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Satan had spent most of his time since they arrived in town staring at his hands. Such a simple thing to change, an easy design to improve upon, and yet they stayed the same. He had more or less ignored Lucifer entirely in favor of staring at his hands (stubborn, unchanging, not his real skin).

He was a liar by nature, and to be unable to shapeshift...it was unsettling. It was a kind of profound, bone-deep wrongness that Satan was used to causing, not experiencing.

He did not like it here.

He wasn't overly enamored with what they were here to do, either. He liked the angels. Or at least, he didn't dislike most of them. But Lucifer wanted to pick fights with his brothers, and Satan wasn't going to stop him. He simply kicked the back of Lucifer's leg as he came to stand next to him, nodding at Michael.

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Michael felt wrong there too, but unfortunately he mistook it for being in the presence of both Lucifer and Satan at the same time.

"Not alone, I see," he said to his brother. "Now what is this about? You want to have a fight?" There was the urge, somewhere deep inside himself, to rip Lucifer's head clean off. Sometimes people forgot he was the archangel of war and he managed to keep those urges absolutely to himself. They did help when he had to put things in order, however. And if that was what Lucifer really wanted him to do, he would do it gladly.

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"Never," he glared at Satan at the kick but didn't respond. This needed to be done, or they would never get the fear they needed from the Saints. And after all the swords to the face from his brother, he deserved some sweet vengeance.

He glanced to his brother and spotted that bit of archangel slipping through. Michael pretended so much, Lucifer often wondered if Michael forgot who he really was.

"No Mikey I want to start a knitting club," he rolled his eyes. "Of course I want to have a fight. Just us here brother dearest. No mortals, no Saints. We can let loose a little. Stretch our wings, so to speak."

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With a slightly gleeful smirk, Michael stepped forward. There was a glint in his eye that hardly ever shone through. "Do you really want me to send you to Hell so badly, brother?" he asked with a snarl.

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"So there you are. Figured you'd forgotten yourself brother." Grinning he slid his hand behind his back and settled his hand around the gun placed there. "And I invite you to

try

big brother."

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"I haven't forgotten a thing," Michael growled at Lucifer. This was going to happen. He was going to be the angel he had been in the past.

In the same instant he leapt forward as he tried to call his flaming sword to his hand. While he was mid-leap, he willed his wings to show as well, and nothing happened.

No sword. No wings. Just a man rushing into a battle he was suddenly ill-equipped for.

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While he wanted to laugh he instantly brought out the gun to aim a shot at his brother. He'd aimed half assed, trying to clip his brother in the shoulder more then anything.

Just in case he took a few steps back and kept his eyes on his brother. "Oops. Did I forget to mention that?"

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The bullet caught Michael where his shoulder met his neck. He let out a howl of pain and landed on the ground on his knees. He lifted his face to look at his brother, gritting his teeth.

It occurred to him now that this was a very dangerous situation and it wasn't going to end well for him. He had no sword and no wings. No wonder he felt so strange here. It wasn't the presence of Hell, it was this place. "Where are we?" Michael hissed through the pain, his hand clamped over the wound. "What is this place?"

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Grinning he went to kick Michael in the face. Mostly because he could, and it felt good to do so. Laughing he kept his gun trained on his brother. "Why brother, This is Lebanon, Kansas. Surely you read my text."

Chuckling he tilted his head. "Time and time I tell you, Michael crawl out of your rock. Michael, I say, get in touch with the world. And you ignore me." He shrugged, "Pride is your folly my dear brother. What this place is, I can't tell you. I don't know. It's unnatural. It makes me human."

He pointed the gun at Michael, "it makes

you

human. Makes us all disgustingly human. Nothing works here. And there is no going back to start after dying."

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Michael was unused to fear. He followed orders and did as he was told. He didn't set a foot out of line because he couldn't. Michael was what he was. An angel. A soldier.

If he didn't have that here in this horrible place, what did he have? He had been laid bare. Had his God abandoned him?

The kick to the face caught him in the jaw and sent him reeling sideways into the ground. He propped himself up on his hands again and spat dirt and blood onto the ground. When he looked up, he was staring into the barrel of a gun and his reaction was not angelic in the least. It was the closest to human he had ever been in his thousands of years of existence.

He shook and cowered as he said, "Lucifer, don't!"

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There was this pause in the air. This quiet calm, and a flicker of doubt and guilt in Lucifer's eyes. But then he straightened and leveled the gun at his brother's forehead.

"Now you know how I felt." And then he fired the gun, the blast sounding far louder then it had any right to be.

