Lucien, Azel and Hazumi [daily lives, part 3]

The day passed with some of the apartment inhabitants resting their weary heads and trying to forget the turmoil of the day, while others daydreamed about spilling blood and gore. 
The following evening a small noise was heard from Hazumi's room indicating she was awake before suddenly stopping, suspiciously close to where a window would be. She didn't even bother to open the door to her bedroom and check on the others. 

However, Azel was more well-mannered than that. Emerging from his (previously Lucien's) bedroom he stretched and yawned and went into the bathroom where he used a toothbrush of uncertain origin before entering the living room. He sent a weary glance at Lucien who was still squeezing his sword just like Azel had left him. The demon picked the path to the kitchen that was furthest away from the angel, making sure to keep as close to the wall as he could and to avoid stepping foot in what he imagined was the bubble of Lucien's personal space. Although he suspected it might be covering the whole apartment. Or the whole building. Or the whole city....

Azel gulped and reached for the handle of the beaten-up fridge, swinging the door open. Nothing. Not even a banana. He narrowed his eyes and tried not to remember all the tasty treats his (previous) master had always kept around for him. 

Swinging the door closed Azel went up to the only furniture in the room and sat as far away from Lucien as he could. He figured the angel might get even more pissed if he ignored him completely. 

"So... what are you two?" He asked as polite as he could muster. 

Lucien didn't sleep at all. He simply watched the doorway where the Demon had slithered off to, considering if it was worth it to do any of what he was imagining in his mind...to make himself a bit more comfortable, he had removed his armor. Didn't need it to kill the maggot anyways. He heard Hazumi leave, but made no move to follow her. Either she would return, alone, or she would return with a group of Battle Angels to kill or subdue him. Perhaps she wouldn't return at all. Regardless, there was a far more pressing matter to deal with. The Demon was still in the house, not leaving as Lucien had hoped he would. Rather, he decided to look into, the apparently empty, device that had also suffered the wrath of someone. 

He then decided to come and have a chat. Which irritated Lucien. Couldn't the damn thing just go scurry back to the safety of his room. Or, better yet, leave the house so Lucien could safely murder him. Regardless, Lucien turned to him. "Angels. Demon Hunters. She's a Surface and I'm the only Original left. Though I suppose that was already abundantly clear. " Hostility was clear in his tone, and it was abundantly apparent that the Angel would have liked nothing more than to kill the nuisance, and be done with him. But, Hazumi didn't want him dead. And Lucien would agree...for now...

"I meant what are you to each other... I... don't want to get in the middle of anything..." Azel explained, shifting slightly in his seat. 

Lucien tilted his head slightly. "Enemies. Last I knew. But now..perhaps that will change. Things were revealed today that changed her perspective. Regardless, my own goals remain unchanged, and so far I know she only opposes one. Your death. Which you wouldn't happen to just accept and let me do it, would you?" The Angel didn't really feel like working to murder the Demon. But, the end result would be the same, regardless if it was quickly or extended. Demon blood would be spilled.

"I haven't even done anything to you." Azel sighed, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. Angels were such brutes... "I would gladly go 'way if you can convince your ex-enemy future-lover to let me go away peacefully."

"You exist. You are the physical representation of the War that caused our segregation and our fall. You steal another's memories of a loved one to save your own pathetic skin. You don't need to have done anything. Your very presence is enough to make me want to kill you. It is only because of her fool notion that you still live. And, she's not going to become my lover!" He seemed fairly repulsed by the idea.

"She's gone now. You could walk out." He forgot to mention he would follow and murder him, but that wasn't an important detail.

Azel was about to go into a philosophical and racial debate when the angel gave him something more interesting to talk about. 

"If you're not going to become her lover do you think I should? I... I suppose it's okay with me, if need be, but, like, if you want to try harder to gain her sympathies I also don't mind stepping back. But.. if you have other hobbies that's also okay. I could try to make her happier. After all, everyone deserves some freedom and if you both just bicker and try to control each other...."

