SPN fic: Through it All
Title: Through it All
Author: drabblewriter
Fandom: Supernatural
Wordcount: ~1500
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Michael/Lucifer
Warning: angelcest
Spoilers: Swan Song
Prompt: "Your Guardian Angel" by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (this was written for mithrel as a pinch hit over at spnrarepairs )
Summary: It is Michael's destiny to save them all, to bring peace to Heaven and Earth, no matter how much it hurts him.
Note: Title and cut text taken from the song. ^_^
“They are animals, Michael. They harm each other and cause such pain. They are the not the glorious creatures our father would have you believe. We cannot bow to them.”
“Lucifer, you cannot speak like this. Father has commanded that we will bow before the humans, and we will obey.”
“This is wrong. I will not do it. I love our father and respect him too much to place these filthy hairless apes above him.”
“God has commanded you, and you will obey, or you will punished.”
“Michael-”
“See reason, brother. This is a futile effort. You must follow our father’s commandment. I will not see you hurt.”
“Then join me. We can stand against this lunacy together.” Lucifer’s eyes sparkle with passion. “There are others who agree. We can reason with him, make him understand-”
“No.” Even the soft word carries all of Michael’s authority as the most powerful angel in Heaven. “Stop this. You will love man as you do our father, and that is the end.” He begins to turn away.
“Michael.”
The determination in his voice makes the other angel hesitate, turn back.
“You misunderstand me, brother,” the younger angel says. “This is not some half-planned idea as you think. This is wrong, and you know it. I intend to stand against this madness, regardless of the consequences.”
Michael’s grace pulses, a mixture of righteous anger and disappointment. “It is the things you say that are true madness. I hate to think what God will do with you if you continue in this path. Repent now, and all will be forgiven.”
“I will not. I will stand against our father in this. He will see reason.” Lucifer raises pleading blue eyes to Michael’s, suddenly a little boy looking for his older brother’s reassurance. “Will you stand with me, Michael?”
“I will not,” Michael says coldly. “No true angel thinks these things of our father and his creations. I pray that you will reconsider and receive Father’s forgiveness.” With that he turns and is gone in a flurry of wingbeats.
***
Michael soon returns, all grim determination and his great sword in hand. Lucifer backs away from him, filled with apprehension. Certainly his brother would never hurt him? “Michael, what are you doing?” he asks, barely managing to keep the words steady.
The older archangel meets his gaze, and Lucifer trembles at what he sees. His brother’s face is in agony, torn. It takes him a moment to work up to speech, and when he does the words are choked out, forced from his throat. “God has commanded that I strike you down, along with the others who believe similarly, for your rebellion and betrayal.” He lifts the sword and takes a step closer.
Lucifer takes a corresponding step back. “You won’t do it. You won’t hurt me.”
“I don’t want to,” Michael grits out. “But it’s the right thing. I am a good son, and I will do what Father has commanded of me.”
Desperate now, Lucifer plays his last card. “If our situations were reversed, what do you think I would be doing right now?” When his brother refuses to answer, he cries, “I would stand by you! Through anything. Michael, I love you. Does that mean nothing? You’re told me so many times before…don’t you care for me as well?”
“I love our father more.” And before he can change his mind, he rushes forward and swings the sword. Lucifer screams as cold metal shears through his grace.
He falls.
***
Michael understands, truly understands, now why God never intended his angels to have emotions. It hurts. It hurts so much to watch his little brother, the one he loves so dearly, become something so heinous. It hurts to lock him in the cage, listening to his screams of agony and cries of I would never do this. I would always be there for you! It feels like the emotion is eating him from the inside, and he feels like an outcast as he walks among his brothers, knowing they feel nothing. He wants to go back.
Please, Father, help me. Let me accept your will and let him go. Please.
***
Father is gone. God is gone, and no one knows why. He has gone and left his children all alone, Heaven under the control of the most powerful angels. A counsel is formed and it is decided that Lucifer must be released from the cage and destroyed. Father is angry at them, Zachariah reasons, because the fallen archangel’s taint still exists upon the Earth. If he is exhumed and purged, all will be as it should, and their father will return. No one dares mention that this is only desperate speculation.
