There was something horribly alien about stepping out of the Cage for the first time.
Adam, himself, could feel them shaking as they gripped the bars, taking careful steps out onto the chains holding the Cage up into the air. One look down into the darkness below was dizzying enough, and he couldn't express how grateful he was when Michael lifted their head up again, forcing their gaze ahead with a quiet, shaky sigh and an internal reminder to keep their head up and focus. The demon bit back a retort, balancing them once more and taking a few steps out. The chains rattled and shook under their weight, and Adam flinched, straining at the effort it was taking to keep them upright. Michael reached up, gripping one of the chains above them, but for the most part he was focused on unfurling his wings, slow and steady.
The demon exhaled, gaze flickering around warily, but Michael kept them looking up for the most part. Adam knew it was stupid, trying to look down from where they were, and he didn't even know why he was tempted to do so when all it did was make him feel sick. Michael sighed softly in response to those thoughts, and with one great jerk, they were walking again, balancing along over the chains toward the dimly-lit platform, illuminated only by the fire burning beneath it. Adam sighed in relief when they were back on solid ground, unconsciously reaching behind them as if to grip onto bars - before realizing, at the last minute, there were no bars to hold.
Michael, meanwhile, had other concerns now that he had gotten Adam to somewhere at least slightly more secure. "How am I supposed to fly around when you're scared of heights?"
A rush of indignation enveloped Adam for a second, but Michael's logic overpowered that quickly. The archangel had a point, much as the demon hated to admit it. Then again, Adam wouldn't quite call it fear - he didn't really feel fear, not to the extent that others did, at least. There was too much fury for that. But he still strongly disliked the idea of being so… high.
That is to say, at distance from the ground. Being high would be merciful right now…
"Oh, focus," Michael mumbled, disapproval clear in his tone as he pressed their lips into a thin, firm line, almost a scowl. "Just, relax. Okay…" The archangel took a quick look around, seeming to hesitate. "Stretching my wings won't do much good without a vessel, so I can't exactly leave you here while I'm… yeah. And, beyond that, I don't think leaving would be a good idea…"
"Because you're weak," Adam sighed. He probably could have phrased that better, judging by the offense radiating from the archangel now, but he brushed it off easily enough as he continued, "okay, so is there any way I can stand on the sidelines? I mean, no offense, but I don't exactly trust those giant feather-dusters…"
Michael rolled their eyes, one hand lightly gripping the fabric of Adam's shirt as he looked around again. "I don't know, honestly. In theory, you should be able to leave - your soul is demonized, after all, you have the ability to possess others. But then you'd kind of be flying yourself, while you're not inhabiting a body."
"So, that's out."
They were silent for a moment, the only sound being Adam's breathing. The demon didn't even need to, truthfully enough - but it was still a habit, at this point. He still remembered what it was like to be human, and most of it was just muscle memory now. The sound calmed Michael down quite a bit, too, when he was anxious - so, for the moment, they were just silent, thinking.
"What if I stay over the platform?" Michael finally suggested, turning to look around. Adam paused, letting their gaze trail over the floor beneath them, then toward the edge, uncertainly. "If I fall, we'll be able to catch ourselves, at least. Besides, it's not like it'll hurt you," his tone lightened a bit toward the end of his sentence, just a tad, but Adam just snorted, unamused. After a few moments, though, he gave in. He didn't trust Michael's wings, but a part of him trusted the archangel, at the very least. It was hard to share a body with someone for so long like this, to be so perfectly connected and in sync, and not form some kind of trust with them.
Michael seemed particularly pleased about that, prompting Adam to roll his eyes. That didn't mean he liked the archangel, and he tried to stress that particular fact internally, but Michael was having none of it. Eventually, with Adam's unspoken consent, he finally unfurled his wings to their full length, shuddering a little as he stretched them out. For Adam, it was a particularly odd sensation. It didn't hurt him - but, judging by the way Michael seemed to be straining to keep them open, and the way their teeth clenched as he did, it was hurting the archangel - but it felt more or less stiff on his end, tense, the way your muscles got when you sat for too long. Kind of numb, too, like the sensation when one of your limbs fell asleep. It didn't hurt, but it was unpleasant on Adam's end - but, he wasn't going to complain. This was necessary.
"Just be glad it's not hurting you," Michael huffed a little, his voice strained. Adam bit back his retort to that, retracting most of his control - the archangel would need it more than he did. For the moment, the demon was simply a passenger, and Michael was driving. He took the archangel's unspoken "thank you" with nothing more than a grunt, as, still straining to keep his wings spread out, Michael pushed them up off of the ground, wings beating, blurring back and forth in and out of sight as the archangel struggled to pull them higher into the air.
Adam was silent, managing to control his nausea with focusing on the movement of the wings. They were kind of jerky - clearly hurt to move, at least, and he could feel the effort it was taking Michael to not just drop them back to the ground and curl up into a ball. The demon hesitated a little, unsure if there was anything he could do to take the load off, prodding a little and testing his limits of the control he had currently. There had to be something, at least - if Michael could control his limbs, maybe Adam could control Michael's. After all, that's all the wings were, right? Limbs?
"Adam," Michael warned, distracted now. Adam paused his prodding to listen, eyes narrowing faintly at the archangel continued. "Just let me take care of this. You've never flown before."
"You're overworking yourself," Adam snorted, but he retracted his control again, once more letting the archangel take the wheel. Michael didn't respond, simply managing to pull them a little bit higher before the pain seemingly won him over. The wings stopped, the lack of sound startling for just half a second, before they dropped. Adam stumbled quite a bit, and Michael straightened them up, catching them easily on one of the chains hooked to the platform and pushing them back away from the edge before they could topple over it.
