Purgatory was not made for angels. Lucifer hated it, even more so for the fact that it was only in that well-maintained prison — the leviathan population pruned by their hands to their Father's instructions until those beasts could only slink back into the darkest crevices of their cell — that he could feel any kind of peace these days. The Mark only fell into a sated quiet when he fed it the blood it wanted. He'd killed more leviathans than any his brothers by scores, and it only barely enough to let him breathe freely for a few minutes before that angry pounding began to ring through his grace again. He was disappointing all of them with his lack of control; he could see it in the ways they looked at him.
Let them bear the Mark for a day and see if they could do better, he thought, bitterly, before the blasphemy of it caught up with him and he quickly rejected the idea. This was his burden to bear. His gift to all of them, to keep them safe. God would never give him an impossible task.
He could feel it starting again, like tapping at first, as though to get his attention, and then louder as he tried to ignore it. It scratched at his insides, leaving inflammed wounds that only Lucifer could see, could feel. (He knew better than to go to Raphael anymore. They had looked so afraid last time. For him or of him? It was hard to tell anymore.) Lucifer staggered briefly as the pain rose before his own anger at the loss of control flared to meet it. He should know better. It was what it wanted: always more anger, more violence, more death.
It felt good to be angry. Like he could make something else suffer instead. Something that deserved it more than he did.
Lucifer was already losing himself to it when he saw movement. His wings twitched. A rasp and a hiss on the edge of his hearing. The unmistakable scrape of teeth unfurling from an endless maw. Lucifer didn't see the leviathan. He turned, and the world was red and beating like a heart, and all he could do was make it burst.
There were flashes of it that slipped through to him. His own blade tearing open a stomach. One of his wings, torn and bitten and bleeding, but the pain so quiet compared to how good it felt to finally break something. The trees grew closer and closer together, the false sky disappearing above them, as Lucifer followed his prey into the dark.
Some part of him should have been afraid, but it felt so distant now. He was flying away from it.
His wing gave out before his desire for violence did. It folded and sent him crashing into the ground. The dirt tasted like salt. The things that grew there did it out of spite. Lucifer lashed out at nothing as the pain finally ripped through him in a way he couldn't ignore. His wing moved wrong, dragging along the ground when he tried to lift it and inviting burning grime into his wounds. Lucifer recoiled. His other wings snapped protectively around him as he pulled the last one in with his own hands as it became pure dead weight. It was too loud inside him, the unsatisfied Mark screaming at him to keep going and his own pain roaring back to keep him grounded.
Lucifer forced himself to look beyond the shield his wings had formed around him. The deep end of Purgatory looked back at him, every inch of it hungry before the predators could even find him. For a moment, Lucifer didn't feel like the archangel he was, but a fledgling who'd gotten lost. The feeling was so powerful that Michael's name lodged in his throat. He swallowed it back down.
Lucifer got up. He could either cradle his own wing and leave himself without a weapon in his hand or keep his blade and deal with the consequences of dragging his wing along the ground behind him later. The choice, in Purgatory, was obvious. He winced as he let his wing crumple, dirtying the pure white feathers with mud and worse as he tried to trace his own path back.
He didn't like the way the air in Purgatory wrapped around him. It seemed like it could breathe in deeply and suck him down further, if only forests could breathe. With the way he swore he felt the ground sometimes roll under his feet, he wasn't convinced it couldn't. Too many times, there was the sharp prick of eyes on his back, only for him to turn and find nothing watching him. Nothing that he could scare off or kill, anyway. Only more trees, only the thing above him that wasn't even pretending to be a sky anymore, and the relentless air pressing down on him.
That was why Lucifer stopped.
There shouldn't be anything pretty to look at in a place like this. It didn't belong down here. But there it was, the most lovely flower he'd ever seen.
(He might have remembered the anglerfish, if his head were clearer.)
He was spellbound by its impossible beauty. It curved up from the ground on a slender stem, open towards him as though expectant. Its petals, slim and long enough to fully hide the pistil within, were the perfect shade of… It was every color Lucifer loved most. He stepped closer to it. It was helpless down here among creatures who couldn't appreciate it. It belonged in the garden where Lucifer could look at it every day. If he cut it quickly and kept it close, it would live until he could replant it.
