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The second draft is better. This time, Michael gets it right.
At first, he’s furious, he will admit that. He spends days pounding against the icebox door inside Dean Winchester’s mind. But when that proves futile, he recalibrates. A fragile human mind can only hold so long, and this one is already more fractured than most. Dean doesn’t need Michael to break down the door for him. Time and a little self-loathing can work wonders.
Instead, Michael uses his time to study, applies careful consideration to the mistakes he made the first time. One failure doesn’t have to mean he gives up on this plan entirely. It had a lot of potential the first time around. Trapping Dean in contentment, so he wouldn’t feel an impetus to fight, that was an inspired twist, if Michael can say so himself. It just needs polishing.
The bar was a nice touch but a little impersonal. He plucked a near stranger out of Dean’s memories, half because he didn’t care enough to spend more time looking and half because it felt like a safer trap. Dean would recognize if his brother or the angel were imperfect imitations, but that woman he was passingly fond of worked just fine as an empty shell. The simple joy of the situation was supposed to be enough to hold him.
Unsurprisingly, that failed. It was a lazy draft, a rush job he put in place before that stubborn and annoyingly strong little human could get a chance to try to overpower him again. It wasn’t built to last, he sees that now. As soon as Dean was confronted with a Sam, he made his choice. Michael should have known that would happen. He’s better than this.
But he took notes this time. He watched carefully. He applied the data he was supplied with through Dean’s eyes and ears to the internal reality of the emotions Dean experiences, which Michael couldn’t escape sensing even when he wanted to. It becomes immediately apparent.
There was never going to be a loop that would hold Dean without Sam.
He doesn’t have to wait long to stage his updated version. Michael actually thought he might not get the chance. When Death showed up and handed Dean the solution, that should have been the end of it. Michael thought he was near invincible for millennia, but he’ll admit he felt true dread as he read over the words in that book along with Dean. The one ending that didn’t go his way was easy for them to achieve. All Dean had to do to spare the world its burning was carve his brother up alongside Michael.
Dean set the book aside like a catalogue for ties he’s decided not to purchase and went about his life as if he’d never seen it. Didn’t mention it to Sam so his brother had the chance to volunteer. Didn’t even consider it for a second. And every time Sam expressed distress over Dean’s predicament or wore himself ragged trying to find the way to rid Dean of Michael that Dean knew he wouldn’t find, the guilt of it ate away at him just a little bit more.
It only took a few weeks for the door holding Michael in to swing right open. Dean did everything for him but turn the handle.
So now it’s opening night for the little play Michael put together, and he’s the only audience.
Act one: Dean wipes down the familiar counter at his pride and joy, Bullwinkle’s, a bar named for and decorated in ode to his brother, rather than the one that bore no hint of anyone other than Dean having left a mark on creating it. There are moose perched on the shelves next to the liquor and squirrels. Michael really put in the time on his detail work this go-around.
Enter Sam, his leading man’s leading man. Michael knows from the angle of Dean’s eyes and the fact that he’s been stuck in the guy’s brain on and off for the better part of a year that Dean is admiring the way Sam’s arms bulge as they strain to hold up the brown paper bag full of limes that he’s carrying in from the rain. Sam’s shirt is soaked through, skin tight, and it’s nothing like what the man wears out in the real world, layer upon layer of long sleeves and eyesore flannels; Sam has on a t shirt that leaves most of his arms bare for his brother to admire.
If Michael weren’t such a gifted writer and director, he’d say the costuming in this production was his moment to shine.
“Still raining out there?” Dean asks, clearly trying to throw his focus off Sam’s exposed skin and onto anything else.
“It’s Biblical,” says Sam, an Easter egg Michael threw in for his own amusement. He was in charge of Noah’s flood, and it’s still one of his finer accomplishments. All those imperfect creatures drowned in the downpour, and his father even said he did a good job with it. Better days, those were. Pretty soon, Michael is bringing them back. Until then, he’s got a show to watch.
When he focuses back in, Sam is gently chastising his brother. “I can’t believe you sent me out in this. For some limes.”
