when he heard ‘Uri’ and he certainly did not need someone to explain to him who that would be if their pantheons were so similar. The image of his brother in his arms, dying from Lucifer running him through with Azreal’s blade to save Chloe, appeared unbidden and he swallowed hard. As long as he lived he would acknowledge that what he did was necessary but he would never forgive himself, the guilt creating a deep wound tucked away in his psyche that would never heal.
“There are a few things within that speech of yours that I can toast to. Mostly that celestials are dysfunctional without hope of being healed back to function. That doesn’t stop us from seeking professional help in the attempt,” he added dryly, thinking of Linda back home in LA. “I do recognize Hades and Eden though, however I assumed they were under far different management than they are in your world.”
He slid the glass to Katou. “And our relationship with God is complicated to see the least. Think less psychopath and more very distant and disapproving father leaving all his children with daddy issues,” he muttered.
“Ain’t like I’m ever getting to Eden, so I couldn’t tell you about that,” Katou said. Actually, he wasn’t really sure how Hades was fairing either. Uriel had been in charge of deciding where the souls went, but he didn’t think Uriel had necessarily been in charge. That, he thought, might have been Enra-Ou, some sort of giant … something made up of hundreds of faces. It had been where Katou had gotten his original orders from, at least, but he and Setsuna had messed it up pretty badly when they were getting Setsuna out of there, and Katou wasn’t really sure what its fate had wound up being.
Katou took the glass and hesitated, but only for a moment. He hadn’t actually had anything to drink since he’d died (cigarettes, for some reason, were easy to come by in Heaven and Hell, even after the whole thing had collapsed in on itself, but not so much with alcohol. That was probably for the best though. A bunch of drunk teenagers, demons, and angels trying to kill God sounded like a bad idea), and he wasn’t sure how his new body would take to it. Or even if he should be drinking in the first place.
And then he decided that he’d probably earned at least a drink or two, so he knocked back what liquid there had been, took a second to enjoy the burn, and put the glass, half-expectantly, back in front of him.
“I think I’d take your God over mine,” Katou muttered. “Though maybe all that means is that God just sucks no matter what universe He created.”
“Much like an attempt to land in Heaven would leave me a pile of ash.” A feeling he remembered all too well from memories granted to him from home. It had been worth it to return Chloe to the land of the living. Trixie already lost one parent suddenly and tragically, she didn’t need to lose another so close or...well, or at all. Human lifespans would take care of that soon enough but it should be a long time still for her.
He had not expected this bloody conversation to be making him feel so many complicated things at once and wished the liquor had more of an effect on him than merely being a taste he liked.
“I have come to find of late that the occupation is complicated to say the least. That isn’t to say that I agree with how it was done, just that I have a better understanding than I may have years ago. Perhaps I’ve matured as well, horrifyingly enough,” he admitted. Lucifer took the empty glass Katou set down as an invitation and refilled it. “I hope this means you will refrain from making an attempt on my life in the future? I have no interest in...well, whatever your version was interested in,” he added and held up his glass. “So shall we toast to a truce?”
"Oh, that sucks," Katou said. "But hey, I'd take Hell over Heaven any day, if it makes you feel any better. At least, my version of it." Gehenna wasn't all that bad, really. Though Katou had never ventured to the lower levels of Hell, which Setsuna had told him were worse. Gehenna had heart, at least, whereas the parts of Heaven Katou'd visited were all white, clinical walls and prisons and what seemed like torture chambers.
"But yeah, I ain't got no interest in killing you," Katou said, and lifted his glass to clink against Lucifer's. He didn't actually know what Lucifer was interested in in his world. He didn't think anyone really knew what Lucifer was after. They'd claimed Lucifer was under Rociel's control, like Katou had been before he died the first time, but Katou hadn't bought that for a second. Not after he'd looked in his eyes that first time. He took a large swallow of the whiskey.
"He was my best friend," he said after a moment. "I mean, it's complicated, but I guess he possessed this kid, Kira, who was dying from a car crash. Promised to give him what he wanted in exchange for letting him use his body. And so we grew up together and we formed this gang, and then he died and came back as Luci and… and he weren't Kira no more." Still had his face, but not his eyes, or his easy sense of humour or anything else. "And then he chopped off my arm," at this, his voice became a little lighter, a little more laissez-faire, "so I figure I oughta kill him."
Lucifer arched an eyebrow at that. “It does not but I appreciate you adding that qualifier. I find my former domain to be quite boring so I was further questioning your personality.” As simple as differences between worlds but he had no frame of comparison. That would be the third Hell that he was aware of as well, the other two being his and then Sabrina’s.
“Appreciated. You could not succeed but it would get very old very quickly,” he added. Given the circumstances of their meeting, he hadn’t expected much but Katou opening up surprised him. Especially when he hadn’t even needed to prod with a little influence, ask him what he truly desired.
