“It was my fault.”Michael’s affirmation made the devil freeze, note the archangel’s wide, empty eyes and his own pretty reflection in them.“Once Lucifer is resurrected, he will never meet me.”
“Never,” Satan echoed, thinking of how much of eternity as an angel he’d had without the chief prince in his life, how routine, how mundane all of existence had been.And how it’d felt like fate, like the very first prophecy, for them to meet, in a garden, how Lucifer always met God in a garden.There is no eternity where they don’t meet — Michael and Lucifer.“You,” the devil said more carefully.“You cannot kill yourself, Michael.”
“After the flood, after the covenant of Hell that I made with God for you — He burned me for seven days, Satan.”Michael’s gaze flared, as if the fires would burst out from his memory.“And the Lord and I made the promise.He would do it Himself — kill me after Lucifer is returned.”In Satan’s heart, something shifted out of place, and a breath fell out of his mouth, heavy.A sudden coldness trickled along his stomach, his limbs, and a tightness.Instinctive — the shock of confusion, of anger.“We will both be dead, Satan.”
‘It’s you who is arrogant, who is so self-obsessed.’Satan dug his nails into the chains again.‘You think it’s all because of you.You think everything is about you.You think you caused Lucifer to fall.He fell because he wanted to.He fell because of who he was and who God was.It had nothing to do with a weak archangel.’
“You slept for days,” Michael finally answered the original question, voice unsteady, almost trembling.“Gabriel and Raphael said not to bind you, but they answer to me.And the two of them have already returned to the Earth with the rest of God’s army, to anoint all the ones that will be saved.I will join them, soon, to end all things.”He, suddenly, took the devil’s chin with one hand.“Does the devil still eat?”Satan let out a baffled, mocking laugh.“Can he eat something that isn’t the beating heart of a man?”His other hand lifted the apple that Satan had forgotten Michael held and, seconds later, the skin of it was pressing to his soft, pink lips.“Eat this.”
Satan stared at Michael, his eyelids half-fallen.“No.”
“You won’t have anything else to eat.You’ll grow weaker.”
But the devil was still mulling over the revelation — Michael’s final deed, his sacrifice.‘You can’t imagine a life in which you resist me, resist having me bear sin for you.You think the only way to save Lucifer is to die.You think this can only end if you kill us both.’
The chains rattled as Satan dragged his tongue along the skin, then he sunk in his teeth.
‘You know you have lost.You have failed your Father.You couldn’t live for Him, so now you will die for Him.But, even now, you can’t kill the desire in you for me eating out of your hand.’Satan chewed, smacking his lips as he did, staring up at the prince’s darkened eyes.‘I used to dream of this too, Michael.’He took another bite, crunched the fruit to squelch between his teeth, and swallowed, as dribbles of juice spilled down Michael’s armored fingers.Tilting closer, Satan brought his tongue there, tapped the angel’s cold gauntlet, then traced up to the tip.‘When I was young, I’d dream of kneeling in the flowers and sucking the nectar out of a flower you’d hold to my lips.’
“It must hurt,” Satan said, “for the Beast to carry your Lucifer’s face.”Michael’s brow twitched, and his hand beneath Satan’s chin went to grip at his blonde locks.“You have such a hurt look in your eyes, angel.”
“He can be saved.”
“What if I told you I can feel him, Michael?I can feel what’s left of Lucifer?He told me all about you.You were so proud once, and you were so kind.You fought the other angels, and they cheered for you.”Michael’s cheeks warmed in a soft red; ‘Oh, how easy you are.’“How couldn’t I fall in love with you too?”
“Stop talking, devil,” said Michael, pressing the apple deeper like he could make Satan choke on it.Indeed, a part of it forced its way into the devil’s mouth, brushing against the roof of his mouth, making him gag, lurch forward.The muffled moan made the saint, again, twitch.
“He doesn’t,” Satan managed, hoarse through the choking, “want you dead.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“But you like to hear it, don’t you?You like to hear that he loves you, Michael.He loves you more than anything, and you’re breaking his heart.He misses your kisses.He misses your touch.He misses dreaming of sinning with you—” Satan cut himself off with a hitch of his breath when Michael dropped the fruit, surged forward, took Satan’s face in his cold hands, tilted his face up to his, and breathed a finger-width from the devil’s mouth.His armor pressed against Satan’s tunic, and his knee had come in between the devil’s legs.
Forehead pressing to Satan’s, Michael said, though clenched teeth — “You’re not him.You’re not Lucifer.”His hands dragged down Satan’s front, to his hips.“But you have his face.”Angrily, somberly, he dragged his mouth from the edge of Satan’s lips, narrowly avoiding a kiss, then down his jaw, his neck.Here, he began to kiss, but with too much teeth, nipping him everywhere that his groping fingers, fisting and pulling at Satan’s clothes, revealed skin.He breathed harshly against the devil’s warming body, dampening it.
Satan bit down on his lip and, momentarily, felt a flicker of pride’s flame in his chest once the prince had moved onto his knees, hands still on Satan’s hips like the devil was a statue of a god and Michael was a pitiful believer.Veneration, at last.But the devil didn’t feel the victorious laughter he’d expected blooming in his chest.He was chained in Heaven.He had kneeled before a God who mocked his rebellion, who was going to have the angel of beauty at his side once more.Apocalypse would strip every action, every word, against God of meaning.And, suddenly, to be a divine idol wasn’t what Satan wanted from this vile chief prince.‘It must be because I know it isn’t true.His belief is crazed.It’s demented.He’s made a cult of us.’Yet — Satan breathed out a slow, pleasured sigh as Michael mouthed at his hip, then dipped his face lower.“What is this?”he finally asked.“Why are you doing this?”
Michael panted hot against the devil’s arousal, then he murmured, “No matter my actions — I know my fate.”
Bitterly, Satan laughed.“You want a taste of me before we’re both killed by God?You want to enjoy me?”
“I told you to stop talking.”
“It’s all Lucifer once wanted, too.He asked you to adore his body.”
“You’re not him.”
“I’m not, but I have him, here, in my chest.Inside me.Don’t you want to join him, Michael?If you come inside, you might find him.”Satan wrestled for control of this moment again.He was the seducer; he was the tempter.
Michael gripped one of Satan’s thighs, then slowly pried it away from the other, lifting, and when put his mouth on the devil’s sin, the both of them breathed out painfully.“Lucifer,” mourned the chief prince, trying to fill his mouth, coaxing his tongue to flick amateurishly, then he brought his lips together to suckle.The apple in his other hand plopped to the ground, rolled away, and Satan shut his eyes and listened to the prince moan the name of the angel he’d once loved.
“Is it what you always imagined,” Satan gritted out to stifle a cry, as he shuddered, hearing the chain above rattle, “Michael?”His hips ached, begging the devil to let him rock them forward, to chase the prince’s indulging.
For some seconds, the archangel didn’t answer.He continued, tilting his head one way, then the other, moving his lips like he wanted to kiss Satan here.With all his armor, it was impossible to know whether the prince was aroused or not, and so Satan tried to listen for his grunts, the kind of pleasured groans that demons always offered him.His hips twitched forward without meaning to, and Michael held him tighter, taking it.Finally, he pulled off, to speak, to brush his damp lips against him as he did — “It’s better.”
“You could have had it.You could have had me.”
“I’m having you now.”
