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[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

Were they certain they believed what Levi was saying?  No, but they were choosing to.  Now more than ever, they weren’t going to stand there and debate Lucifer’s morality with him.  They doubted that was something either of them wanted to dwell on.

      “Cain probably just wanted to freak me out.”  

Riley didn’t need to add that he’d clearly managed.  That what he’d said would be in the back of their mind for a while, as if they needed another doubtful voice up there. 

     “Cain definitely just wanted to freak you out,” he said, shaking any remaining doubt from this mind. They were talking about Cain, the guy who went around flashing his weird muscly scarred chest at anyone who so much as said oh my god in his presence, or even just stood in one place for too long. “He just likes being dramatic. Makes him feel important.”

He moved over to the counter, pushing himself up to sit next to them on top of it, bumping their shoulder with his own and smiling, a little.

     “Now, that laundry thing may have been a joke to see if you were paying attention to me, but technically you still said yes, so....”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

      “Promise?”  It wasn’t that they didn’t trust Levi to tell them the truth, even when something in his voice had them pause.  But Cain’s words had shaken them.  They threw everything into question, and when Riley had finally began to feel settled in life, that was jarring. 

Hopping down from the counter, they moved to pour the last dregs of their coffee down the sink before leaving the cup there.  They let out a sigh. 

      “He was saying it like this is something all the gods do, but I can’t make myself believe that.  Not even with Lucifer.” 

He could see they were... afraid? Was that the word for it? Maybe not quite. But something like that. He could sense that this probably wasn’t the time to mention that Lucifer could be cruel, could seem.... inhuman. Not to him; Lucifer had never hurt him, had never done anything he didn’t want him to. 

It wasn’t like Lucifer had never done anything that had scared him before. It was just... directed elsewhere. Something he could close his eyes from and not think about, something that didn’t effect him. He didn’t go around burning handprints into people, marking his territory or whatever.

     “He’s just a guy, Riles. I promise, he’s not like that.”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

A laugh slipped out.  A short and incredulous sound, they found themselves shaking their head.

      “That depends what you’d call weird,”  they said, taking another sip.  “We swapped bible verses,  he flashed me his abs - oh, and Vali had burned a fucking hand print onto his chest.”  The casual tone they’d been using fell away, Riley’s face paling at the mere thought of it.  They couldn’t shake the way it’d looked against his skin. 

They opened their mouth, about to say something else, but it took a moment.  They were watching him with wide, nervous eyes, scared for the answer. 

      “Lucifer’s never… done anything like that, has he?”

He could hear the nervousness in their voice, as they asked -- sure, the grotesque scar on Cain’s chest was pretty bad, the story that went with it a little dramatic, a Cain-typical viciousness to the entire thing, and he could understand how they might have been a little freaked out about it. Cain had that effect on people: he made the worst out of his situation, every opportunity to throw himself a small pity party, showing off his misfortunes.

He and Levi had that in common, sometimes. 

But it gave Levi pause, before answering Riley’s question. Sure, Lucifer had never burned a literal scar onto Levi’s body. But that didn’t mean he’d never done anything that might, in the telling, sound a little similar. 

     “Like that? Of course not,” he said, but maybe he didn’t sound as convinced as he intended to.

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

Levi’s arms crossed look, no matter how short lived, had Riley’s eyebrows furrow.  It was still hard to tell concern from interrogation, or someone just wanting to help from those wanting to lecture and demean.  They dropped their eyes to the cup they held.

      “I bumped into a friend of yours.”  It was said after a pause, Riley sipping their coffee.  They needed that moment.  The words wanted to stick in their throat, and they had to remind themselves that sharing things was fine.  That talking to Levi never came with a backlash. 

      “He said his name was Cain Masters.”

That wasn’t what he’d been expecting. It wasn’t like Riley never stressed out or got upset about things, but he’d been expecting something more along the lines of... what, money? Lucifer? The concert the other night? Their family? Of all the names he expected to come up in conversation, Cain’s wasn’t one.