“We’re running a business here, Sammy,” Dean replies, grinning. “Can’t have the house special without limes.”
Sam makes a show of looking around the bar before he slides the bag onto the counter and across to Dean. “Yeah, wouldn’t want to disappoint all these customers. Oh, wait. We don’t have any customers. Because no one goes to the bar in the middle of a hurricane.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Dean says, accepting the limes and removing two from the bag before setting it on the back bar. “It’s a tropical storm at most.”
By the time he turns again, Sam has joined him behind the counter, and Dean finds himself face-to-face with his brother, a little too close for comfort.
Michael smirks at the way Dean takes a step back, swallowing hard before asking, “You want something to drink?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, crowding his brother’s space even more as he boxes Dean in, reaching behind him to take the limes off the bar. When he speaks, his words are near enough for the breath to brush over Dean’s lips, and Michael almost mirrors Dean’s tremble in sympathy. “I’ll cut the limes, you pour.”
“S-sure,” Dean says, turning away too quickly to inspect the shelves for his tequila of choice.
Michael made sure to put it on the top shelf. Just an inch or two out of reach. Out of reach for Dean, at least.
He rises to his toes and stretches his fingers out as far as he can, but it’s no use. Then the heat of Sam’s body is pressed against his back, his hand rests on Dean’s hip for purchase, and Sam’s long arm grabs the bottle easily, pulling it from the shelf.
“Is this what you want?” he asks, voice pitched low and hot.
Dean is flushed now, staring at Sam for a long, dumb moment before he says, “What?”
Sam smiles innocently and holds the bottle out to Dean. “I asked if this was the one you wanted.”
“Oh,” Dean says. He looks down at the liquor and then back up at his brother as he accepts it. “Yeah, this is the one. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Sam smiles warmly and gets to work. He cuts one lime into quarters as Dean pours the beers and then the shots of tequila, but as he begins on the second, he slices into a finger.
“Ow!” is all Sam has to say to get Dean’s attention. Dean drops everything he’s doing at the suggestion that Sam may be hurt, immediately turning to assess the situation.
Sam sticks the finger in his mouth as he explains, “I cut myself.” Michael mouths along with the script.
Dean grabs his brother’s wrist, pulling the injured digit from Sam’s pink lips and inspecting it as blood begins to bead up along the severed flesh. “Jesus, Sam. You gotta be more careful. You used to be able to swing a blade so smooth it went right through a vampire’s neck. You’re telling me now you can’t win a fight against a vegetable?”
“Fruit,” Sam says, and when Dean’s eyebrows draw together, he clarifies, “Limes are citrus fruits. Not vegetables.”
“I don’t care if it’s a fruit or a vegetable!” Dean replies. “You could have hurt yourself.”
Sam laughs as he tries to pull his hand away from his brother’s grasp. “It’s just a little nick, Dean. Don’t be so paranoid. We’re not in danger of dying any moment anymore. Honestly, the lime juice stung more than the cut did.”
“That’s not the point,” Dean says. He pulls Sam’s hand toward him again and contemplates the wound for a long few seconds. “We should wash it out and grab some whiskey for disinfectant.”
Sam nods, letting Dean guide him to the industrial sink and turn the water on, testing to be sure it’s not too hot before letting Sam put his bleeding finger under the spray. While Sam washes the cut out, Dean turns his attention to the whiskey shelf.
“Use the cheap stuff,” Sam tells him as he reaches for the faucet and turns off the water.
Dean is ready with an open bottle when Sam offers him his hand again, and the way Dean cups Sam’s palm with his own to keep it steady is how Michael knows this next part is going to work.
Sam winces in pain when the alcohol gets under his skin. He snatches the bottle from his brother’s hands and takes a swig before bringing the cut to his lips again and sucking the whiskey clean off his finger.
“Sammy, what are you doing? We just cleaned that out, now we’re gonna have to do it all again!”
Closing his eyes, Sam sucks harder, drawing more blood from his injury and making a sound of pleasure. He smiles and pours more whiskey on the cut, flinching at the sting again, before holding it out to Dean.