He reached for the stem. He paused. The petals looked so soft. They moved slightly, though there was no breeze in Purgatory. His hand slowly changed course. The Mark's beating was dull in the back of his mind now. If one flower could protect him from that, he needed it. More than anything. He went to brush the petals affectionately.
They split open. The flower's head reared up like a snake, revealing no pistil inside but thorns. They sprang from the flower into Lucifer before he could move. He reeled back, one wing crushing the flower (which had already begun to decay before the thorns had even hit him.) He scrabbled at the thorns. Two of them lodged themselves as deep as they could. Their hooked tips gouged into his grace. He ripped one out and screamed. He was slower reaching the other, and by the time he had, he could feel something had changed. The first thorn he had pulled out was fat. This one came out shrunken and brittle.
He wasn't even allowed a moment to think through what that meant before the Mark, freed from the flower's muffling, screeched. Lucifer flinched as though he could get away from it.
Lucifer tried to focus to expel from his grace whatever the thorn had put inside him. All that did was draw the Mark's attention to the poison as it spread through Lucifer. It latched on before Lucifer could stop it, twisting itself into the poison. Whatever Purgatory would have filled him with bent to the Mark's desires, to be satisfied, to be filled. The first wave of need hit Lucifer harder than he could bear. It was undirected, eager to take anything that he could get his hands on, but he couldn't track down something to kill like this.
Uselessly, he tried again to purge the poison, but it was burrowed deep inside him now, given entry by the tears in his grace that the Mark had already made. Another wave came, destroying his ability to think as he curled in on himself and gasped for air he didn't need. Purgatory choked him. Lucifer clawed at the bitter earth for any relief, but there was none to be found, nothing familiar beneath his hand. Below the surface layer, the ground went cold and unbreakable, no matter how he dug at it.
He had to find his way out. He raised his head. The trees seemed thicker, blocking his view. He wasn't sure which way he'd come from.
This time, when he felt the fear in his chest well up into a name, he didn't restrain it.
"Michael!" he croaked. Another burning rush tore through him, left his mind scattered except for one thing he could never forget: Michael would come for him. Michael would save him. "Michael!" he called again. He dragged himself forward, every inch of him shaking. The Mark was reaching heights of pain it had never gone to before, blistering against his grace as he forced himself to scream for his brother again. "Michael!"
There was no response. Even blinded by pain and barely able to move, Lucifer didn't doubt that Michael had heard him. He was coming. He had to be.
The trees, he thought, were getting closer. Their trunks lanced across his vision like prison bars.
And then, there was an angry shudder as they gave way, as Purgatory itself was forced to stop before it could grind him down and swallow him without a trace. Lucifer could feel Michael, his brother's grace seeking him out through Purgatory's labyrinth. Lucifer grasped back for him weakly, his grace coursing with poison. Michael noticed it and recoiled. Lucifer whined.
More carefully, Michael touched him. His wings sank down over Lucifer's. Even the broken wing was gently scooped under his own and cradled as Michael took in his state. Lucifer gave a sigh and collapsed into him.
"Little brother," Michael said, his touch gentle as he inspected Lucifer. He barely brushed the wounds the thorns left in Lucifer's grace. Lucifer expected that to hurt, but Michael was a balm amid the agony. Lucifer pressed closer to him, his wings shifting beneath Michael's.
Michael was exactly what he needed.
With a snap, everything in Lucifer focused on Michael. Michael didn't sense the change at first. He was too busy trying to heal Lucifer himself to think that Lucifer's growing clinginess was anything amiss. Lucifer's grip tightened as the thoughts in his mind all slipped away save for one. Michael was here, and Lucifer was his.
"How did this happen?" Michael was asking him. Lucifer could hear his words, but his voice melted into music. The most lovely melody in all of creation was when Michael spoke to him, and only to him. It was just like it had been when Lucifer was first given to him. Their Father out doing his great works, and them, alone, together, for what had seemed like forever at the time.
No matter what had changed since then, Lucifer still belonged to Michael. He knew with perfect certainty that he was Michael's entire world. How could he not be?
"Lucifer, please answer me," Michael coaxed. He ran his fingers through an uninjured wing as though he thought Lucifer's silence was from shock and he needed to be brought out of it. Lucifer rose to press their bodies together, losing himself under the mass of Michael's wings and in the safety of his embrace. "Tell me what hurt you, little brother." Under the words, Lucifer heard a promise, that Michael would protect him from it and destroy what had done this to him.