A friend. Yeah, he supposed that’s what Cain was now -- but from the sound of Riley’s voice, from the apparent fact that this was their reaction to Cain... It made him think of his first interaction with Vali’s sword, when his saying those very words had made Cain threaten to burn his fucking hair off. A rough start, to say the least. 

     “You met Cain? Was he weird? Did he do anything weird?”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

       “Yeah, well…  you’re not going to do your laundry,” they tried to counter, as if that was something that made a difference to them.  “Maybe I’m planning on doing it all tomorrow, while you’re out.” 

It was the closest they’d come to referencing the trial, especially the question of whether they’d be showing up.  Riley hadn’t made their mind up, in truth - should they go?  Maybe for Levi, if he asked, but Lucifer undoubtedly wouldn’t care.  More than anything, it was their lack of faith in the god being released that had them hesitant.  They didn’t want to be there the moment they were proved right.

The moment yet another power condemned Lucifer. 

                  “And as happy as I would be if that were true, you have never once done my laundry and I don’t think even Baal complimenting your shoes could be a ground-breaking enough experience to make you start wanting to.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, trying for a stern look, but it faded pretty quickly into something else. Worry? Confusion? He wasn’t even sure. Maybe his own personal anxiety over everything that would happen tomorrow was leeching into his worry over them. Or was it the guilt that he hadn’t been around, for almost two weeks? 

     “Come on, Riles, what’s up? You’ve been weird for like... well, longer than usual.”

[levisbaine-blog]

     “Why wouldn’t you be?” he asked, suspiciously, raising a knowing eyebrow at them from where he was standing across the kitchen from them, leaning back against the counter on his elbows. They’d been quiet all day -- an uncharacteristic sort of quietness that took them when they were distracted, or upset, like they were distracted.

There were less than twelve hours left, before the trial was supposed to start; he needed to be at the courthouse by eight in the morning. The last thing he wanted right now was for Riley to be upset for some reason. He didn’t know if he could handle that..

     “Because I asked if you wanted to do my laundry and clean my room up for me, and you said uh-huh and nodded. I mean, like, you agreed now so I’m taking advantage of that, but I don’t think you really meant it.” 

        location:  the flat         @levisbaine

They’d been quiet.  Since the post-concert buzz had faded, and since the thrill of seeing Oya had passed, the rest of the night had begun to demand their attention.  Bumping in Niamh, their conversation with Cain.  It was enough to say they’d had a lot on their mind.

Riley liked to think they were good at hiding it.  No one at work had noted anything different, and maybe it was giving him too little credit, but they’d expected the same from Levi.  He had plenty to worry with Lucifer’s trial.  But, they supposed, there must’ve been some giveaways. 

The fact that they hadn’t listened to a word he’d just said being one.

        “What?”  Cup of coffee hovering by their lips, they looked across to him from where they’d perched on the kitchen counter.  “Oh.  Yeah, of course I’m fine.  Why wouldn’t I be?”

[levisbaine-blog]

elenascastillo:

“Look at that!” Elena’s smile was wide, Levi’s own excitement an infectious energy. No double chins or wonky eyelids; the selfie looked good. 

“So much for tech illiteracy, you did it!”

“Wanna tag me in it?”

     “Tag you?” he said, still smiling, though his voice tightened in an abashed half-laugh; she had to know he had no idea how to do that. “How about you tag you?”

He turned the phone around and offered it to her again, holding it out for her to take. Taking pictures and editing them and posting them was one thing. Tagging them was a whole other beast he wasn’t quite ready to tackle alone. 

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

    “Yes.”  Riley catching up, his phone was pushed back into his hand.  As much emphasis as they put on that one word, they weren’t phased by the teasing.  They never were, really.  If anything, they liked the excuse to keep talking.  From the way they would babble away excitedly, especially after a Pantheon event like that, it was as if they were still expecting someone to shut them down.

Beginning down the stairs, there was a bounce to their step.  They threw him a smile over their shoulder, something in their tone only half kidding.

    “I couldn’t have put it better myself.” 

     “Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I promise. No-- wait! I don’t just promise. I pinky swear, the most sacred of all promises.”