“Tastes pretty good for the bottom shelf,” Sam says, voice burning more than a fine scotch, and even Michael is feeling that heat, so he knows Dean must be turning to ash inside. “Want some?”
“I—uh,” Dean says stupidly. “Sam, what are you—?”
Sam trails his finger along Dean’s bottom lip, painting it red, and when Dean’s tongue betrays his better judgment, dodging out to catch the taste, Sam pushes his finger in past Dean’s lips.
“I like that you take care of me, Dean,” Sam tells him as Dean begins to take Sam’s finger more into his mouth. Sam smiles as he traces over Dean’s teeth and pushes his thumb against Dean’s tongue. Dean turns into his touch, accepting more. “I like that we’re safe now. That we can have this if we want, and no one will take you from me.”
Dean moans, but he can’t respond, because Sam is knuckle deep in him. Michael knows what he would say if he could, though. Something something this is wrong. Blah blah we shouldn’t. But he’ll die for want of it. He’ll stay trapped in here for eternity while Michael turns the world he loves to sand because it’ll give him Sam.
When Sam pulls back and yanks his one shirt off over his head, Michael very nearly gets where Dean is coming from.
“Sammy, we—”
“Shh,” Sam tells him, leaning in. He takes Dean’s hands, placing them on his bare chest as he asks, “Do you really care about that now?”
“No,” Dean admits. One hand stays on Sam’s chest, slides until it’s over his heart, where Michael made damn sure to put a heartbeat. The other he moves up, though, tangling it in Sam’s hair. “Sam, tell me you want really want this.”
“I really, really do.” Sam angles his face down, crashing forward until his mouth lands hard and sloppy against his brother’s, a tsunami on a fragile shoreline, and all the strength and resistance Dean once showed Michael erodes immediately as it gets swept into Sam’s tide.
Sam turns on the buttons of Dean’s deep green shirt with the kind of violence he reserves for things like Michael in the outside world. Michael feels a little bad for the fabric, because it’s torn open in under a minute, and Michael’s been there. He ended up in an icebox for a few weeks, the shirt gets abandoned on a sticky bar floor. It’s what happens to things that come between Sam and Dean. Michael finally gets that. He found a workaround. It’s going well so far.
“Please,” Dean says, though what he’s asking for is unclear. “Sam. Please.”
His hands go to his brother’s belt and Sam lets Dean turn him around as they kiss, until his back hits the bar.
“Let me,” Dean says, desperate, like he’s begging for his life, only Dean doesn’t beg for that, and Michael did try. Apparently, he only begs for Sam. “Please let me.”
Sam nods, and Dean falls to his knees, disappearing under the bar as Sam just keeps right on nodding. Michael thanks, well, himself for omniscient vision. He doesn’t have to have eyes on Dean to see the needy way he nuzzles against his brother’s crotch, just hardly holding back tears as he frees Sam’s cock from plaid boxers and takes the base of it in his fist.
“Dean, fuck,” Sam says, staring down at the sight of his brother with his lips already swollen, his eyes wide and hungry and so eager it would be a cruelty not to feed him. A human lifetime of wanting someone can really work up an appetite, but Sam has plenty to give and he’s generous here in Dean’s very best fake memory. “Do it.”
Dean makes a strangled sound as he begins to stroke Sam’s dick, not waiting for a full erection before he kisses the tip, stretching his lips around the head of it and nursing gently while Sam gets hard for him.
Sam’s hands drop, one gripping the counter hard enough that his knuckles are white, drained of blood in just a few seconds, and the other resting against the back of Dean’s head, not leading him, but encouraging Dean to get moving now that he’s all keyed up.
Dean doesn’t like disappointing his little brother. Really, it’s a whole thing with him. It’s the bulk of the reason Michael got to take back the steering wheel. So he doesn’t hesitate now, starts bobbing on Sam’s dick with the kind of devotion his father didn’t get from his followers even in the good old days.
