Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

🍳

It was all a dream…

“…So, how big was this egg?” the other angel asks curiously, and Michael holds his hands apart, his body remembering what wasn't even real. 

The other Michael stares at them dumbstruck before growing deathly pale. 

“Oh Hell no!” He stumbles back. “Hard no!”

“MICHAEL!”

Michael jolts awake…again. Fuck, I was still dreaming? He shakes his head, trying to clear the wisps of fading dream. Whatever instinct had driven him to try to (impossibly) breed his lover has clearly taken deeper root in him than Michael had realized. Now he’s dreaming about it! He sits up, finding himself on the couch. Oh right, he’d left the other angel passed out in the nest after both Mazikeens were done with them. Must have fallen asleep out here after sending the demonesses on their way. The other Michael is going to give him so much shit when he hears about this dream…

“MICHAEL! Are you there? PLEASE! ”

The other angel’s voice coming from the bedroom is frantic. Michael lunges to his feet and nearly takes the bedroom door off its hinges in his haste to get to his mate.

“What is–?” he begins, then stops dead in the doorway, mouth falling open.

“What did you do to me?” the other angel wails. He looks as though the Mazes had been at him for a week rather than just a night: disheveled, hair everywhere, clearly exhausted. 

And he is holding an egg.

A large, golden egg, flecked with black.

“I’m still dreaming,” Michael says numbly, willing himself to wake up for real this time.

“You are not dreaming!” the other shouts. “You really bred me! How the fuck did you do that?” He’s wild-eyed and sounds upset, but he is also cradling the egg with care, arms wrapped around it, hugging the impossible egg to his chest.

Michael eases closer, stunned, trying to convince himself that this time it’s real and part of him already believes it. “Are you… okay? Are you angry?”

“Of course I’m not angry!” the other angel yells, sounding angry for sure. “I’m just confused and I– I just lai– conceived this egg… and you were gone… and-and…” He smiles suddenly, a big, tired smile. “We have an egg. We’re gonna be dads.”

Michael still can't believe it. They created, no, procreated, and now there's an egg where there wasn't one before and he just doesn't know how to respond to it. It could be unviable, right? Just a lifeless egg with a bright yellow yolk floating around in there somewhere. He hates destroying the happiness glowing on the other Michael's face, but what if he didn't successfully breed him? 

What if this is just some divine joke? 

He wants to believe it could happen. He doesn't want to lose this fantasy. Still, he needs to know. “How can you be so sure?” he croaks, his knees feeling weak and his stomach roiling.

🍳 

🍳

Michael caresses the hard shell, feeling life buzz within. He knows. He knows this egg contains life that they created, as unbelievable as that is. 

“C'mere.” He reaches out with one hand, holding the egg firmly with the other. He grabs the other Michael’s hesitantly extended hand and pulls him closer. “Touch it.”

The other lets him guide his palm to the warm egg. Michael watches his eyes widen in surprise.

“It’s warm, it’s just like…” the other begins, then stops and stares at Michael. “I just dreamed this.”

Michael shuffles himself closer, holding the egg between them. “What do you mean? This isn’t a dream, I swear!” There is no way the experience of–of bringing this egg into being was a dream.

“No, I mean I literally just dreamt it. That we had an… had an egg. And that it was hatching. And that it.. uh, was all a dream.”

Michael blinks. “You dreamt that it was a dream?” He doesn’t know if he’s just too tired, but the statement stumps him. “But you didn’t dream we had an egg, you dreamt that we didn’t?” As he says it his heart falls. “Does that mean you don’t want it? I know we didn’t think anything could really happen but when we–we mated it felt like something we both wished could be real…” He’s babbling, curling around the egg, worried he’s made some mistake though whatever he did was unconscious. Anyway, whatever spark of Creation even made this possible came [quite literally] from the other angel when he bred him.  

“Oh, no, no, shhh.” The other wraps his arms around Michael, enfolding him and the egg in a strong embrace. “It was just a crazy dream. Of course I want it. You. Both. I felt awful when it turned out not to be-be true, but now it is, but that's n-not how it went in the dream, and there was Lucifer and Linda, and even fucking Eve, but then-then-then I woke up and… and–”

Michael laughs, reassured, glad the other seems just as flustered by all this as he is. Michael uncurls, lifting his head to shut the other angel up with a kiss.

“You're babbling, love.” 

The other huffs but leans in for another kiss. “And… you’re really s-sure it’s, uh, viable?”

Michael growls with annoyance even as he continues to cuddle close. I thought I was the pessimist but he’s always got me beat. “I’m sure!” he insists, with maybe a hair more confidence than he really has. “We made it. And not in the random way humans make their offspring, either.” He strokes the egg. “Can’t you feel it? The soul in there?”

