If Lucifer doesn't want to fight him, why is he attacking?
He might think it odd, later, that for all the things he's said here Lucifer still looks at him and sees safety. Maybe he looks like the eye of the storm in this moment, but there's no calm to be found in him. In the moment, Michael isn't thinking much at all. There are arms around him, stronger and more threatening than the vines had been. This is an offensive.
There is no warning roar, no growl. Michael turns on the closest arm and sinks his teeth in. The part of him that is leviathan says chew and this time he doesn't fight it. His teeth cut cleanly through flesh, skin and muscle and tendons, blood and ichor welling up against his tongue. The wound he opens up sings with the shrill ringing of exposed grace. Eight hundred years hasn't given him a sense of taste to either delight in or recoil from the familiar flavour, but there's something alive in his mouth and he swallows back everything his teeth cut loose.
There's bone beneath, too thick and too sturdy to break through in a single bite. Michael grinds his teeth against it, cutting furrows into the bone—a weak spot for a break when he twists his head sharply to the side. The sound of bone snapping is deafening, like an icy meteorite exploding upon atmospheric reentry.
(Was it like this when that other him tore his Lucifer apart? Was it only blind rage, something he reframed as good and righteous in the aftermath? Is there a version of him that would do this and enjoy it?)
Michael lurches to the side. Severed arm still clutched between his teeth, he slams them into the crystallized dune with enough force to send a network of cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. It cracks but doesn't split.
If Lucifer doesn't let go, he'll take another arm.
cw: gore lol
He might think it odd, later, that for all the things he's said here Lucifer still looks at him and sees safety. Maybe he looks like the eye of the storm in this moment, but there's no calm to be found in him. In the moment, Michael isn't thinking much at all. There are arms around him, stronger and more threatening than the vines had been. This is an offensive.
There is no warning roar, no growl. Michael turns on the closest arm and sinks his teeth in. The part of him that is leviathan says chew and this time he doesn't fight it. His teeth cut cleanly through flesh, skin and muscle and tendons, blood and ichor welling up against his tongue. The wound he opens up sings with the shrill ringing of exposed grace. Eight hundred years hasn't given him a sense of taste to either delight in or recoil from the familiar flavour, but there's something alive in his mouth and he swallows back everything his teeth cut loose.
There's bone beneath, too thick and too sturdy to break through in a single bite. Michael grinds his teeth against it, cutting furrows into the bone—a weak spot for a break when he twists his head sharply to the side. The sound of bone snapping is deafening, like an icy meteorite exploding upon atmospheric reentry.
(Was it like this when that other him tore his Lucifer apart? Was it only blind rage, something he reframed as good and righteous in the aftermath? Is there a version of him that would do this and enjoy it?)
Michael lurches to the side. Severed arm still clutched between his teeth, he slams them into the crystallized dune with enough force to send a network of cracks spiderwebbing out from the point of impact. It cracks but doesn't split.
If Lucifer doesn't let go, he'll take another arm.