“Fuck,” Sam swears, dropping his head back and urging Dean on with hitches of his hips. “Feels so good, Dean. You feel so good.”
All Dean can manage are grunts and moans that vibrate on Sam’s cock like a song. Dean likes humming little songs to his brother, ‘hey Jude’ like mommy used to do when Sammy was sick, or alternative rock when he was having trouble sleeping and they were too far out from civilization to pick up radio stations. It makes him feel like he’s protecting Sam. Of course, he’s not. Every moment he spends here gagging on this hallucination is another moment Sam is vulnerable to attack—to Michael’s attack—out there in the real world. But that’s okay, because he left Michael in charge. And Michael is going to do better.
“Do you get off on this, Dean?” Sam asks. “Love sucking my dick, huh? You look so good on your knees for me. Bet you love it so much. Bet you’re closer than I am.”
Dean takes that as a challenge and starts sucking harder, working his tongue along the vein on Sam’s shaft until Sam is shaking in his mouth. Sam has to come first. Sam always comes first for Dean. This is just not going to work otherwise.
Michael snaps his fingers and Sam buckles as his orgasm hits him, just hardly catching himself by maintaining his hold on the bar and bringing his other hand up to grasp it instead of Dean. When he starts spilling, his cock is all the way down Dean’s throat, but Dean starts to pull away when it’s too much, so the last drops dribble from his mouth and down to his chin.
Humans are fairly disgusting little animals.
Sam is more enthusiastic about his brother’s messy exit than Michael is. He pulls Dean to his feet and licks a stripe from Dean’s chin back to his mouth, sucking hard on Dean’s bottom lip as Dean gasps, opening to him, and then they’re making out, passing what’s left of Sam’s climax between their lips as Sam shoves his hand down Dean’s pants and begins to give him a frantic hand job.
Dean doesn’t make it long. Sam was right about Dean being more into pleasing Sam than being pleased, and his reward for that assessment is that his palm is coated in Dean’s jizz about a minute after Sam starts to fist it.
He lifts his filthy hand up to Dean’s mouth and grins as he starts to push fingers in past Dean’s lips where his tongue was just moments before.
“We’re gonna end this just how it started, huh?” Sam teases as Dean licks his own come from Sam’s fingers the way he’d done with the blood and whiskey earlier. “I guess we’ve come full circle.”
Dean’s eyes drop closed and when he opens them, Sam pushes the door to the bar open and enters, soaking wet, holding limes.
“Still raining out there?” he asks.
Michael smiles to himself, knowing that this time, the loop will hold him. He’s ten times the writer his father ever was.
_______________________________________________________________
It’s mission accomplished on the inside, but on the outside, there’s plenty still to do. Michael’s priorities have changed a bit, but he’s still got that can-do spirit his father used to say was his best feature. Of course he did. Michael was never more than a useful tool to him.
Sam is staring at him with a similar expression to the one he saw on Sam’s face in the loop, but it’s a very different kind of awe inspiring it now. Fear instead of desire.
“Dean?” he asks.
“Dean’s busy,” Michael tells him, smiling kindly. “Can I take a message?”
Sam responds as if Michael isn’t even there. “Dean, I know you’re in there. Come back to me.”
“He’s not coming back this time. Believe me.” Michael takes a step toward him and Sam instinctively takes a step back. “Don’t worry. He’s having the time of his life.”
“You keep thinking that,” Sam replies, sneering. “This is, what, the third time you get cocky? You can’t control my brother. You’re too weak.”
Michael holds his hand out as the stealth attack tries to hit him from behind. Castiel and Jack and some girl whose name Michael won’t bother to learn fly back, but before they hit the wall, they vanish.
Sam cries out in response, then looks at Michael. “What did you—did you kill them?”
“No,” Michael responds. “I just sent them away. Does that please you?”
Michael can sense terror in Sam, but he tries to keep his voice steady and defiant as he asks, “You’re going to kill me now?”
“Kill you? How could I? Don’t you get it?” Michael takes several steps forward and holds his arms out to Sam. “Sammy, I love you.”