For a moment, Lucien was completely still. Then, he was suddenly up on his feet, wings flaring, voice seeming to thunder from all sides. "I'm going to fucking kill you!" With that, Lucien's sword zoomed through the air, nothing more than a rage filled blur heading straight for Azel. There was no way [i]in hell[/I] that he was going to let a Demon even attempt to become her lover. He'd deal with whatever she planned later. Right now, the walls needed a new, gory decoration!

The demon shrieked and quickly jumped off the couch waving his arms in a futile attempt to extinguish Lucien's wick.
 "Okay, okay, I get it, you don't want to talk about it!!!" He tried to be nice but seeing as the angel was nowhere near delaying his explosion he did the only thing that he thought could still save his life - taking the form of Lucien's daughter again. Crouching low on the ground he looked up the angel with pleading eyes, and, now sure that he would be heard, spoke again. 
 
 "We should all just try to get along, you know? I can violate you worse than this, mentally, and make you witness things you'd never want to see your girl doing, so... Let's just calm down, okay?" He wasn't smiling now. A day of living in fear was plenty to him and he was ready to strike back. 

Lucien froze, and his eyes filled with a new degree of hate. "I assure you. If you give me even the [i]slightest[/i] chance, I will slowly fucking skin you alive. You think you're safe, hiding behind her image? [i]Defiling it?[/I] Just cowering behind it until you can slip away, and forget about me, losing me in time? I am immortal. I will follow you to Hell and back, and I will make your death last for [i]days[/I]. You will [I]beg[/i] for mercy, for death, by the time I am done with you. So, go ahead. Try and play your mind games. I assure you, you will pay for every minute. And that price will be bought in agonizing pain."

The Angel sat down, hate rivaling with grief and love as he viewed his daughter again for the first time in....a long, long time.

"Listen, buddy, [b]I'm[/b] not the one picking a fight here. [b]I'm[/b] the one stuck between you too fucking psychos without even the slightest idea how and why I got here in the [b]first[/b] place! Oh, no doubt you can skin me and burn me and skew me and fucking cook me over a slow fire! I [b]know[/b] that! Why do you think I tried to talk to you in my usual form, huh? Because you asked me to and because I [b]can[/b] respect other people, alive or dead. Freaking brute, it's you who's giving me no choice. [b]You[/b] can't put her memory to rest and want to keep seeing her again. At least have the courage to admit it!"

Lucien glared before speaking softly, hate infusing his voice. "You think I don't know that? You think I don't realize that the reason I don't sleep is because she haunts my dreams? You think I don't realize that the reason I hate your kind and the last remnants of my kind is because of what both of them did to her? You think I don't realize that my hate will be the death of me? You're a fool then. A soon to be dead fool. But at least you have spine. I was beginning to get sick from your constant cowardice. You will still die. You may still die a horrific and painful death. But you may also be granted a quick one. I cannot change who I am. So, I will kill you the first chance I get. The first time you slip out of that form, your death will happen."

[i]"Great."[/i] Azel thought to himself but resisting the urge to roll his eyes. The speech would have been touching if not for the second half of it. He got that part already, only good demon is a dead demon. And there he thought they could reach some kind of compromise. So he had to stick to being a girl now? Not that he hadn't done it before, he was quite sure he'd done a lot of things in his life that he had no recollection of, but still, it felt a bit weird to be stuck with boobs all day long. 
"May I be a man in the bathroom at least?" He asked, a pinch of annoyance in his voice. That was the polite way of asking if Lucien really insisted on Azel looking at his important one's naked body in the shower. 

"I won't kill you in the bathroom..which I assume is the room over there." Lucien jerked his thumb towards where the Demon contraption was. Sadly, that was the truth. There was a line even Lucien wouldn't cross, and that was it. There was something too...Demonic about murdering someone when they were bathing or emptying their bowels, no chance of defending themselves or run. 