The other places his right hand on top of the egg, cocking his head in concentration, as if listening for it. He moves it around, from the top to the side and even the bottom, but that frown doesn't lessen. He does the same with his left hand but obviously still can't catch what Michael can feel so clearly and Michael wonders if he just needs more contact. Maybe his own soul is obscuring that teensy tiny flame flickering in there, or maybe their egg needs to build that connection with its other dad too before it can be felt.

“Here, hold it,” he says, pushing the egg into the other’s hands. He’s been clinging protectively to the egg since the moment it… suddenly existed… shielding it with his body, but he doesn’t hesitate to put the precious thing into the safety of his mate’s grasp.

The other angel grabs it with a slightly panicked expression, fingers spread wide like he’s expecting it to be slippery, like a giant golden bar of soap. Michael smiles, even though he dislikes the sudden chill on his chest and stomach, because watching his mate carefully press the egg to his own bare chest, seeing his sudden delighted expression, is definitely worth the trade. 

“We can ask your twin to candle it too if you need more proof,” Michael suggests. 

The other nods absently, his attention clearly on the sensations coming from the egg. Michael lays back with a soft groan, bone weary but happy. The sound draws the other Michael's attention who glances at him, then back at the egg, and back at him again. A frown is starting to furrow his brow, but he doesn't speak, though obviously not for a lack of trying. He can tell from the way the other's jaw ticks and huffs through his nose that there's an intrusive thought fighting to break free.

“What?” Michael asks. 

The other starts and stops a few times, the frown getting impossibly deeper. “How did you…” he eventually manages, looking embarrassed, gesturing vaguely toward Michael’s groin. “How exactly did this…” he mimics a flower opening with his hand “... transpire? It’s a big egg… Like, really big.”

Michael really doesn’t want to revisit the sensations he woke to. The utter exhaustion. The feeling something got ripped from his body after rearranging all his innards, his divinity missing large chunks that may take a while to replenish. The faint look of worry on the other Michael's face is getting less faint by the heartbeat, and he's even starting to hold his breath and subconsciously ‘push’, so some clarification is obviously needed. 

“Not like you’re thinking! I just…” he squirms a little because he does like big things, as evidenced by his mate, but not like that. Definitely not like that! “Look, I just made it happen and everything is intact, okay?” 

The other's concerned look turns into pure disbelief, but before the other can poke at his vague terror he decides to do the hokey pokey and turn this line around. 

“You can feel it now, yeah? The soul?” Michael asks, to distract the other, and himself.

Michael slumps in relief when the other smiles, nodding. “Yeah, I can feel it.” The doubt in his mind that it was just his own wishful thinking eases.

Michael watches the other Michael gently rub his hand over the shell, tracing the random smattering of dark speckles with his fingertip, lovingly drawing constellations all over the outside as if showing their little one the stars. His beloved, his mate has dropped into a cross legged position beside him, the egg propped up on a pillow resting on his legs, the golden shell pressed gently against his abdomen. The softest smile he's ever seen on his own face plays over those pink lips, and suddenly all Michael can see is Eve when she was pregnant with her first. The sheer wonder on the face he used to hate with a passion, her hands sweeping over her pregnant belly just like the other Michael is doing right now with their egg. 

So beautiful. So right. 

He’d do anything to keep it safe, Michael thinks, his trust absolute. And I’ll do anything to protect them both. 

On a whim, Michael pushes himself onto his knees to kiss the other angel, one hand moving down to cover the other's, the other digging into the other Michael's thick dark curls. He feels warm all over, tired but happy, and actually a little horny too. Who knew that seeing ‘himself’ as a pregnant father could be such a turn-on? Michael hums against the other's lips, trying to keep kissing him while smiling. 

The other returns the kiss, gentle and sweet, but when Michael slips his hand between the egg and the other’s abdomen, slowly sliding southward, the other grunts in surprise and pulls his head back.

“What are you doing?” he demands almost angrily. “Not in front of the egg!” He covers the sides of the egg with his hands, whisper-shouting like it can actually hear. Like, seriously?

Michael stares for a moment and purses his lips to hide a smile, he must be joking, right? He leans in for a far more aggressive kiss, pushing his tongue forcefully between the other’s lips, intent on making his wishes perfectly clear. He's getting more and more aroused by the other’s flustered protectiveness, and the restrained signs of aggression aren't helping. 

The next thing he knows, he is knocked backward by a firm shove to his chest, and the other angel is scrambling backwards, clutching the egg to his chest as he falls over in his haste to escape. It's like watching Sam scuttle backwards over his piano all over again, and though he had found it incredibly funny at the time, he doesn't find it as funny now. 

Michael struggles back upright, the pillows seeming extra soft and unstable as he flails gracelessly. Meanwhile, the other Michael is climbing to his feet, his movements just as inelegant as he does it without using his arms since both are now cradling the egg protectively. His eyes are wild and he’s glaring at Michael like he just suggested making an omelet with it. 

