lux_tuli

Title: "Comfort in Your Arms"

Fandom: Supernatural

Rating: Teen

Pairing(s): Gen-fic

Characters: Lucifer, Michael, Chuck Shurley

Word Count: 858

Summary: Prompt fic for askatosch: "human AU with Michael in charge of his siblings and suffers from a breakdown after his father yells at him for a mistake. Lucifer comforts him."

Originally posted: March 2, 2017

One, two, three, four , Michael Shurley thought as he counted the ceiling tiles inside his history class as the teacher rambled on a tangent that was not related to the subject material. Presently, he was a high school junior and looking forward to graduating next year, a chance to escape from the tight constraints that his father provided. As the eldest son, it fell onto Michael’s lap to look after his younger siblings and serve as the perfect role model for them.

Luke, the second oldest, was only a year behind Michael. Raphael was only in middle school and Gabriel was just an elementary school student. Then there was little Castiel, the infant. Their father was not one for commitment so they all had different mothers, except for Luke and Michael who shared the same mother from when their father had made an attempt at monogamy.

Their mother left as soon as she found out about her husband’s affairs, leaving her children behind, and none of the other mothers were interested in raising their children so Michael was left as the babysitter and caretaker. Somehow he found a way to keep up with his schoolwork and extracurricular activities on top of that.

The bell ringing was a welcome relief, signaling the end of the class and putting an end to the dull ramble that the teacher had provided. History also happened to be his last class for the day so he returned to his locker to collect all of his stuff, passing by Luke who was deep in conversation with his best friend Meg, the two of them were practically inseparable.

Michael had been too busy making a mental list of the homework that he needed to get down as well as list out his chores that it had not dawned on him that he had forgotten to pick up Gabriel until he had gotten to the house. He placed a frantic call to the school once he realized his mistake but the administrator told him that Luke had already gone and collected him. He let out a sigh of relief but it was short lived as his father emerged from his office, which he tended to coup himself inside of all day when he was not away on so called “business” trips which Michael knew was just an excuse for him to find more women to bed, and yelled at him about where Gabriel was.

“You forgot about your brother!?” He shouted just as Luke came in through the door with Gabriel cradled on his hip. His little brother broke out into tears at the loud noise and Luke ushered him away to calm him down.

“I had a lot on my mind….” Michael mumbled out. Besides it was not like it was his fault that their father did not bother taking care of his own responsibilities. Why did it have to put onto his shoulders? What right did he have to lecture him for stuff that he should be taking care of him? He curled his fingers up into a fist in rage but made no attempt at yelling back.

“That’s no excuse, what if I just forgot about you?” His father spoke condescendingly and Michael had enough so he snapped.

“You already do! All you care about is working on your stupid novels all day long and forgetting the fact that you have kids.”

“Excuse me, what did you just say to me!?” His father bellowed and Michael did not care to linger to deal with him anymore so he turned around and walked away, leaving him to shout for him to come back and “face him like a man”.

He holed himself inside his room, locking the door behind him and curled up on his bed, building a fortress of blankets around him. He held in the tears that threatened to spill down his face. He was the eldest son, he did not have the luxury of having emotions, especially not ones that showed weakness. Tears were beneath him.

Michael heard the window, which he left unlocked, slide open and as he turned his head, he saw Luke climb into his room. The concerning part was that his bedroom was on the second floor which meant that his brother had to do some aerobics to reach his window.

“Luke, what were you thinking? You could have gotten hurt.” Michael hissed out. And he would probably be blamed for that too if Luke had fell and hurt himself while trying to reach him.

“Your door was locked.” Luke shrugged like it was no big deal. The bed dipped as his brother climbed onto it and wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug.

“I know you’re strong, strong for our sake, but you don’t need to hold it in all the time. It’s not healthy so let it out.” Michael buried his head into Luke’s shoulder and let out a hoarse cry. Hands rubbed his blanket covered back in a soothing manner.

No other words needed to be spoken between them as Michael allowed himself to be lulled into the serenity of Luke’s hold.