"Good." Azel sighed. "And I don't mind being an eye-candy... but if you ever decide you won't kill me if I return to any sort of male body, feel free to inform me."

The angel didn't say anything, and so neither did Azel. For hours. Until daybreak, in fact. Azel felt terribly uncomfortable because of the wings attached to his back but was too scared to modify them gone as it might be enough to trigger the time-bomb next to him. So he occasionally stood up and paced around the apartment before returning and sitting back down. Crossing his arms on his chest presented another problem - a pair of soft breasts that made the task more uncomfortable, on many levels. But luckily the hours passed and finally the female angel returned, walking in through the front door. She stood at the entrance of the living room for a moment, looking down on Azel.

"She really does look like me." She nodded. 
Azel left the stage to Lucien because he really had no idea what was going on anyway. 

Lucien continued to send a conflicted glare at Azel before turning his gaze to Hazumi. His eyes softening, if ever so barely. "She was my daughter. And since she was the last of my line, you're her reincarnation. Have you ever wondered what makes me hate the Cowards, the Archangels, the last of my kind, so much? Enough to risk my own death at the hands of one who looks almost exactly like my daughter? What could make someone so filled with hate that they'd become a monster amongst their own kind? They killed her. For their sick experiments, they killed her. They wanted to test a new disease they generated, specifically for Angels. It was too powerful, so she died. Slowly. Painfully. In my arms, as Heaven was burned and pillaged around me. They didn't stop there, oh no. They blamed her wings suddenly darkening and her death on the fact that she had let the Demons in. They [i]defiled[/i] her name, just to protect their own skins." Lucien began shaking.

"So try to stop me or don't, but they will all die. They will all know her pain. Her terror. Her death."

Hazumi blinked slowly and didn't say anything for a long moment. It's not that she didn't know what to say. But she was trying to hold it back. While she perfectly understood herself how deep love and loyalty ran, she also couldn't rationalize killing the whole Council because of one single individual. She herself had faced that dilemma.. and she had chosen the Council. Even in the light of last night's revelations, she wasn't ready to give up on them just yet. 
On the other hand, she was struck to see another angel, and an Original at that, seem so.... defeated. The sight disgusted her. And it scared her at the same time. Because she had been in his place and she couldn't keep her eyes on him. 

"So, why is the doppelganger copying your dead daughter?" She asked with an icy voice.
"Because he wants to kill me otherwise and that's the only thing that keeps him away." Azel muttered. 
"Why do you want to kill him?" Hazumi inquired, her tone more puzzled than sarcastic.

"Because he's a Demon. Scum. Maggot. Take your pick. He should be dead. Not being coddled. Not being protected. He should be dead and rotting. Yet here he is. Defiling her memory even further. All because he's too cowardly to face his death and for some reason you've decided you needed a Demon in this place. Why? I don't know. Some connection to Lambert, or you still believe in the cowards, or whatever reason. But, he will die. I just have to wait for him to slip up, for even half a moment." Lucien said, hate once again infusing his tone, restoring a bit of his old self.

"Oh, fine then!" Hazumi exclaimed. "Kill each other. Go ahead. Solve the world's problems. Don't bother about keeping the furniture clean, I'll clean everything up after you. Just like I clean the mistakes of angels, humans and demons alike, all night long, night after night. Kill him, I don't care about him because he is not Lambert and because I don't care about your daughter. Go ahead, hang him off the balcony by his guts for everyone to see. And then, please, just leave me the fuck alone. Because if the demon doesn't deserve a chance, then neither do you." The girl spat out before turning her back to the two and slamming the bathroom door on the inside. 

Azel met Lucien's gaze.
"Well then. Are you going to gut your daughter or are you going to take your leave?"

Lucien stared at door before turning to Azel. "I'm not going anywhere Demon. You'll slip up. And then I'll be there. And, of course, you'll be dead. For she is right about one thing. Neither of us deserve another chance. Mine was given away in blood. Yours was given away at your very existence. But, for now, it seems we'll have to maintain a compromise.