He held his hand out to them as he caught up to them at the bottom of the steps, fingers in a loose fist and pinky extended, waiting for them to link fingers with him with expectant eyes and a grin.

     “I’ll only embarrass you in front of gods you don’t think are cute. I can’t make any promises for real people, though, it’s too tempting to resist, so you’ll just have to accept that and move on.”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

The more he went on, the more they were laughing.  Maybe it was the goddess-inspired high still buzzing quietly in their head, or just that a few days apart had lessened Riley’s resistance to his ridiculousness, but it was all they could do to shake their head.

      “Just… just don’t do it if he’s there,” they insisted.  “You gotta promise me that, Levi.”

Wiping at their eyes, they paused at the sight of Elena’s page.  Their responce to the man featured on it could be summed up in one word.  “Wow.”  They continued to scroll through, proceeding to stalk their way through the pictures.  “She definitely never brought him into the coffee shop before.  I’d have remembered.”

He stopped at the top of the stairs to the subway station, turning around to face them as they caught up, and held his hand back out for his phone.

     “What, don’t want me to embarrass you in front of your future husband?” he joked, taking a few backwards steps down the stairs, laughing as he said it -- as much as they admired Baal, a teenager with a hero-worship crush on a musician they thought was particularly cool, who’s music spoke to them -- he always found himself glad that it was just that, nothing more. As much as he might make fun of them for it, he found himself genuinely hoping that Baal complimenting their shoes was as far as things would go.

He didn’t want them to deal with anything more than that naive joy at being complimented by your hero.

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

At the sight of his shared excitement, their face only lit up.  They glanced between their friend and the picture, dark eyes gleaming, Riley biting their lip in a hopeless attempt to try and reign their smile in. 

      “He said said he liked my trainers, too,” they said, the simple statement suggesting that if anyone was to have them wear anything but those now mud splattered Nikes, they’d have to pry them from their feet.  

      “I wish you’d have been there.”  There was nothing negative to their tone - they were too beside themselves to even try and sound annoyed - but it was the truth.  Be it their shifts at work or sprawling on the sofa to watch the trashiest things things they could find on TV, even the most mundane stuff seemed more fun with Levi around.  They were certain they couldn’t be the first to think that.  “I was acting like a total fan.  It was probably really embarrassing, and you missed out on the chance to make fun of me for it.”

     “Missed out? No way, Levi Baines does not miss out on an opportunity to make fun of someone. I’m just biding my time, I’m waiting for my moment to shine, I am savoring the opportunity to make fun of your embarrassing fan freakout at the perfect time with the optimal chance to embarrass you as much as humanly possible. I am an artist when it comes to teasing, Riley, not being there cannot stop me. You could lock me up and throw away the key and I would still manage to find my chance to shine.”

He ignored the twinge in his stomach at his own unintentional reminder of prison, and pushed the thought away as quickly as it had risen. The trial wasn’t until Monday and he’d be damned if he let himself get maudlin over it before then. 

Instead, he passed them his own phone, Elena’s page pulled up and scrolled down to a particularly cute picture of the handsome gentleman who kept making appearances there, and waited with one eyebrow raised to see what they thought. 

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

    “Instagram stalking is a national pastime, Levi.  What do you think I’m always doing on my phone?”  They were offering his back to him.  “Go on, get her account up.  I really need to see this husband now.”

Said with a grin, their phone was back in their hand.  They loaded up Instagram to follow both Elena and Levi, but then Riley spotted the lasted thing they’d posted.  It was testament to Oya’s affect that they hadn’t spent the entire walk talking about it.  

    “Not that he’s going to be cuter than who I got a selfie with today.”  Phone held up for Levi to see, they were beaming as they presented him with the picture they’d taken of themselves and Baal with a mixture of pride and excitement.  “I’m sure I forgot how to even breathe the whole time he was there.”

This was what he’d been missing, the past week. The absence of which had been making him feel at wits end, somehow empty. This had been the easy companionship he’d been looking at, and wasn’t it just fucking like him to have not realized until just now that it was his fucking roommate who he’d been avoiding -- not intentionally, never intentionally -- that could have set him at ease, this entire time.