Lucifer was starting to think that it wasn't such a bad thing. The poison was helping him see clearer. He knew what mattered right now better than Michael did.
Lucifer stole the first kiss in existence. Michael was too surprised to stop him.
When Michael came to his senses, Lucifer found himself roughly torn away from his brother. He whined at the loss. He'd felt that same peace through Michael that the Mark usually granted him only through killing. He needed more.
"Lucifer-" Michael's voice, discordant now, harsh in Lucifer's ears where it should have been sweet. Lucifer struggled against Michael's hold to get close again and take what only Michael could give him. "Lucifer, stop!" An order. Disobedience tasted better, especially when it was a shout from Michael caught just as it escaped his lips, swallowed by Lucifer so that no one else could hear it.
It was clear that Michael didn't know what to do. He was stronger. Lucifer would never argue otherwise, not when Michael's strength was what he wanted. He could shove Lucifer off and pin him down.
The thought sent a pleasant shiver down Lucifer's spine. His wings spread with delight.
But Michael didn't. He wouldn't risk hurting Lucifer, and that was practically a blessing for Lucifer to have whatever he wanted.
"You aren't in control of yourself, brother," Michael said when Lucifer finally allowed him to speak. He was indulging in greed, too. Michael reached up and cupped Lucifer's face. Lucifer rolled his head into Michael's hands, rubbing against them. It was the best thing he had ever felt. The Mark was a guiding pulse in his consciousness, quickening every time he pleased it or pleased himself. The lines blurred. "I'm sorry," Michael told him. Lucifer blinked down at him, and then he leaned in to press kisses over Michael's face. His brother stiffened under him. "I'm so sorry," he whispered again.
"Don't be," Lucifer reassured him. "You're everything I need, Michael. Don't apologize." He watched Michael's expression when he said that for one reason: to see how harshly Michael flinched. If it weren't true, he wouldn't react as strongly. He wouldn't shake his head so quickly to deny it.
After all, if God gave Lucifer to Michael, then surely God meant for Michael to love Lucifer more.
"Let me take you home," Michael offered. Lucifer flicked a wing contemptuously. "We'll draw whatever this is out of you, and I-" Lucifer shut him up again. He bit Michael's lip for daring to consider it.
"Don't you want to know what it's like?" Lucifer asked. "It's all so clear now, Michael." His focus was so sharp, so exact. Not a thought could stay in his head that wasn't about his brother, about taking more from him, taking everything he knew Michael wanted to give him. Lucifer traced down Michael's neck and chest. Michael's grace drew back from Lucifer's, but Lucifer feigned hurt until he saw Michael hesitate. His grace wrapped itself around Michael's, inescapable.
Michael took a deep breath. He tried again to restrain Lucifer. He gripped Lucifer's shoulders and firmly pushed him back. "No."
And that- hurts.
At first, only the sting of rejection, bad enough on its own, but it grew until Lucifer was writhing against Michael's hands and whimpering in pain again. It burned. He grabbed at Michael, scared that Michael would stay stoic and keep him away while Lucifer suffered.
Michael broke for him. He let Lucifer slip forward until their mouths met again. Lucifer took up all the space in Michael's lap.
The pain subsided. He didn't miss the way Michael ever so slightly tilted his head into the kiss. A faint movement of his lips betrayed him. His grace didn't resist their entanglement quite as strongly.
"It feels good," Lucifer said. He had never tempted anyone before, and his first attempt was clumsy between kisses and his own addled mind. "You make the Mark quiet"—Michael's eyes widened when he hears that, his wings twitching with unmistakable interest at the possibility—"and you're all I care about. I want you to touch me back, Michael." Michael's hands shifted as though to pull Lucifer in rather than force him away.
"I won't," Michael said. "You'll be horrified when you're free of this. I won't live in a world where you're afraid of me."
"Never," Lucifer promised. "I've always been yours." He was getting tired of Michael's denial. It was all a show, and for who? Lucifer bumped his forehead against Michael's. Michael returned it, perhaps grateful for an innocent touch. His eyes shut.
