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“Joshua?” a voice asked behind him. John froze, the ground lurching beneath his feet. “Joshua, is that you?”
John slowly turned and Steve flanked him immediately, sensing his distress. He’d always wondered if one of his brethren would sense what he was, what he had become, but it had always been an exercise in futility since no angel walked the earth.
Until now.
The man observing him avidly was a stranger, but the eyes, the expression, were his.
“Lucifer?” John asked bewildered.
Lucifer took a step forward and his shoes crunched almost too loudly against the sand.
“It’s you.” Lucifer said, sure and full of wonder. “I thought you were...”
“Dead?” John asked wryly. “I thought you wouldn’t be up here.”
“Well, things change.” Lucifer answered cheerfully, spreading his hands. “But what in our Father’s name happened to you?” the man went on, frowning, looking unabashedly at the lines on John’s face.
John, despite himself, flushed and looked away. Steve was a blank mask beside him, cataloging every words passing between him and Lucifer. And if that wasn’t enough, they were starting to get stares. Oahu beaches weren’t the place where you showed up fancily dressed like Lucifer.
“I’m getting old, Lucifer.” he pointed out harshly. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I’m consulting, dear brother, but don’t change the subject. What is happening to you? And why are you hiding in this hellish place! Mom would be so glad to see you!”
John chocked on his breath and he forgot whatever he was going to say.
“Are you-” he tried, “mom is here? Lucifer, what in God’s-”
“Lucifer?” a new voice asked, interrupting John. A beautiful woman had walked up to them, too well dressed, if not like Lucifer, to be on a beach. “What are you doing? You know we don’t have time to waste!”
“My dear Detective Decker!” Lucifer exclaimed, turning towards the woman and beaming sincerely. John blinked. “Allow me to introduce you my brother, Joshua-”
“Colonel John Sheppard.” interjected John forcefully, offering his hand to the woman. “USAF.”
Decker blinked and looked at him sharply, gamely shaking his hand back. She watched both John and Steve carefully, probably noticing Steve’s stance that screamed military.
“So you’re another adopted brother of the Devil?” she said, dryly and faintly amused, smirking up at Lucifer.
John heard Steve’s repressed choke, but his mind was – again – on something else.
“Another brother?” John asked, feeling like he’d definitely stepped into another reality.
“Oh yes,” Lucifer turned towards him, frowning. “Amenadiel is here somewhere. I can’t seem to get in touch with him lately, but he’s definitely here.”
“What an interesting name.” Steve muttered under his breath, but Lucifer heard him and scowled at him.
“And you are…?”
“Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-0. Your brother’s partner.” Steve said pointedly, offering his hand. But Lucifer merely stared at him, so Steve turned towards Decker. John glared at Lucifer.
“Hawaii Five-0 as in the task force?” Decker asked, shaking his hand.
Steve nodded.
“Detective Chloe Decker, LAPD. Lucifer and I are here trying to find a witness who disappeared and we should get going,” she added, glaring at Lucifer, then looked at John, “I’m sorry if I’m cutting this down, but we need to get going. I’m sure you’ll have time to catch up once we’re done.”
John nodded.
“Of course.”
“But Detective! I haven’t seen my brother in millenia! And this case can wait, I’m sure-” Lucifer protested vehemently, but John had actually had enough for the day. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that two of his brothers and their mother were on Earth to contemplate talking more to Lucifer, the brother he’d sacrificed so much for.
“No, no, go on. As the Detective said, we’ll have time later, I promise.”
Lucifer looked frustrated and uncertain and John smiled at him faintly.
“I promise.” John repeated and this time Lucifer nodded.
“I’ll take your word for it.” he said and moved forward, embracing John tightly. John was so startled by the gesture that he almost missed Lucifer’s whispered words.
“You are not alone anymore, brother.”
John nodded against Lucifer’s shoulder, throat tight, before stepping away.
“Come on, Detective.” Lucifer cheerfully said, turning away. “The witness won’t find herself.”
And with one last look from Detective Decker, she and Lucifer were off.
John turned towards Steve, heart hammering.
“Let’s go home.”
Steve nodded and clasped John’s hand.
***
“You want to talk about it or not?” Steve asked, looking at the second beer in John’s hand.
John didn’t drink much, usually, but if there was a situation that required drinking, it was this one. But John was no coward and the sooner they had this conversation, the sooner he would know if he had to ask Lucifer for the favor of killing him.
“I don’t know where to start.” he admitted, honestly. How can you start telling the love of your life and whole existence that you are a fallen angel God had condemned to live a human life after the other, with no hope of finding peace in death?