In a way Cain couldn’t. In a way Marisa couldn’t. In a way every cute guy at a gay bar offering him drinks couldn’t. In a way only they could. 

     “Oh shit,” he said, excited, as he glanced up from where he was pulling up Elena’s profile to see the picture they were showing him. “Fuck yeah, Riles, looks like someone had a good fucking night. I should’ve known to look for Baal if I wanted to find you.”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

One follower.  They just grinned wider.  “Only if you follow me back.”  Riley had their hand held out as soon as he reached into his pocket.  They unlocked his phone as easily as their own.  Pulling up the app, they found themselves looking at the only picture on his account in surprise.

     “Hey - I’ve met her.”  They hadn’t realised he’d meant that Elena.  “She comes into the coffee shop, even remembers my name,” they noted, and from their tone it was clearly a point in her favour.  It was certainly a rarity with customers sometimes.  

     “It figures that we’d both bump into her today, but not each other,” they scoffed, distracted from the important lessons of Instagram they were supposed to be imparting. 

     “Whoa, seriously?”

He shouldn’t have been surprised -- even with how big the city was, he’d long ago learned that New York was a small fucking world, especially when it came to anyone even tangentially related to the Pantheon. Everyone he knew had apparently somehow met everyone else he knew for completely separate reasons, and it seemed his mysterious Instagram angel was no exception.

     “She was super nice, and also, if you look on her instagram... profile? Page? Her instagram whatever. Her husband is super cute. I was kind of stalking her earlier. That’s not weird, right? Instagram stalking?”

[levisbaine-blog]

elenascastillo:

It seemed harmless, taking a selfie with him – maybe it was naive of her, but Levi didn’t seem dangerous, stranger or not. With everything that had happened, to the Pantheon and those around them, it was naive, but.. she’d always preferred looking for the good in people, truth be told. “Yeah– sure thing,” Elena said before leaning in closer, her warm smile staring back at her from the screen of Levi’s phone as she held the pose.

As soon as she was certain he’d taken the picture, her smile widened into something of a grin, Elena eager to see if she’d actually managed to teach him something with her quick lesson on Instagram. 

“Okay, young’un, time to shine.”

He let out a laugh, despite the furrowed look of concentration on his face as he brought his phone back down to eye level and tried his best to remember the steps she’d shown him a minute ago, what each of the icons means.

      “So, I press this one to post, and then.... right here where it says photos? Yep, that’s it, okay... and I can -- shit, filters? This is complicated.”

He worked, for a moment, at the unnecessarily detailed series of sub-menus, playing around with the lighting and the colors and the tilt shift, whatever that meant, until he had a slightly over-edited but not all that bad selfie of the two of them in front of him, well framed and flattering. And then he help the phone out, proudly, all child-like glee and excitement.

      “What do you think?”

[levisbaine-blog]

niamh-byrning:

At that, Niamh stood up, her face contorted into a frown.

Fucking killjoy.

          “Well, I can’t make you help…” Niamh sighed. “You should find your friends. I hope you’ll say hi to Lucifer for me, if things go smoothly. Maybe we can get along better next time we meet. So long, Levi.”

Niamh fixed her shirt, and turned to leave in the direction of the crowd.

There was no reason to get upset, really. After all, she thought, removing a burner from her large coat pocket, with this, Lucifer would be well and truly on the back foot, even if he did use a miracle to break out.

Niamh finished composing a text, and sent it quickly to Victor’s secure line:

[20:17] u were right. Lucifer’s got an intern in the DAs office sabotaging the case [20:17] we have levi baines to thank for this monumental fuckup on thair part. XD

[levisbaine-blog]

marisavega:

“He is alright. Levi,” she started as she put down her drink and stood up to head into her kitchen. “Think about how much you actually know about me. Nobody knows that I have a twin except said twin, Sekhmet, and my mom.”