"You'll thank me later." Lucifer smiled. The second thorn, the one pulled too quickly to release its poison into Lucifer's grace, sat waiting right within his reach on the ground beside Michael. Michael suspected nothing of Lucifer's slight movements. He plucked up the thorn. He ran his other hand up Michael's chest to the perfect spot to pierce into his grace. He circled it lovingly with his nails.
"I will," Lucifer agreed. Without hesitating, he plunged the thorn into Michael's chest. Michael's eyes snapped open. He yelled, beating his wings to get away from Lucifer quicker. Lucifer followed him, shushing Michael as he watched the thorn shrink. Michael tried to slap his hands away, but Lucifer pulled the thorn out himself, relishing the grunt Michael gave at the pain. He was sure it felt better for it to come from his hands than it had been for Lucifer to pull his thorn out himself. (Maybe he should have left it in for Michael to take out.)
Michael breathed harshly, clutching at the small wound. The puncture would heal quickly, but Lucifer watched the poison sinking into Michael. His brother's wings, drawn back tightly in his retreat, began to rise, the size of them dwarfing even Lucifer's impressive spread. The wildfire coursing through his grace spread into Michael, as it should be. They would burn together so beautifully.
"Do you see now?" Lucifer sounded like he was pleading with Michael. Michael stared at him.
"I don't-" Michael protested, but his voice shook so much from the effort of restraining himself that he couldn't even finish his sentence. Lucifer opened his wings in obvious invitation. "We shouldn't." Michael made one last attempt to stop this. Lucifer wouldn't have that.
"We need it," he said, and when that still failed to push Michael into action, he let out a pitiful noise, hurt and only half-acted. "I need you," Lucifer said. He made himself irresistible.
Michael pinned him down.
It was better than Lucifer had fantasized: the weight of him holding Lucifer down, the way they pressed together, his wings covering them both so that no one would be able to see Lucifer like this but Michael himself.
"You are so frustrating," Michael told him. Lucifer noticed how that wasn't stopping Michael from giving Lucifer exactly what he wanted. "Do you know how dangerous this could be? I was trying to protect you." Michael's scolding was hard to take seriously when he was doing it with his mouth against Lucifer's neck. He bit down to underline his irritation, but Lucifer moaned. Any pain Michael caused him could only become pleasure, a sharp contrast to way the poison burned or the Mark tore.
"You would never let anything happen to me," Lucifer said. Michael ducked his head, his nose rubbing up the inside of Lucifer's jaw until he rose to kiss him again. This was so much better when Michael kissed back. Lucifer didn't have to take the initiative anymore, simply lie back and let Michael take care of him.
"And you make that so difficult," Michael murmured. He placed a hand on one of Lucifer's wings, a bratty, restless one that would not stop fluttering up against Michael's own. With a little pressure, Michael forced it down against the ground. He flattened it and dragged it open to expose Lucifer's underwing. With the expert touch of someone who had been memorizing Lucifer for years, Michael teased along his feathers. Lucifer's wing tingled beneath Michael's touch. "I'm going to have to groom these thoroughly when we're done."
Lucifer's feathers puffed at the idea, eager to be touched and cared for until he was a desperate mess. Michael could pin any of Lucifer's wings he chose with hand or wing, and Lucifer was helpless to let him do it. Michael caressed each one in turn once it submitted while Lucifer squirmed beneath him. His mind was so perfectly blank aside from the pleasure of Michael touching him. He hadn't been so happy in… And before he could even remember, he lost the train of thought to Michael reaching his wounded wing. Michael sighed, and he bent down to kiss the injury.
When Michael's grace entered him to heal him, Lucifer's whole body shook. His vision went white as Michael's grace flowed through his own. He reached for Michael to ground himself as the normally routine sharing of grace became almost unbearably good. The relief of having his wound healed only added to it, and when Lucifer came back to himself, he was holding onto Michael so tight, it was as though he wanted to drag all of Michael down into himself and become one perfect being.
Lucifer had spread his legs, inviting Michael closer than ever. Not enough, he thought. All this had placated the poison, but to satisfy it, they needed more.
Lucifer would always need more of him.
Purgatory may have laid the trap, but even it wouldn't dare encroach on them. Good, Lucifer thought, intoxicated by the power of it, the world around them should be terrified. They could burn it all down and build something new, something beautiful, all for themselves. Lucifer would do that for Michael. With every kiss, every word of devotion Michael whispered to him, he only grew more certain that Michael would do the same for him.