“I don't understand why you are being so difficult,” Michael exclaims, his arms wrapping themselves around his still aching stomach. “Normally, you'd be all over me! What the hell, I'm still me, and you are still you. You look so good like this and I just want to–to…” 

Maybe the other angel isn't as appeased by his promise that everything is as it should be as he thought. The ache increases, but it's higher up now. Like his heart is getting squeezed to bits. Or maybe he's afraid having sex will cause another egg now that they know it can? 

Or maybe he just doesn't need you anymore now that you've produced an egg. The thought hurts like nothing else. Like he’s fulfilled some kind of instinctive purpose and now he isn't wanted anymore. Maybe it's the exhaustion, maybe it's the hormones now raging through his body.

“You… you don’t want…?” he stutters his shoulders trembling as he looks up at his glorious mate while he's slumped down at his feet.

🍳

🍳

Michael had been running his hands over the egg, holding it close, making sure there were no cracks after his rushed exit from the nest. What had the other been thinking…! The plaintive sound of his mate’s voice has Michael's head whip up sharply to look at him and he's dismayed to see that the other angel looks absolutely crestfallen. 

“W-what?” Yeah, real smooth there, Mikey. 

“Want what?” he tries again. Ugh, that's not much better, gawd.

Michael looks down at the other's crotch and the obviously flagging erection. 

He wanted to, like really wanted to. Damn it, he thinks. Michael really wants that too, but then there's the egg and the perfect little soul hidden deep inside. An egg made from both of them because he wanted the other so much that he actually went into season and, oh shit, does he think I don’t want him anymore?

“Of course I want to– want you–” he tries to reassure him, keeping his voice low though the pitch still rises sharply. “I love you, but we can’t do anything like-like… that … in front of our offspring!”

The other Michael’s hurt expression morphs into confusion. “Wait, what? You were serious? You think our offspring can tell what we’re doing? They’re inside an egg!”

“It feels… wrong somehow,” Michael mumbles, disgust and desire warring inside of him for attention. It’s weird to fuck next to a baby, isn’t it?

“I’m sure they can't really hear or see or think at this point!” the other argues, his voice a mixture of annoyance and neediness.  

“But what about their soul!”

“So? Do you hear with your soul?”

Michael has to admit that the other’s logic may be sound, but it still gnaws at him that they are potentially putting it in danger of being born… defective somehow, and with him for a father twice, that really doesn't seem too far fetched to him. So, he tries a different tack.

“But what if we corrupt it somehow?” He doesn't like how whiney he sounds, but his life had been great before Desire found him. Well… not great , but better than what came after. Marginally better at least. Because after desire came Fear, and everyone knows how that went. 

The other stares at him in disbelief. “Corrupt it? Think about how we made it.”

Michael stares down at the egg he's holding safely in his hands. He had wanted to breed the other so desperately, despite knowing it could never be. The other Michael had embraced his possessiveness and his dominion with wide open arms. He'd begged for him to do it, and he had…

“We–we–we self-actualized it, right? Damn it, Amenadiel might be right after all.” Michael's nose wrinkles in disgust at having to admit to such an atrocious statement and the other Michael mirrors his expression exactly. 

“Yes, we DID! I think… doesn't matter. We made it with love. And by you practically fucking me through several rocks. So I don’t see how anything we do now would corrupt it.”

Michael shuffles his feet, looking between their unborn offspring, (Is it technically unborn if he's holding it in his hands?) and his less than patient mate. 

The other Michael sighs and caresses his flat abdomen. “Let me put it this way. Would you fuck me if I was carrying it inside of me like a human female? You know, hidden from sight, but still with a soul?”

Michael mulls over the question, imagining the other angel, his skin glowing in the morning light, caressing his swollen belly with a soft smile on his scarred face. 

“Yes…” it's out before he knows it. A rough whisper that shows all of his emotions, his fears too. 

He flops back down into the nest, physically curling around their egg and the soul growing in it. He would worship the other angel carrying their child to term. He'd fucking die for them. He meets the other Michael's dark gaze, his eyes automatically tracing the scar down to eventually come to rest on his lips. He still would now, even with the egg being incubated outside his body not in. “But h-how?” he stammers weakly.

He guesses this isn't really about sex after all, but more about instinct. The only thing he really wants to do is to shrug out his wings and burrow himself and their precious egg into a mountain of pillows where he can keep it safe and warm and not come out until it hatches. But he also wants what the other Michael is offering… To love and to hold, forever and ever. 

The other looks confused again. “How, what?”

“What if we,” Michael shudders in horror, “squish it?”

His mate has the temerity to laugh at that. “I didn’t think we’d put it between us! We could just set it on some pillows close by.”

