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"Why...why do you have his face?" Sandalphon looked at the man before him, baffled. It was Lucifer, again. Yet how? It simply couldn't be. There was no getting him back, he was dead and gone. All that remained were his wings which now belonged to Sandalphon, the new head primarch, not that the role meant much since he had joined Gran and his sky boat full of oddities. He had been minding his business in the cafe when suddenly here this random man wearing Lucifer's face comes and ruins his whole day.
"That's no way to greet your old pal." The man pouted. Sandalphon closed his eyes briefly, trying to calm himself for whatever this was.
"Who are you?" He asked after a beat of silence. The other man raised his hands in surrender then pulled up a chair to sit.
"Lucio," He offered his hand to Sandalphon, who declined in favor of occupying his hands with a new cup to clean. "Fine, be that way. I wasn't supposed to come and see you on my own terms anyways. Something about how you'd snap and rip apart the heavens."
That struck Sandalphon as odd, did his peers think of him as such a fragile thing that so much as seeing Lucifer's face would make him regress into some revenge hungry monster? If anything he should be happy...right?
"You know I've heard from the humans youre a lot more fiesty but you haven't said much. Cat got your tongue?"
"No."
"Then wh-"
"No." Sandalphon, with little to no caution set the glass in his hands back onto the counter, swiftly untied his apron tossing it to the side then made his way out the door. His boots clicking against the wood floor dramatically as he left. Leaving Lucio in there all alone.
A strange meeting it was. However it wouldnt be the last.
The two grew accustomed to each other after a lot of trial and error. It was hard, really hard for a while for Sandalphon to look Lucio in the eyes as they talked. There were times in the halls when they would pass each other and for a split second Sandalphon allowed himself to think of it like the old days when he was still learning to exist and be an angel. Lucifer would always smile at him if they had no time to stop and speak. Lucio did the same except his smile was wider and it never quite reached his eyes. And yet eventually Sandalphon found himself falling.
Like the sky on that fateful day, the head primarch found himself falling hard. He hated Lucio but the ghost of who he was and wasnt, reignited something in him.
"Just this once, will you shut up and let me believe?" Sandalphon asked one day, his face mere inches from Lucio's. The fake, didn't speak just closed the distance between them. It flowed into something sloppy, primal, and tragic. He thought he could handle it but as they continued to kiss Sandalphon's mind wandered to the past and the fantasy started unraveling.
Oh how he longed for Lucifer. For the real thing. None of it felt right, nothing like he ever imagined.
"You're crying." Lucio said in disbelief. His hand moved upwards to gently caress Sandalphon's cheek and wipe the tears away. "Listen, I'm sorry I can't be him."
The head primarch didn't wanna hear it. He shouldn't be grieving still after all that stuff he said to Belial about needing to let go. He could just imagine that smug idiot saying "My how the tables have turned, Sandy." At least Sandalphon didn't have it in him to steal someone else's head to attach it to someone else's body to just get what he wanted.
He was yearning but not desperate to that extent.
"This was a mistake. All of it."
"Hey now I wouldn't go that-"
"You should not have come here. I'm trying to forget him and Belial and Lucilius and everything else. I just want to sell coffee and make the humans happy." Sandalphon said, his words coming out fast.
"But thats what Lucifer wanted right? If you want to forget him so bad, stop it." Lucio had pulled away at this point, no one to wipe away the tears. Whatever remaining grasp he had on his composure slipped away, Sandalphon sobbed loudly, turning his back to Lucio.
"It's all you know though isnt it? Living in the shadow of a dead man. Those wings of yours are a legacy but you clearly can't shoulder the burden of them. So...." Lucio got closer again, whispering into the other's ear, "Why don't you let me have them? I'll even be out of your hair afterwards, you won't have to see me ever again."
"Fine." Sandalphon agreed after an eternity of contemplation.