Lucifer needed to be filled, and if he couldn't take Michael's grace inside him until they couldn't tell each other apart, then he'd find another way.
His form accommodated him. He rubbed himself against Michael, new places for pleasure blossoming for Lucifer to get them both addicted to. Michael made a curious noise as Lucifer bumped his cock into Michael's belly and rose to feel the warmth of the inside of his thighs against the head. Michael fell after him, adopting the same changes in Lucifer's form so that he could use Lucifer to feel good. Michael had the upper hand, forcing Lucifer still where he wanted him and smearing precome over his skin with lazy thrusts while Lucifer's cock would twitch, barely attended to.
"Michael." Lucifer was petulant, and Michael, always indulging of his whims. He reached down between them to touch Lucifer. Lucifer sucked in a breath as Michael's hand wrapped around his shaft, and for a moment, only held him. This time, when Lucifer whined, it didn't even have the shape of Michael's name, only base need escaping his throat. Michael smiled.
"Tell me how to please you, Lucifer." Torture, when Lucifer was having so much trouble thinking. He thought he might lose his mind now if he felt too much.
"Slow," he said, and Michael kissed him as a reward. "Slide your hand up, and-" Lucifer was the one guiding his actions, but he couldn't feel further from in control. Michael stroked up until he reached the head, and Lucifer felt his palm cover it, rubbing back and forth before Michael began the journey back down to the base. "Stop," Lucifer gasped. Something had gone tight in him, ready to snap, but he wasn't.
"Sensitive?" Michael asked, as though he couldn't see how Lucifer had tensed under him. He went limp again as he caught his breath.
"How can you stand it?" Lucifer asked. Michael hadn't stopped thrusting against him. A stray movement slid Michael's cock up beside his balls and against his dick as Michael kissed his way down Lucifer's chest.
"I want as much of you as I can have," Michael answered. "Besides, how can I make you feel good if I can't even control myself?" He slid his hand up Lucifer's cock again before Lucifer had prepared himself and crumbled Lucifer's response into dust. "How can I drag you to the edge and back until you're ready to fall if I'm too busy paying attention to myself?" Lucifer tensed again, too close, but Michael had mercy and stilled.
As Lucifer caught his breath, Michael moved him around as though it were nothing, as though he wasn't one of the only beings in the universe capable of it. Michael lifted his legs at the knees and pushed them up. He took Lucifer's hand and placed it at the bend of one, doing the same with the other, and told him, "Stay there." Lucifer held on. The new position left his cock resting against his belly and everything exposed for Michael's eyes. Michael ran his hands down Lucifer's thighs, cupping his backside and spreading it to see Lucifer's hole. He pressed his thumb against the rim without entering him.
When he withdrew, Lucifer felt the awful pain coming for him again, but then Michael was back before it could touch him, protecting Lucifer from it.
"Soon," Michael promised. Lucifer didn't see why it couldn't be now.
Michael leaned over him. Lucifer hated that his legs were between them now, keeping Michael away when he should have every inch of Michael's skin touching his own. Michael didn't help, nudging Lucifer's thighs closer together. He shifted again, and his cock fell over Lucifer's, hot and heavy. "Perfect," Michael murmured, caressing Lucifer. "So perfect. All for me. Aren't you, brother? Were you given to me?"
"Yes." Lucifer's answer broke on a gasp as Michael thrust forward. Michael did it again just to hear him. He gripped Lucifer's thighs, holding Lucifer still until he could push his dick between them. Like a tease of penetration, he rode Lucifer's thighs. Lucifer could only take it as Michael moaned at how good it felt. The pressure and the thrusts against Lucifer's own cock kept him on edge but never satisfied.
With Lucifer keeping his own legs steady, Michael had a hand free to reach back down to his hole. He pressed a finger against Lucifer's hole. Lucifer had to relax and let him in.
"Is that what you need?" Michael asked.
"I need more," Lucifer answered, the bite in it caused by Michael's teasing. Michael pressed another finger inside him. He fucked in between Lucifer's thighs again, taking his own pleasure while Lucifer clenched around his fingers.