Eons ago, he'd pleaded with his brother like this. Begged him not to. Begged him to reconsider. Michael had still pushed him out of the gates, and into the nothingness that he now inhabited.

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"Lucifer-" Satan had stepped forward, not even sure what he was about to say. Wait? Stop? This isn't what we're made for?

But the gun cut all of that short, and Satan stared as Michael's body slumped to the ground. His shirt was already turning black with blood. He might have been clinging to life, but it wasn't for long.

Satan forced his expression into his normal bored cruelty, but his eyes kept straying to Michael.

To Lucifer, he said, "Well, dear, do you feel better?"

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His eyes snapped to Satan's and he'd have shot him too if he hadn't tossed the gun aside. Surprisingly he didn't feel better. He just felt the same empty he always felt.

"Shut up," he made a motion to the nearby demons lurking nearby. "Bury him under the chapel." He glared at Satan, as if his counterpart was to blame. "Don't. They think me a joke. I will prove to them I am not."

"I hate this place." so he started to walk, to get as far away from this feeling as he possibly could.

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Satan fell into step beside him, staring up at the sky. It was bright blue with fluffy clouds floating leisurely across it, as if an archangel hadn't met his death just a few moments ago.

"You know, his pet Saints will find him eventually," Satan said, sliding his hands into his pockets and not looking at Lucifer.

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He glared to Satan, "Really, and who is going to tell them, hm?" This was his victory, hollow as it was, and he wouldn't let God's pets ruin it for him more then it already was.

"Because the GPS can't come here. They'll know he's dead, perhaps expect him to pop back up but he can't. They can't go running off to him. And if you plan to tell them Satan I will break your neck here and now and bury you for decades."

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Satan felt an unexpected viciousness well up in him, the kind that usually had him gutting minions over small infractions. He rounded on Lucifer, lips drawn back into a snarl.

"You can't possibly be arrogant enough to think we're the only people who know about this place. They'll work it out eventually. We aren't some footnote religion that no one would remember if it weren't for Wikipedia; if Michael is dead but not re-appearing, they'll draw their own conclusions. The wrong ones, at first, but one of them is going to figure it out."

Satan stepped closer, head cocking to the side in a distinctly snakelike motion. "Or maybe dear old Dad will tell them Himself. You're not the favorite child, after all."

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With a snarl he stepped forward to punch Satan. Because maybe violence would make him feel better, and taking things out on Satan is how he worked.

"Shut up! Who is to say He can see in this place? He's not been very open with things either way." Maybe he'd have to talk to Metatron too. The Voice would know before the rest of them. "Let them flounder! Let them guess! But if you give them a hint I'll make sure you won't come back until someone else takes your place."

He wished he could call his Hellfire. It felt too empty without it. With a snarl he pointed to where his minions were burying his brother. "He's right there. Go on and take him then, if you're considering doing anything."

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The punch cracked against Satan's jaw, and he stared at Lucifer in furious shock. That hurt. This mortality business was awful and Satan wanted no part of it. But more than that, he wanted to punch Lucifer back.

He dove at Lucifer, tackling him to the ground and raining down punches. "You want to threaten me, you prideful little fuck? I made you! You'd be nothing without me!"

Several feet away, the demons looked on discretely as the two Kings of Hell rolled around in the dirt, screaming.

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He had expected Satan to retaliate, but he hadn't expected it to hurt so damn much. Usually this didn't hurt as much. It was par the course. But he ignored most of the pain, and just fought back.

He hated all this aggression and emptiness, and it needed to get out.

He gave as good as he got, even though it ended in bruises and cuts along his skin. And usually they'd heal in an instant. This time, they stayed.

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Once Lucifer got a hold of his hair, Satan gave into his serpentine instincts and started biting. Things went downhill from there.
By the time Satan kicked Lucifer hard enough that they both tumbled in opposite directions, both of them were bloody and bruised. Satan was reasonably sure that he was missing a tooth, and that said tooth was lodged somewhere in Lucifer's arm.

"You're an idiot," he panted in Lucifer's general direction.

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His everything hurt and he was spitting out blood. He definitely did not like this. If he'd had his gun, he'd have shot Satan in the face.

Mercifully, one of the demons had been smart enough to remove it from the ground and keep it away from the two Kings.

"And who made me?" He snarled at Satan, using the other's words against him. "If I'm an idiot, I'm no more a reflection of your failings." Hissing he drew himself up and wiped his hand over his bloody lips. "I

hate

this place."

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