"Wasn't a total loss," the archangel said a little uncertainly, as if he didn't quite believe his own words. "I stayed up a lot longer than I thought I would, for my first time flying in… who knows how long…" He trailed off, and Adam licked his lips and stayed silent, closing their eyes. He didn't like the idea of Michael being in pain - for whatever reason, it simply irked him. After a few moments, he simply retreated completely, diminishing the last of his control and pushing himself into the back of their mind once more. He had been too conflicted recently, emotionally, to worry about this on top of everything else - he needed to stop thinking. The demon could feel the concern radiating from Michael's side, but the archangel seemed to understand that he needed his space, and so he simply let him retreat for the most part.
By the time Michael had started round two, Adam had settled himself in the park, on one of the swings, pretending the sound of Michael's wings flapping through the air was really wind breezing through the park, rustling the trees, moving the empty swings back and forth. Pretending, when Michael finally did collapse, unable to do any more for the time being, that the concern rushing through him was simply the fear of not being able to get out of Hell, rather than the fear that the archangel was about to break himself even further.
The routine went on for a while. Neither of them were quite sure how long - Michael, if he had to guess, would say a week or so, but as time passed differently in Hell, he could never be too sure about that. Adam felt like it had been much longer, but rather than feeling irritated about that, he was almost grateful. Truth be told, he wasn't sure he was ready to leave the Cage yet. Facing the real world seemed great, sure, when you were trapped - but now that the chance was there, Adam found himself growing more apprehensive than anything, as if something bad was going to happen the second they set foot on the surface again.
At the moment, Michael was pacing them back and forth across the platform, wings twitching, curling, stretching out - anything he could do to make them a bit less tense. Adam had their head turned so he could see the Cage, silent as he watched the fire flickering below it, licking at the chains and the edges of their Hellish prison. They shuddered - and neither of them knew who that reaction had come from, in particular. It could have been both of them, it could have been one of them - they had no idea, but they weren't about to worry about that.
Adam pressed their eyes shut for a moment, but Michael blinked them open again, turning to look at his wings. The demon fell silent, letting his gaze roam over the bristling white feathers as Michael spread them out again and stopped pacing, turning away from the edge and taking a few steps further out onto the platform. Adam grimaced, immediately retracting his control, and Michael allowed him to get settled in the park before he pushed them up with a simple, strong beat of his wings, holding them steady in the air and bringing them even higher.
The archangel wasn't straining to keep them up anymore, Adam noted. He seemed at ease with it now - the rounds had certainly done him a lot of good, at the very least. He didn't seem to be in pain. Adam sighed, pacing over to the slide and letting himself collapse backwards onto it. He slid down a bit, ankles digging into the mulch as he fought to steady himself, then simply shut his eyes and tried to focus on what Michael was doing. It was easier to watch him when he wasn't in pain - something Adam refused to really note - and so Adam simply focused on the way his wings would move, the way he pulled them further up into the air and dived down-
Adam tore his focus away at that, before the nausea could catch up to him.
Michael pulled up at the last second, though, thankfully enough. He did a few loop-the-loops, making sure Adam had properly distracted himself with something in the park before he did so, spiraling through the air and turning every which way. Adam knew he was just trying to get a feel for his wings again, for flying again - and, of course, he could tell Michael was enjoying the freedom that came with being able to openly soar like this - but he couldn't fight back the rising irritation, as well as the nausea. Was he going to have to get used to this?
Michael slowed, at that, and Adam settled again. The archangel did a few more loops before landing, carefully, back on the platform, wings raising and folding backwards as he settled them back on the ground. Adam paused slightly before taking some of the control again so that he could look around, craning their head to look back at the wings. "Seems easier now, huh?"
"Yeah," Michael sighed, stretching their arms up slightly. I haven't flown like that in too long, the archangel noted quietly, but he left that unspoken. Adam fell silent, eyebrows furrowing. "I think we're almost ready. Maybe a few more round-abouts, I'm still kinda stiff, but…"
Adam didn't say anything, fighting back the anxiety bubbling in his chest. Michael went quiet, himself - Adam could sense his own unease, not quite as strong as the demon's, but enough for him to know that the archangel was just as anxious about what they were going to do when they got to the surface. Finding Lucifer was about as far as they had gotten in their plans - it was the only secure thing that had decided on. Everything aside from that was just… well, the sky was the limit, apparently, and Adam didn't know how to feel about that.
He wished he knew why he was so anxious, though. There had to be more to it than just, being uncertain about what to do now that they weren't trapped in the Cage. But Adam had never been big on emotions, even before his transformation, so it wasn't like he was pressing…
"... Adam," the archangel finally spoke, sounding hesitant. "You don't want to- you don't want to stay, do you?" Adam didn't respond, not at first, but their nose wrinkled, face scrunching up in clear irritation, before the annoyed expression relaxed. Adam rolled their eyes to the side, flicking their gaze over the Cage, and then to the flickering fire below. And then, with a huff, he retreated again for the most part, handing the control over to Michael but staying in the front so that he could still see what was going on.
No, idiot. Don't give me that shit, man, you know you're just as anxious about taking the A train to Earth, anyway, he snapped back in response, and Michael sighed, running their fingers through their hair. Just chill, asshole. We'll go whenever the fuck you're ready- I couldn't care less, anyway, so…
Michael snorted a little, an unspoken you know that's not true, but he fell silent. And, with a hum, he stepped back and spread his wings again; Adam retreated back to the park just before he pushed them up again, preparing himself for yet another round-about.