Michael seemed to know exactly how long he could play with Lucifer before his brother was finally tired of him. All Lucifer had time to do was let out an exasperated huff before Michael was leaning back and repositioning Lucifer, finally letting his legs down to wrap around Michael's waist and cling on tight. Michael pushed into him slowly, blanketing Lucifer with his body as he went until their mouths could reach each other easily again and Michael was buried as deep as he could go.
Lucifer knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would need Michael to do this for him as many times as he wanted for the rest of time after this, or else he would never feel as content as he did now. He inhaled Michael's praises of how it felt to be inside him when Michael couldn't bring himself to pull his lips back an inch to speak. Not that he needed to, now. Lucifer could feel it all in their intertwined grace, love enough to break him and more still. Lucifer would take it all.
Michael's wings flexed as he moved, beating down against the cold earth, carving furrows in it with the power of them. Lucifer's own wings spread and welcomed Michael's touch, shivery delight spilling from each feather played with. Michael was rocking into him, not wanting to pull out but seeking that same warm, tight embrace that Lucifer's thighs had given him a taste of.
"If I could have you deeper-" Lucifer didn't have to finish that statement. Michael understood. He pressed their cheeks together, his chest to Lucifer's as their grace pulsed and mixed and left behind parts of themselves in each other. It was reckless. It was beautiful.
Angels would notice that Lucifer carried some of Michael with him.
God would notice, Lucifer realized, and he smiled with wild abandon where Michael couldn't see, his face turned into Michael's neck. Michael moaned as Lucifer tightened around him.
"Do you love me?" Lucifer whispered, and Michael heard him, clear as a bell. He responded without hesitation.
"Yes," Michael said, "always, Lucifer. Always." The reassurances soothed Lucifer. Michael's steady motions were driving him high into something glorious, something they would share together for the first time and always know was theirs.
"More than anything?" Lucifer asked. Michael bowed his head and kissed Lucifer. He didn't let Lucifer speak again until his voice was broken by gasping breaths. Michael had his hand around Lucifer's cock again, and Lucifer could see stars as though he was watching them come into existence all over again. "More than anything?" he repeated, needing Michael's answer. "Michael, do you-" His voice shattered into an impossible note as Lucifer's world turned to pure starlight.
He laid there in Michael's embrace, the sensations that had overtaken him coursing through his body but gentler now, soothing him down into such a relaxed state that he didn't want to move for hours. Days, even. Years, with only him and Michael, here and together. If only.
The Mark was quiet. Lucifer shut his eyes and listened carefully. He could almost believe his burdens were lifted completely. It would be back, but not here, not with Michael keeping it away.
He reached up and traced Michael's face with artistic care, memorizing all of him. There was no need; a world didn't exist where he could lose Michael, not one Lucifer could conceive of.
Michael looked down at him, a hint of worry on his face that melted as he took in Lucifer. Lucifer wished the rest went away as easily, the ugly emotions that he could feel creeping into Michael's grace as the poison flushed out of their systems and allowed their minds to be clouded again by thoughts other than each other. Lucifer wanted to claw out the guilt Michael felt until there was more room for himself.
Michael had never answered him. Lucifer had hoped for a whisper as they reached the peak of their pleasure, soft and simple words confirming what he already knew to be true. Of course, Lucifer. Above all else, Lucifer. Only you, Lucifer.
Instead, Lucifer had to try to ignore the first seed of doubt about Michael as it took root. He wanted to find another plant and burn out the feeling as Michael took him again.
He let his hand drop from Michael's face. Michael, slowly, as though he thought Lucifer might retreat from him, bent down to kiss Lucifer's forehead. He hesitated before moving down to press their lips together again, but he did. When they parted, Michael didn't move.
"You are going to destroy me," Michael breathed. He said it so softly. He might even be afraid someone could hear him, hidden in the darkness of Purgatory and beneath his own wings.
Lucifer wanted to tell him that he wouldn't.
The word danced on the tip of his tongue, but Lucifer was not a liar. He considered telling Michael the truth — that if anyone would, it would be Lucifer because no one else would be allowed, no one else would survive trying to take what was Lucifer's — but he didn't. Michael either knew already, or it was better that he didn't. Lucifer hugged his brother. He did not let go for as long as Michael would let him, which would never be as long as Lucifer needed.