Michael wonders if he will be capable of actually killing Lucifer. He knows that he needs to, that his brothers and sisters are counting on him, but that thought of actually killing his little brother sends a chill through him. All these millennia that Lucifer has locked away in Hell, Michael always held out hope for some kind of redemption. So many years have passed, and it never came, so now this is what he must do.
It is his destiny to save them all, to bring peace to Heaven and Earth, no matter how much it hurts him, he knows he is only one angel. He will do as he has been commanded, for the good of all.
***
They finally stand face to face in Stull Cemetery. Michael gazes at his brother behind Sam Winchester’s face and listens as Lucifer blames everything on their father and pleads with Michael for them not to fight. The older angel wants so badly to say yes, to take Lucifer back as if nothing has happened, but he can’t. He must do as he has promised, destroy the ultimate evil and fulfill his destiny. There is no choice, not for him.
Which is why he panics when Dean shows up. This is not how things are meant to play out. And then there is the holy fire, and Michael screams in desperation as he is pulled away from the battleground.
When his frantic efforts to return are finally successful, he sees Sam standing at the edge of Lucifer’s cage, and renewed panic washes through him. He can see that the human is in control, intends to throw himself and the angel he carries into the Pit.
“Sam!” he calls, “Step back. I have to fight my brother It‘s my destiny.” It have to do this. I have to end it, once and for all.
But it’s no use. The Winchesters have always been stubborn and foolish, and Sam proves no different now. Michael sees the thought almost before it occurs to the human and lurches forward.
Sam, Lucifer inside him, is falling, the darkness of the Pit rising up to meet him. Michael grabs onto his arm, tries to pull him back up, but this, too, is to no avail. Sam grabs him, upsetting his balance.
Michael, too, falls.
***
As soon as he hits the bottom of the cage, the archangel bursts from Adam Milligan’s body and flies blindly until he hits an invisible barrier, turns and surges onwards. He has to get out of here, he keeps thinking. This wasn’t meant to happen. He can’t be in Hell. He’s done nothing wrong!
Another barrier. Turn, keep moving. Don’t stop.
He can’t find a way out, and he’s tiring. It hurts just to be in this place, the very atmosphere tearing at his grace and making his wings ache. An angel, one of God’s purest beings, was never meant to enter this place, except as the most extreme punishment. Michael begins to feel a renewed sense of respect for those of his brothers who fought to free Dean Winchester’s soul.
Yet another wall, and when he hits this time, he can’t manage to raise himself again. Within seconds, a hoard of demons is on him, biting and tearing and scratching, and Michael cries out to his Father to deliver him from this place. When nothing happens, he can feel the fear, the unbearable terror, begin to bleed into him. Father should have pulled him out by now. Should have… Perhaps he is being punished for failing to kill his brother. Michael trembles at the thought that no one will save him.
“Sistite!”
The voice is harsh and full of authority, and suddenly all of the demons scuttle back into the shadows.
The angel looks up through blurred vision to see the true form of his little brother above him, also having shed his human vessel.
“Lucifer?” Michael whispers, unable to understand. “Why-?”
Lucifer moves closer, reaching out to touch him. “I told you, brother, that I would always stand by you. I will never abandon you, and I will not allow you to be hurt. Regardless of the things that have come between us because of Father’s will.”
Michael swells with emotions he can’t begin name; he can hardly believe what Lucifer is saying. That even after Michael cast him into the Pit, he still cares that much for him. Truly alone now for the first time in his existence, without even God to save him from the fire, Michael reaches out to his brother, the only one left, and whispers, “I’m sorry.”
Lucifer’s grace reaches out to tangle with his, and Michael lets out a soft, broken sound at the warm, slow pleasure, the forgiveness. It’s been so long. Relief surges through the older angel, bright and clear, as he pulls his brother nearer, until they are as close as possible to being a single soul.
“I know,” Lucifer murmurs close against him, and if Hell is the price to pay for finally having his brother back, Michael decides that it just may be worth it. “I know.”