_______________________________________________________________
Sam evidently does not get it. Michael forgets how much catching up humans have to do. They can’t just follow along. Not a single one in his world ever understood the brilliance of his plan. You have to really help guide them. He gave up on it every time before, but he won’t give up on this one.
See, there was a time when Michael was frustrated by their little human minds, but in this case, it’s okay. He wants to help. Sam will see it one of these days. He knows his Sam better than anything else in the world. Better, even, than the man whose memories he dissected, spent too much time with, caught this horrendous disease from. The diagnosis is love. Michael was infected by such a heavy strain that it’s all but consumed him in the weeks since it began to take root.
He saw Sam through Dean’s eyes for weeks while he waited for Dean’s trap to release him.
Michael felt the warmth of Sam’s laugh when Sam didn’t really think the joke was funny, and Dean knew it, knew that the laugh was more indulgence and general fondness than actual amusement.
Michael felt Dean accepting Sam’s unconditional concern and observed an unselfish need to save Dean, not so that he could be useful but because Sam cared for him. If Michael’s father or brothers or anyone had ever shown him the same, his world might still have beaches and fat, cheerful babies.
Michael felt desire burn hotter than the planet when he razed it every time Dean watched Sam duck his head and flash a dimple or two, the smiles that were only for him. Well, for Dean. It doesn’t matter now who they were intended for. Michael saw them. Apparently, that makes even an archangel go blind to anything else.
“I hate to see you in a cage,” Michael says, patting the bars the way he tried to pet Sam a few times. Sam is fast, though, and his teeth sharper than they look, and it hurts like a sonofabitch, having to grow an ear back. He doesn’t try to pet Sam anymore. They’ll get there, eventually. “But I can’t have you try to run away from me again. You can’t leave me, Sammy. I can’t let you leave me.”
“Don’t call me that,” Sam says, covering his ears with his hands. It’s all he ever says.
“I’m Dean now,” Michael tells him. “I’m your brother now. Just let me show you. He failed you. I wouldn’t ever. I’ll take better care of you than he ever did. He didn’t deserve you.”
Sam’s preferred method of suicide on days like this is to try to slam his head against the bars until they break him. It cuts Michael to the grace to watch him get hurt. The bars hold, but they feel soft when Sam hits them. See, Michael is a tender jailer. He gave Dean a happy prison, and he’s trying to do the same for Sam.
Some humans just don’t know how to say thank you.
_______________________________________________________________
The thing with Sam complicates his plan, he’ll admit. This doesn’t get to be the new and improved apocalypse he originally hoped for. This world, Sam likes it. He’s put a lot of hard work into saving it and he would prefer that it stay saved. Castiel and the nephilim, they are nonnegotiable. Sam would never forgive him if he hurts them, so the best he can do is swat at them like flies on the rare occasions they get close enough to make their puny attempts at stopping him.
But Michael still has a few scores to settle. Well, one big one.
Chuck comes back when this world is threatened. He didn’t come back when Michael turned his entire universe to coal. This one is God’s favorite, apparently. Lucifer was his favorite. Then humans were his favorites. Then this whole other world was his favorite. Michael was never his favorite.
His father can die. And he does. Sam Winchester watches as Dean Winchester’s body kills God, but it’s not as big a moment for Sam as it might have been for someone else. He watched Dean kill Death and Lucifer and something called an Azazel that was apparently just as frightening to Sam. So Michael follows in Sam’s big brother’s shoes and makes sure that Sam sees him kill the thing that threatens him.
“You killed him?” Sam asks when Michael turns to him, holding his father’s head in his hands, a gift that he’s starting to think Sam might not want, judging from the tone of his voice. It’s not as passionate as Michael has heard Sam’s voice on many occasions. A little resigned, a little sad, a little confused.
Michael had so many good reasons to want his father dead, but the only one that matters now is what bubbles to his lips. “He disappointed you.”
_______________________________________________________________
Sam likes to stargaze. Dean, too. Michael doesn’t get it, personally, he’s over his father’s creations and pretending they’re grander than they are. All he can see are the flaws. There’s just one thing he can’t find a flaw with. And that thing happens to enjoy stargazing.