“Maybe by answering my questions?” Steve asked, sitting carefully at the table beside John. He had a beer too, but contrary to John, Steve hadn’t touched his yet.
John nodded.
Steve took a quiet breath and looked right into John’s eyes.
“When I sometimes joke you have telepathy I am not wrong, am I?”
For a moment John felt thrown off, then jerked away from Steve’s gaze.
“Not exactly.” he answered carefully. “I can grasp the general sense of what a person thinks or wants if it’s specific enough. I have other abilities, but telepathy is my strongest power, even if it’s not very strong per se.”
“So,” Steve began, voice as careful as John had ever heard him, and wasn’t that the worst part of it all? “When in bed-”
John chocked on a sip of his beer.
“Steve, what the hell-” he noticed Steve’s barely suppressed laughter and chuckled, suddenly feeling lighter than he’d felt since realizing he wasn’t the only angel walking the Earth.
“Well, it’s weird, really, how can you anticipate my every wish, you know? I started wondering-”
“Maybe it’s just experience. Or because I know you by now.” John finished, suddenly serious.
Steve straightened, sensing the change in the atmosphere. He took John’s free hand and squeezed it.
“You do. And I love you. Don’t worry that whatever you’re going to tell me is going to change how I feel, because it won’t. I know you, John Sheppard, or Joshua, or whatever your name is. I know you.”
John felt his eyes prickle, but just kept staring at Steve’s earnest expression. Oh, how he loved this man.
“My father named me Joshua.” he said in a whisper. “But I’ve had many names since then. As many as the lives I’ve lived.”
Steve’s hand tightened his hold.
“And how many were there?”
“Countless.” John answered immediately. “Too many. Just too many.”
“And Lucifer-”
“Is really my brother. Lucifer the Morning Star, or better known as-”
“The Devil.” Steve completed. “So this means you’re an angel.” he huffed out, a bit disbelieving.
“Once.” John pointed out. “I was an angel once. Now I’m just a man.”
“And why is that?” Steve asked, moving closer.
“My father punished me.” John confessed. Steve’s body was so close and so familiar, that his father’s betrayal didn’t seem real. Only Steve was real and important. “When he cast Lucifer out, I pleaded him to reconsider. Lucifer didn’t hate humanity, you have to understand that. He just thought that it wasn’t right that father was so focused on men and didn’t give us any of his time anymore. That wasn’t wrong. But he...” John swallowed. Steve’s arms slid around John’s waist and held him. “He thought differently. He thought I had betrayed him as well and cast me out. I believed he was going to thrown me into Hell with Lucifer, but the next thing I remember, is opening my eyes, a newborn child.”
Steve drew away a bit, but still kept his hold on John. He was frowning deeply.
“A woman had given birth to you and you remembered your past life even as an infant?”
John shook his head.
“Not exactly. My awareness of my past grows as my body grows. It happens every time. Around the time I’m a teenager I remember everything and I’m aware of the past lives.”
“So you remember every past life that you had?” Steve asked horrified. “Every time you fell in love, every time you lost your biological parents, every time you died?”
John nodded, numb.
“But that is… atrocious. Cruel.” Steve almost spat. “How could your father do that?”
John shrugged.
“Trying to understand God’s plan is an exercise in frustration. And pain.”
Steve kissed him softly.
“I’m sorry, John. Joshua.” Steve corrected himself.
John shook his head.
“I’m John in this life. I’m John Sheppard as much as I’m Joshua and all the lives that I lived before.”
Steve nodded, then frowned.
“What?”
“How do you deal with it?”
John laughed, and it was bitter and a bit hollow.
“I just do. I have no other choice.”
Steve nodded and looked into John’s eyes. His hand cupped one of John’s cheek, before Steve kissed his forehead. It was such a sweet and comforting gesture, that John’s throat tightened, love and so may other emotions threatening to choke him. No one had ever loved Joshua like Steve had. No one probably ever will.
“I’m sorry that I can’t follow you into your next life.” Steve whispered against John’s skin.
John closed his eyes for a moment, then kissed Steve with all the love he felt.
“Well, miracles do happen.” he said, quirking his lips. Steve laughed and kissed him back, but the words he’d uttered resonated through John.
Miracles did happen. And if Joshua’s mother was around, maybe… maybe it wasn’t so hopeless to think that something would change, that this endless cycle of life and death would finally stop. Maybe he and Steve could get a chance to be together after this life, after all.