Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happened in a moment. A lifetime in the future, and eons in the past. One single decision, and a lifetime of pain. Countless different choices across multiple paths that all led forward, and backward, to here.

To a young archangel sitting alone on the very edges of Heaven, away from anyone and everyone.

Mikhael didn’t know how long he had been sitting there. Everything here felt silent and empty for the moment, just as he wished it to be. There was no one here to bother him. No one watching with those looks of pity as they took in the wound their Commander received. One he'd gained fighting in a war he'd wanted no part in, battling against the brother he should've been shoulder to shoulder with. His wings ached from the blow Azazel's blade had given, but nowhere near as much as his heart.

His mind kept going over everything that had happened over the past few days. Over the past several eons. How close they had been. How they could've made this all stop before it even started if Lucifer hadn't…

No, no. He wouldn't think of it.

Mikhael closed his eyes and curled in tighter around himself, trying to forget the hurt and the pain and the betrayal he had seen. Not just amongst his siblings, on both sides. But on the one face that mattered to him more than any other. The one that belonged to the other part of him - a part he’d once been able to feel, only now, now there was nothing. A tightness in his chest where the glory of the bond had once bloomed bright, just like the Morningstar himself.

Absently, Mikhael found his hands picking at his tunic, tugging at the threads in a nervous gesture he’d thought long conquered.

In the back of his mind he heard his Samael laughing at him, the gentle brush of his hands reaching out to stop Mikhael as he scolded him. “You do that and you’re going to ruin all your clothes. Then what will people think, brother-mine?”

Grief and anger hit like a fist to the chest. One that still had the power to steal his breath away.

He didn’t cry, though a part of him ached to. Instead, he tightened his fist on his robes and battled back the pain the same way he’d been doing for the past two days.

Two days in which he’d done his best to recover, heal.

Two days in which Lucifer had been captured and left to rot in the cells.

Two days in which Father and Mother had argued behind closed doors over what to do about their son.

It was supposed to be a victory. The way all the other angels celebrated, Mikhael knew that they at least considered it one. Only a select few of them seemed to mourn what had happened – and what more was to come. Only they seemed to care about Samael, who it seemed had been entirely lost to them underneath Lucifer.

None grieved as hard as Mikhael.

He forced himself to open his eyes and look out over the empty space in front of him. To take in the nothingness that marked the edges of their Silver City. A nothingness that seemed to creep further and further into Mikhael with every passing moment.

One that he found himself so wrapped up in he never noticed the presence of another angel coming his way until the sound of wings followed by a hard thud sounded behind him.

Battle instincts had Mikhael spinning around to look, only for him to freeze, stunned, at the sight of the wingless body lying there.

His first thought was Lucifer! He escaped! and a part of him, a very small part he would never admit to out loud, rejoiced a little. The rest of him readied and braced even more for the fight he didn’t want to have.

Only, the figure moved its head a moment later, and Mikhael found himself stunned still. Because that… that wasn’t Lucifer. He knew, as sure as the bond in his chest and the wings on his back, that his twin was still back in the heart of the City.

Yet, that was their face that looked up at him. Their body that shifted and moved, groaning, until they got to their knees.

Their eyes that locked on Mikhael with a sense of relief.

Mikhael gripped the hilt of his sword and did his best not to back down in the face of whatever this was. “Who are you?”

A weak laugh spilled free of the other being, one that was ripped and broken at the edges so that it cut more than it brought any sense of joy, and they lifted one hand to press it against their head, rubbing as if trying to ease an ache there. Their voice was low, almost familiar, but the words and the accent were not ones Mikhael recognized. They were harsh sounding and guttural, not like the usual tones of Heaven at all.

And yet, something in them tugged at Mikhael.

The being looked at him and made a low, gruff sound. A curse, no doubt, judging by the edge to it. With a startling lack of ease, they switched to flawless Enochian.

“Sorry about that,” they said, and oh, their voice. Mikhael knew that voice. Knew the bitterness and anger and the darkness that lurked underneath it. It was the same voice that spoke in the back of his mind these days, cursing Lucifer, cursing Heaven, cursing himself. “I forgot. English probably doesn’t even exist yet.”

This time when he smiled, it held a note of sadness to it, one that echoed through Mikhael and caused his wings to flutter uneasily behind him. Then, in a move Mikhael hadn't expected, the being let loose wings that had been hidden and furled seconds ago – how had he flown without wings? how had he landed here without flying?? – and every thought in Mikhael's head vanished underneath a wave of shock. Because those...

Those were his.

Those were his wings.

How did this being have his wings?