He takes Sam in his arms and Sam doesn’t fight him. It’s been years since Michael took his brother’s body. Years that Michael has kept Sam at his side, letting Sam see his glorious deeds, trying so hard to make Sam understand. So it’s been years since Sam lost the energy to fight him.
His body is more or less limp in Michael’s arms, but Michael holds him as if it was a lover’s embrace nonetheless. This is precious cargo.
When he blinks, they’re transported. Wrapped in his arms, Sam can survive in deep space. Michael takes him to the furthest reaches of the galaxy to show him nebulas human technology will never be able to reach and to walk with him along bridges of constellations and to stand at the center of a blue star so Sam can feel how Michael burns for him.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he asks.
“Yes,” Sam admits. “It’s beautiful.”
“You love stars,” Michael reminds him.
“Yes,” Sam agrees. Michael had to do a little magic. Sam can’t lie to him. He knows Sam would try to deny the joy this brings him if he could, but he feels encouraged that this time, the plan is working.
“Your brother could never give you this,” Michael points out.
“I never asked for this,” Sam replies. And see, that’s the problem with demanding the truth. You get the truth.
“I’ll give you anything,” Michael promises. “Anything in the universe. Tell me what you want.”
Sam stares at the wonders Michael carried him to blankly and blinks just once. A fat tear rolls down his cheek. He tells the truth. “I want my brother.”
_______________________________________________________________
When Dean Winchester wakes up, there’s no archangel left in him. He rises from the bed Michael sleeps in and walks into the bathroom, staring at his own face in the mirror until he recognizes it. He reaches out to touch the glass and flinches back when his fingers hit the surface.
He runs then. Straight to the room Michael kept his brother in, knowing his way on instinct even though he’s never seen this apartment or even been to the city Michael made his home base. He hasn’t seen anything in who knows how long except a bar that doesn’t exist, and a Sam that only exists in his fantasies.
What Dean finds is Sam curled up in a gilded cage, rocking on a bed with sheets the likes of which the Winchesters never would have known. He has every luxury in his padded cell, except the ones you can use to end your own life. Sam still found ways. He’s a wildly imaginative creature.
“Sammy,” Dean says as he breaks the lock off the door. “Sammy, is that really you?”
“Don’t call me that, don’t call me that, don’t call me that,” Sam responds as he continues to totter. “You aren’t him. Not him. You’re not him.”
“Sam, it’s me,” Dean tells him. “It’s me.”
Michael has tried this one before, so Sam doesn’t buy it. He never fell for it, not even for a moment. He could always tell when it wasn’t Dean.
“Sam, look at me.”
Sam lifts his head, angry at first, then confused, and finally, here’s the one that hurts, his expression goes soft after about a minute. He knows just by looking that it’s really Dean, and the relief and joy that floods his countenance and has his body leap to its feet and into Dean’s arms is like a lightning strike.
“He’s gone, Sam,” Dean whispers against his brother’s neck. “He’s really gone this time.”
“How?” Sam asks. “Why? How?”
Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I’m telling you, he’s gone.”
Sam smiles then, one of the smiles that’s real. Just for him. And that makes the choice worth it.
It took decades. He had to rebuild Sam so many times just to watch him kill himself again. But finally, Michael understood. All he had to do to earn Sam’s love was really be Dean.
So he burnt off his grace, let it float out into the universe and create a new star for Sam to admire the next time he looks into the night sky. Because he couldn’t leave and find another vessel. That would mean leaving Sam. And an archangel can’t stay hidden in someone else’s head. That much power can’t go undetected. Michael isn’t that now. He’s just a consciousness. He’s just a silent voice buried somewhere in the depth of Dean Winchester’s mind. He's just the latest thing that had to die so Sam could be with Dean.
Michael watches through Dean’s eyes, and control of the vessel isn’t what matters. All the power in the universe isn’t what matters. It’s easy to pretend it’s him being loved when he’s inside this body.