Michael's heart skips a beat at the mere suggestion they set aside the egg where they can't keep an eye on it. “No!” he almost shouts. “What if-if-if it rolls off and cra–?” Michael's mouth snaps shut before he can say it and give the universe any ideas. The egg feels so warm and secure in his arms. It's glowy and alive and so much better than the dream with its weird logic and off-kilter participants. “W-what if it gets cold?”

“Okay, fine, we won’t do that! Look, what if I just, uh, hold it out of the way?” The other’s brow wrinkles, lips pursing as he clearly runs ideas for positions through his head.

“What? No!” Michael hugs the egg closer. “I want to hold it.” He feels so incredibly out of his depth. First the breeding itself, and now this-this absolute NEED to make sure the egg is safe and warm and kept away from prying eyes, most notably his dad's. It's scaring the fuck out of him, this new side of himself he's never seen before. All his life he's been less than Samael, less than light and desire and fun. He'd been forged into a weapon with no care for his brittle soul, no care at all for his desire to connect and belong, and now there's a hatchling on the way, and he's got only one shot at doing it right. 

The other’s face softens into a knowing smile and he feels instantly safer. There's two of them now. Two fears make one desire. Michael bites his lip, his need for closeness with his mate winning out over his need to protect their egg's innocence. 

The other angel inches closer, eyes shining. “That's good. You hold it. I know you will keep it safe. So, what if you… just take care of the egg, and I take care of everything else?”

🍳

🍳

Michael looks hopefully at the other angel. The more his mate frets and cradles the egg like it’s made of thin glass, the more Michael wants him. Every time the other looks down at the egg his eyes glow. Michael feels like he can almost see the love flowing from him, surrounding their egg. It’s so beautiful… and so sexy.

The other’s eyes move from the egg to Michael again, taking in his expression, then drop lower. When he licks his lips, Michael knows that his own fully rekindled interest is having an influence.

“Why now? Why are you suddenly so horny now?” the other whispers, the question echoing Michael's earlier thoughts about no longer being needed. 

“Because you look really hot right now.”

His words bring an incredulous smile to the other’s face. “Really?”

“Fuck yes.”

The other angel laughs at that, but doesn't uncurl his body from around the egg, and that gives Michael an idea.

“Let’s spoon. You hold the egg, I’ll lie behind you. Yes?” he offers, his voice dropping to a whisper. The other angel simply stares at him, that small smile still sticking to those lips, and Michael longs to drown himself into those faintly glowing depths.  

“Please? I want you so much.”

A small shock travels through the other Michael's body and he finally nods, a quiet ‘yes’ falling from his lips though he still looks unsure. 

Well, that makes two of them. Doesn't mean he's not gonna try. “You just tell me what you need and I’ll follow your lead, you can make sure the egg is safe. Okay?” 

Without waiting for an answer, Michael starts rearranging pillows, coaxing his mate to settle in the middle of the nest. It’s not that hard, it’s clear that the other actually wants to burrow into the pillows and the real challenge will be not letting him disappear entirely.

“Bring out your wings, love?”

Michael has to duck with a laugh as the other unfurls instantly, scattering pillows as he sweeps his wings forward to cocoon the egg before curling onto his side.

The other angel hums and grumbles adorably as he gets settled, and before long he is directing the placement of pillows and blankets, regaining his agency. Michael obliges, it's in his own best interest after all. He strokes the other's skin and feathers as he does so, dropping kisses wherever he can with every minute adjustment of the bedding.

Finally, Michael sits back and views his handiwork. The egg is almost entirely hidden, just a glimpse of gold peeking out from under shiny black feathers.

They make love like this, slowly, but no less intense. He can hear the other's breath getting pushed out in small, highly charged sobs. Ready to let go, ready to fall. So, Michael tightens his grip, whispering their name into soft feathers until the other tenses and comes with a strangled whine. Michael follows after him quickly. The other Michael's body is unmovable like a mountain, physically protecting their egg from his uncontrolled movements as he comes with his lover's name on his lips and love in his prayers. 

Michael pants softly, curling up against that incredibly strong back, his body warm and totally relaxed. Michael knows he should move, clean them up, but he can’t even conceive of it right now. The other reaches for Michael’s hand where it rests on his hip, and draws it under his wing. The other angel guides Michael’s hand to press his palm against the hidden egg, and covers his hand with his own. The egg feels warm, the soul inside brighter somehow. He’s probably imagining it, but it feels nice. Like their baby is responding to them. Does love make it grow? 

He doesn't get to ask his question because the other angel's enthusiastic snores ripple through the silence making Michael chuckle. Tomorrow then. 

“Good night love,” he whispers at his mate and egg alike.

“Hmmpf,” he gets in return and he pretends it's a good night too.

🍳