“I’d tell you not to panic if I thought it’d do any good,” the being said. Their body slumped a little, and Mikhael felt his own doing the same. For one brief moment the two looked like a perfect mirror of one another, bodies slumped, and broken wings quivering behind them. Then the being dragged themselves upward a little more until they could thump down, cross legged, and face him.

Everything about them spoke of exhaustion. The kind that went soul deep. Mikhael felt an echo of it in his own soul, yet he knew – something had happened to this version of him. Something worse than this.

“Who are you?” Mikhael repeated. He hoped the being couldn’t hear the quaver hidden under those words.

Whoever they were, they smiled at him, soft and gentle and a little broken in ways Mikhael could admit he was already so close to. “I think you know who I am.”

“But that’s impossible!”

“Why? Just because you’ve never done it before means it can’t be possible?”

The question confused Mikhael enough that he didn't have a ready answer for it. Which, judging by the small grin on the other being's face, was all the answer the other needed.

A second later that smile turned into a grimace. The other angel, the other him – because what else could this being be, when he had wings like those and their very face? – let out a low sigh as he moved one hand up to rub at his shoulder. In the same spot Mikhael was aching in.

The other-him caught him watching, and those dark eyes darted to the bandaged shoulder, barely hidden under his tunic, and then back to his face. The ache in his expression grew even stronger. “You can call me Michael,” he said, soft and low. “And I wish I had time to argue the semantics of time travel with you, but I barely had enough power for this and I don't want to run out of time before I do what I came here to do.”

Mikhael's head was spinning and everything in his power screamed at him that this being in front of him was wrong. Not lying, no. He could feel the truth of their words in a way that hurt. But they were wrong. They shouldn't be here. “Why are you here?”

“To stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“What?” What was he talking about? What mistake?

Michael leaned forward, and the darkness in his eyes grew, the shadows creeping out to loom around them. For the first time Mikhael got to experience the Fear others felt around him from the outside. Suddenly, the way they tended to avoid him made so much more sense. “Today is Lucifer’s sentencing, isn’t it? The day Dad decides what Punishment he’ll receive.”

A tight feeling built in Mikhael’s chest. One that had been there all morning long, threatening to rise up, to choke the life out of him.

Though he said nothing, Michael nodded as if he answered. And then he said the very last thing Mikhael had expected to hear. “They’re going to make you hurt him.”

“What?”

Michael leaned in a little more, so much so he had to brace one hand on the ground, and something lit his eyes. Something that felt not right. It edged his words, too, making it so that Mikhael couldn’t look away, couldn’t stop listening. “When you go in there, Dad’s going to read out His punishment, and He’s going to Command you to deliver it. Dad’s going to Command it, and you’ll have no choice. You’ll have to cast down your twin into the very depths of hell to live out a life of pain and torture, and you’re going to regret it every single day after that.”

Michael could feel the horror gripping him. One unlike anything he’d ever felt – not even when he’d faced down Chaos had he felt this terrified. “No. No. I wouldn’t.”

“You will. No one can stand up to Dad’s Commands. You’ll do it, and he’ll hate you for it, though not as much as you’ll hate yourself. But that hate you feel for yourself, it’s going to change you. You’ll turn angry, and bitter, and the guilt will eat at you until suddenly it’s Sammy’s fault you did this. If he hadn’t tried to burn so bright, if he hadn’t questioned Dad, you never would’ve had to do it. It’ll eat at you and eat at you until you’re willing to do anything to make it stop, to make yourself feel seen as something more than a traitor to your own twin.”

Everything within Mikhael wanted to scream at this other version of him. To demand that they stop with the lies. It had to be a trick somehow! Yet words wouldn’t come. Mikhael sat there staring into Michael’s eyes and he couldn’t convince himself that it wasn’t true.

He could see it in the fractured power leaking out of them. The broken bits of a soul that time had shattered. Mikhael saw it, and a piece of him broke as well.

“It’s not just Lucifer you hurt. It’ll be the others, too, and they’ll turn on you for it,” Michael said flatly. “They’ll think you’re a monster who got so jealous of his brother’s light that he willingly kicked him out of here. Every single one of them will abandon you because of it. The only ones who still care about you at the end are Raph and Gabby, and neither one of them is enough to help fight against the giant well of Fear and Dark in your stomach that takes over. You don’t have your Light to ground you anymore. It just all eats away at you until you become the monster you always feared you would. And then you… then you do the one thing you never thought you could. You try to kill your twin.”

“I would never!”

The future version of himself looked so pained as it he said it, and Mikhael felt that pain right along with him. How – how could he think he’d do that? How could he kill his twin?