Now the other eyebrow rose to match the other. “So this is quite personal for you.” Which he could understand as sometimes he had a hard time not keeping his personal life from interfering with work. “Well I can also assure you that I do not possess. This body is Dad given and my one and only, nor would I ever want to possess a body.” Lucifer grinned. “Why would I when I can just offer pleasure nicely?”
Katou snorted. Lucifer wouldn’t be the first to question Katou’s personality, and it was doubtful he’d be the last.
“That sounds like a challenge, and if you think I ain’t up for a challenge, Old Man, than you’re,” he took a sip of his whiskey, “absolutely correct. Sounds like a pain in the ass, so I guess you’re safe on multiple accounts.”
Personal seemed like an understatement. Katou hadn’t exactly been in his right mind at the end there - his soul had been struggling to stay attached to his body, and he’d lost a lot of himself. But destroying Lucifer had been the only reason he’d held on as long as he had before… well, before he’d wound up here, he guessed.
“Well, I think Luci’s body might’ve actually been Hell,” he said, frowning. “Maybe. I don’t know. I never paid much attention to any of that junk. But when Kira died the whole thing just collapsed.” It was a weird, convoluted mess, and Katou was glad that he’d never been cursed with the kind of mind that needed to make sense out of that stuff. “You do that a lot though? Offer pleasure?”
“If you think calling me ‘old man’ is going to provoke me into some kind of combat with you, you’re absolutely wrong. Just because I could whip your insolent young arse doesn’t mean I have to prove it,” Lucifer replied dryly. His combat skills were second only to Amenadiel and his brother had the honor of being known as the Silver City’s greatest warrior, a fact he took pride in and tried to pretend he didn’t. Sins and all that.
What a miserable existence to be the embodiment of Hell. Lucifer’’s reputation ended up tangled up in association with Hell but he was not Hell and Hell was not him thankfully. “It’s something you will not have to worry about here. If a Hell exists, it is neither my concern nor yours being Outlanders.” He finished off his glass and set it back down.
“I did but I am happily taken now so she is the only one I offer pleasure to these days. I saw nothing wrong with fulfilling desires however as long as it was consensual. You should look into it, a night of pleasure with a young lady or gentlemen or nonbinary person may do you some good,” he added innocently.
Katou laughed. Not very hard or for very long, but it still felt good. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually laughed, and not out of bitterness or sarcasm. Long before Kira had bit it, he thought. “Alright, alright, I ‘believe’ you,” Katou said, finger quotes and all. Not because he actually thought he could beat Lucifer in a fight - he hadn’t left so much as a scratch on his own Lucifer and had ended up near dead after both his encounters with him - but Katou liked riling people when he could.
The laughter was short lived though. Before he’d died, he probably would have snapped something about only being interested in girls, but he didn’t really have it in him right now. That didn’t mean he was about to admit out loud that he was interested in guys. Besides… “Given the fact that I’m basically just a walking corpse, I don’t think I’m gonna have anyone lining up.”
Lucifer gave him a dark look but wisely decided not to pursue further - for now. Katou seemed to border on having a death wish and that was one Lucifer would not offer to fulfill. “Mmmhmm,” he murmured quietly.
“Well there are other walking corpses here of a sort so I assume that may not be as improbable as one would believe.” Lucifer shrugged. “It would be a little strange to ask but then I think stranger questions have been asked and answered here.”
“Yeah, this place is a regular barrel of weird,” Katou muttered. He sighed, snubbed out his cigarette between steel-tipped fingers, and then knocked back the rest of his whiskey. He didn’t like to say sorry, and generally tried to avoid it as often as possible. It would’ve been a lot easier to avoid if Lucifer had been a dick about this whole thing. “Sorry about the whole trying to kill you thing,” Katou muttered, hopping off the bar stool and not actually looking at Lucifer. “Probably won’t happen again.”
“That would be an understatement.” Not that he was complaining because for the most part he enjoyed the oddness. Lucifer casually waved a hand in the air. “No apologies are necessary. It would not be the first and certainly won’t be the last,” he stated as if the mere idea of an attempted killing was nothing worse than a bad joke. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Life’s tough for royalty, I guess,” Katou snorted. Even if he sounded sarcastic, he didn’t necessarily mean to. After all, he didn’t have people regularly making attempts on his life. Not outside of the normal course of getting caught up in a war, at least.
He shouldn’t have felt disappointed. This Lucifer had given him booze and was, objectively, better for everyone than his own Lucifer. He even liked him, and there was a pretty good chance he’d come to bug him again in the future. Hell, he’d probably have gotten himself killed if he’d found who he was looking for. Even still, he felt weirdly let down when he turned to leave. “You too. I’ll catch you around sometime.”