It might have seemed odd to anyone else, but she figured Levi would get it– the whole talking to a god more than your own family. There were some many things about it that felt more natural, easier in some ways. She still called her mom and there was no real way to get rid of Mikey (not that she would ever want to), but talking to Sekhmet whenever she was could just seemed like the natural thing to do now. Marisa was able to talk to a god about silly shit or serious shit and never got any judgement glances thrown in her direction (false, she got plenty, but she threw them all back). Her family still treated her like something to be protected, something very easily broken. 

The goddess would never dream of such.

“Thanks for the donuts and coffee, but do you want something real to eat? I was thinking about making dinner and you’re not the worst company I could have.”

His stomach growled, audibly, at the suggestion, completely against his will, and probably for the best. He probably would have tried to turn down the offer if it hadn’t, still unsure of why she was being so nice to him, why she was being so generous lately when just a few weeks ago she’d been threatening to put his eyes out with a pencil and growling at him like a lioness stalking down a particularly annoying gazelle. 

     “I guess that’s your answer,” he said, looking down at his stomach with a little bit of a laugh. Though the donuts he’d bought her and eaten half of on his way over here were still sitting heavily in his stomach, he was hungry enough from the all-but-fast he’d been accidentally on the past few days that he probably couldn’t have turned down real food if he tried. “If you don’t mind, I mean. I don’t want to, you know, inconvenience you.”

He couldn’t deny that a part of him kept telling himself that any second now she was going to decide he wasn’t worth his time and kick him out on his ass. But maybe if he tread carefully, he’d have some good food and decent company before they got to that point, and he wouldn’t be as miserable as he knew he’d been lately. 

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

They weren’t sure they liked that shrug.  It was the kind of thing they’d do, dismissing the question in the simplest way.  

    “And you couldn’t do that at our flat?”  Their voice was softer this time.  Riley was doing their best not to sound like they were nagging.

(Not to sound like their parents.)

At the mention of Instagram, they looked across at him in interest.  It rendered their question a little rhetorical, Riley more than happy to latch onto the new topic.  Especially when it was one that had them snort with laughter. 

       “How many followers have you got?”  They asked, there no hiding their grin.  Levi attempting to understand the apps on his phone would never not be funny to them, no matter how many times they called him a grandpa.  “If this is your new career plan, I’m gonna have to coach you through it.  Did you get any good pictures from tonight?”

     “Uhh, one, last time I checked. Nice lady named Elena who helped show me how to get pictures onto it from my phone camera. Hey do you wanna follow me?”

He was glad they seemed to be distracted enough by his new foray into technology not to press the question of where he’d been lately, and what he’d been doing; he didn’t need them worrying about him when he had everything pretty much under control -- or, as under control as it could have been.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and held it out for them to take, and then zipped his jacket up, finally starting to feel the cold a little.

     “So far it’s just one selfie of me and Elena at the concert, but it’s a start right? I don’t know how to get other people to follow me, though.”

[levisbaine-blog]

rxverie:

     “Then what have you been doing?”  They hoped it didn’t sound as demanding as they felt saying it.  If there was any judgement in their voice, it was born from worry.  Mostly for their friend, their faith in Levi’s common sense a little shaky, but also for themselves.

If Lucifer was sent down, what would happen to them?

Riley let him talk, trying to ignore the knots twisting in their stomach.  That was the last thing they wanted to bring up.  Not only did it give away their lack of faith in Lucifer being cleared, but it wasn’t what Levi needed to worry about right then.  He had enough on his plate.  

He shrugged. What had he been doing? It was a pretty good question, in all honesty. Other than moping and trying not to do anything that would strain his tenuous financial situation, most of what he’d been doing could probably qualify, to a particularly cautious therapist, as self injurious behavior -- drinking too much, going home with men he didn’t know and didn’t particularly care about, barely remembering to eat except when Cain had practically forced a full plate of Chinese food on him.

Nothing reckless, but nothing exactly healthy either.

     “Laying low, mostly,” he answered, knowing they wouldn’t want to know about all of that. “Trying to keep out of trouble, trying to avoid anything that might implicate me in things, or implicate Lucifer in things, I guess. I started up an instagram, though, so like, if things go south I can probably get instagram famous.”