“You will,” Michael said softly, in a voice that spoke of truth and pain. The words felt all the more powerful for how quiet they were. “In some futures, you kill him and you become God. In others you don’t, not right away at least. You stay your hand. But in return he chops off your wings and you’re left spending the rest of your days scrubbing the floors of hell until you go even more insane, at which point you either kill him or you destroy the entirety of hell by losing all control of your powers.”

The horror in Michael’s voice matched the one Mikhael felt in his heart. The idea of losing control of his power like that, of his Power, was terrifying. After all, what was Power without Will?

Destruction.

On a cosmic scale.

Mikhael wanted to keep screaming out denials, to insist that this wouldn’t happen, that he’d never do that. But he could see the truth of it in Michael’s eyes.

“That’s what happened in my universe,” Michael said. He smiled – a broken, jagged thing Mikhael could see held the edges of insanity to it. That strange wrongness he’d felt before made so much more sense now. This Michael had done it. They’d lost control of everything and killed their twin.

Mikhael wanted to back up, to get away from this broken version of himself. He wanted to call out for help from anyone. Everyone.

The smile on Michael’s face grew a little. Like he’d felt Mikhael’s fear and was amused by it. Yet he spoke on in that same broken voice. “In my universe I lost the war, killed the woman he loved, and had some of his friends killed. In return, he chopped off my wings and sent me to hell to scrub floors. Only, life happened and he forgot about me. Until it was too late, that is.” For one second Michael’s grin split his face wide, and the darkness spilled out around him, insanity echoing in the curls of the shadows. “I stopped caring, and I let my powers free. I didn’t hold them back anymore. And they destroyed… everything.”

In the blink of an eye, that darkness faded. The broken, terrifying mockery of his own face flickered and was gone under a different mask. One that was all the more terrifying for how dead it was.

“So I fixed it,” Michael said, empty and hollow now. “I flew up to Dad’s throne – no one could stop me. Not anymore. And I used it to look. I sat on His throne, and I used it to look at everything. To see the past, the present, the future, across so many different timelines, until I found the only one that would work. The only one that gives us any chance of saving everyone – our brother included.”

Mikhael felt like he’d gone numb. Like his whole body had gone through too many emotions, and only numbness remained. It was the only thing that kept him from flying as far and as fast as he possibly could. “What is it?”

“You have to Fall with him.”

For one long moment it felt like the whole of the Universe seemed to freeze around them. Mikhael felt it in his power, the grace that made him who he was. Even the aching pain in his bond he hadn’t quite been able to make stop seemed to go still.

What? What?

“No.” Mikhael barely felt his lips shape the word, the sharp denial that he couldn’t quite hold back. “I can’t… no.”

Michael bared his teeth like he would lean forward and rip and tear at Mikhael himself. Just as the demons down there would no doubt try to do. “Yes you can. You have to. Because otherwise, every other road leads right back to this…” Lifting a hand, he thumped at his chest. “…to me. Do you really want to destroy everything just because you’re a coward too afraid to go against anything Dad says? Trust me – been there, done that. It’s not worth it!”

“I can’t!” Mikhael shot back. Just the thought of doing it, of going to hell… no.

All of a sudden Mikhael found himself lying on his back, pinned to the ground with Michael over him. He’d moved so fast Mikhael hadn’t even had a chance to see it let alone try and stop him.

Michael pinned him down with one hand on his chest and the other curled over Mikhael’s where he’d still gripped at his sword. This close, there was no denying the insanity in his eyes. Or the way his power prickled over Mikhael’s skin with an aching cold that burned. “You have to,” Michael snarled at him, their faces just inches apart. “I don’t have time to argue it with you. The power in my universe is gonna yank me back soon. You need to listen to me. This is the only option that gives you any chance of surviving. Either one of you.”

“But…”

“No!” Michael’s hand fisted in the front of his robes, and Mikhael found himself yanked up off the ground until their faces were close enough that their noses almost touched. All he could see, all he could feel, was Michael and the cold darkness of his powers. “There’s no choice. Every other option leads to death. Are you really willing to let that happen just to avoid a little pain? Are you willing to let him suffer in your place?”

The places inside Mikhael that had been broken and aching for so long now – from that very first moment he’d first had to raise arms against his own brother – seemed to crack open a little wider at that. Pain gripped him and stole his breath away until there was nothing left but hurt.

(Somewhere in the distance, Lucifer sat up at attention, his own pain briefly pushed down as he felt the agony coming from his brother. And despite everything, despite the hurt they both felt, despite the betrayals they’d both committed against one another, he closed his eyes and sent all the love he could down the their bond)

It was that swell of love more than anything else that broke him. Mikhael felt it, and he felt a piece of himself break off and fall away.

“How?”

Michael’s grin softened into something a little less threatening. He let go of Mikhael’s sword, and he reached up to pull something free from his shirt. A necklace, one made of something cold, something broken and yet familiar. It dangled down between them, swaying back and forth like a pendulum. It took a long moment for Mikhael to realize what it was he was seeing. When he did, his eyes shot back up to Michael's face. “Is that...”

“A piece of Dad's throne. The only thing capable of protecting you from his Command without him realizing it. It's what's kept everyone from seeing us over here. It holds a piece of Dad's power to it still and it protects us.”

He stared at the object hanging from his future self's hands and tried to figure out how this tiny little trinket would protect him. It didn't seem possible! Nothing was that powerful, not even something created by God himself. And yet... Mikhael couldn't deny the power he felt coming from it. He wanted to reach up to touch it, yet he couldn’t bring himself to move.

The minute he took that, he was committing himself. He’d be accepting that all this was true and this was his fate.

Mikhael swallowed hard. Then he forced himself to ask the question he needed to. “Will I die?”

“You'll live,” Michael answered firmly. He looked straight at Mikhael and smiled sadly. “I promise. You're going to hurt. You're going to be in pain for longer than you can imagine. But you'll live. More importantly - so will he.”

And that was it, right there. Mikhael could've come to terms with his own death, if that were the only result of all this. If it were just him, well, what was the big deal? They all died someday.

But Lucifer? Sam?

No.

If there was anything Mikhael could do to save his twin, well, had there ever been any doubt he would take it?

In a grip far steadier than he'd expected, he reached up and took hold the necklace, letting the weight of the small pendant settle into his palm.

Michael smiled.

Chapter Text

The pendant’s chill burned against his skin. Mikhael had it tucked down underneath his tunic, even the chain at his neck hidden away so no one could see. Yet he had no idea how they couldn’t. Not when he swore he felt the cold of it pulsing through him, the chill sinking down into his bones. Or perhaps that was the last vestiges of Fear left clinging to him after Michael had gone.

“You need to make sure no one sees it,” he’d warned Mikhael. “It He sees it, He’ll know, and everything will be lost. I don’t care if you have to dig a hole in your chest and hide it there. Don’t let Him see it!”

Mikhael had nodded, and when he’d put it on, he’d done his best to tuck it down away. The armor he’d grabbed from his rooms had helped. Straps across his chest pinned it underneath his shirt so not even the faintest of bulges could be seen. The shoulder-armor he added meant he could wear the tunic with the high neck that would protect the top plate from rubbing against his skin, and neatly hide the necklace chain as well.

Piece by piece Mikhael put on the vestments of his office. Pieces of himself that he had earned in sworn service to his Father. And he used them to hide the piece of blasphemy with him as he answered the Summons and walked forward toward the betrayal of everything he’d been taught.

He walked into the Throne Room so sure someone would know. That they’d see it on him and strike him down, the same way they’d struck down Lucifer. Yet, no one said a word as Mikhael crossed the room to stand at the right of his Father’s throne. Neither Father nor Mother even looked his way. Both sat there, calm, silent.

One furious, the other aching.

Not that it mattered. It never mattered.

Images of times gone by, times that had yet to happen, flashed through Mikhael’s mind. Images that Michael had shared with a press of his hand to Mikhael’s forehead. “You won’t remember everything,” Michael had warned him. “There’s no reason we should tip off anyone with all that locked in your head, and it’s not really a life if you have the whole path laid out for you. But you’ll remember enough. You’ll know.”

Swallowing back the pain of those images, Mikhael took his place in this once Great hall. He stood proud and tall alongside his Father, the taste of bitterness on his tongue and the broken pieces of his heart aching.

The medallion seemed to burn against his chest with a ferocity he was sure someone would notice anytime now. How could they not? It felt like it would burn its way straight through to the core of him where his heart sat, broken and bleeding just as much as the figure of his twin just a few feet in front of him.

It hurt – oh, it hurt – to see Samael, no, Lucifer, like this. His twin had insisted his name was Lucifer now, that ther weas nothing left of Samael, not anymore. And Mikhael had hated that, but he could respect it. He could understand how his twin wouldn’t want to show weakness. Not even now, wrapped in chains and forced to kneel, gagged, before their Father, their Lord, he showed no weakness. He didn’t cry. He didn’t plead. Not even as Father announced his punishment to all.

Mikhael didn’t hear the words. He didn’t need to. Michael had already told him what those words would be – banishment from Heaven, and a throne in Hell. Mikhael knew it was coming; he didn’t need to bring himself to listen to it.

All his focus, all his attention, was on the only important one in here.

Their bond lit up with a terrifying wail of pain that had Mikhael fighting not to buckle under the weight of it all. Though Lucifer didn’t show that pain or fear on the outside, it sat in their bond, in the one safe place they both had always had. One that had been half-closed to them throughout this war. Both of them had kept their ends closed recently, and Mikhael knew deep down in the soul of him, if he hadn’t spoken to Michael just yesterday, he would’ve kept his end closed even tighter now. He wouldn’t have been able to bear the pain.

Now? Now, it took everything he had to keep a clamp on it as he listened to his father order him to cast his brother out.

Every eye around was on them. They all watched, silent, horrified, as Mikhael took those first steps forward. Though none as horrified as Lucifer. The first crack in the masks he wore showed as Mikhael took another step, and then another, striding forward with all the confidence and control the Sword of God possessed.

The ground behind Lucifer seemed to split suddenly, with a tear that had so many around cringing back. Lucifer leaned forward, the only sign of his desperation – a desperation that was so strong in their bond Mikhael almost gagged from it.

A few last footsteps and Mikhael found himself there in front of his twin. The other half of his soul. One soul, split into two bodies, each one aching so desperately for what they thought would happen, for what needed to happen.

Mikhael looked down at his brother and saw the beginning cracks of their bond – the pieces that would one day splinter and break them both, sending them down the pathways of ruin and destruction. Until everything was so broken inside them, death became the only option. It was a world Michael had lived in.

It was a world Mikhael refused.

Slowly, carefully, Mikhael sank down to one knee. His shoulder and wing throbbed at the movement, still far too sore. But he did it, and he held himself there, locking eyes with the other part of himself. The most important part of himself.

“Mikhael…”

Their Father’s voiced boomed around them with the strength only He possessed. It was a reminder, and a warning.

Mikhael never looked away from Lucifer. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, so low he wasn’t sure anyone else would hear. The words were the barest breath on his lips. Yet Lucifer heard. He heard, and those cracks in his eyes grew bigger, the pain in their bond deeper.

With an aching heart, Mikhael lifted his good hand and curled it over Lucifer’s cheek, heedless of the gag they’d put there. Then, he offered him one last, faint smile, the last one either one of them might wear for a very, very long time, and he used that hold to draw Lucifer forward until they touched, forehead to forehead.

“Mikhael, do as you are told,” Father called out firmly.

For the very first time in his life, Mikhael smiled and said “No.” He didn’t shout it, didn’t raise his voice, yet the word rung clearly through the Throne Room. Every angel watching on heard it. Their Parents heard it, judging by the soft gasp of their Mother and the furious hiss of their Father. But for Mikhael, all of that was drowned out by the sound Lucifer made. Low, broken, so full of the pain Mikhael could see in his eyes. Yet hope sparked there as well.

Still smiling, Mikhael let the bond open up wide, let everything he felt pour in there. “No,” he repeated, just as steady and just as firm. “And my name is Michael, not Mikhael.”

Then, as everyone watched on, Michael used his good leg to push forward at the same time that he slid his hand off Lucifer’s cheek and backward to the back of his neck, yanking him in close. His wings shot out even as he heard Father call and their siblings tried to dart forward and grab at them, wrapping tight around the both of them and shielding his brother tight as the two of them dove down through the hole, straight out of Heaven.

Together.

Michael kept a tight hold of Lucifer, doing his best to ignore his brother’s struggles and the terrified cries that ripped from him. The force of their fall kept his wings trapped tight around the two of them. With the injury he’d sustained just days ago there was no way Michael could’ve fought against it. Nor could he move his hands enough to reach in and fully break the chains off of his brother.

Together, the two fell from Heaven, ripping thorugh one dimension, one plane, to the next, passing through them all until they hit the barrier between here and Hell and, all at once, the chains that were wrapped around Lucifer fell away. Michael had enough time for the almost hysterical thought that at least their Father hadn’t intended for Lucifer to land here caged and trapped, unable to fight against the horrors that no doubt lay ahead.

Then Lucifer’s wings exploded from his back and his own arms came out, catching tight hold of Michael. He tried to flap, to at least lessen the force of their fall, but it was far too late.

Together, they fell.

Together, they landed.

Straight into the fires of the Burning Lakes.

Michael’s last thought as the water burned through him and their bond flared wide with agony was: I did it.

I did it.