Smitten (Sam/omc, 5900 words, pg)
So I started writing this after 5.01, and 5.02 jossed it a little, but I'm posting it anyway. It's not been beta'd, so if that's going to bother you, I'd suggest not reading. It's not really Sam/Dean, except for the way it is… I don't know how to label it on that front. It's kind of spoilery but also not really. Also, I think it's crack, but it might also be angst.
Basically, it was a silly idea that I started writing at work, and now I've finished it, and I'm posting it.
Smitten
(Sam/Michael, pg, 5900 words)
For all that Michael was the fearsome general of the angelic troops, Sam was finding it a little hard to take him seriously.
Michael was Dean, if Dean were a pretty-pretty princess. Sunshine found previously non-existent gold highlights in Dean's hair, and his eyes were green in a way that would have inspired a whole generation of poets to spend the rest of their lives in search of the perfect simile, because emeralds and jade just didn't cut it.
Within an hour of taking up residence in Dean's skin, Michael was on the couch wearing nothing but shorts and an undershirt - both old and dirty, so he should have been scruffy, but somehow achieved the urban chic of a polished magazine editorial - while he watched a rerun of One Tree Hill.
Wary of saying anything that could be interpreted as asking for a smiting, but more wary of Lucifer doing something irreversibly horrible and world-ending in the meantime, Sam said, "I don't want to interrupt, but do you want to get started on the plan to stop Lucifer some time?"
"Later," said Michael, not taking his eyes off the screen. His voice was lighter, breathier than Dean's. It was taking some getting used to. "I wanna see what happens with Brooke's math test."
Peeved enough to be considerably less concerned about the possibility of a smiting, Sam was just about to point out that he didn't appreciate his brother being ridden around for kicks, when Michael looked up at him, really looked at him, and smiled.
"It's okay, Sammy," he said, shining with love and reassurance. "Don't worry. I'm here."
Which, (understandably, when Michael was wearing that face and saying those words), had a pretty profound effect on Sam.
:::
Michael wasn't around much for the first few days, once Sam finally got him off the couch, that is. He was the big rock star of the angelic world and everyone wanted a piece of him. Sam could work with that. Only thing harder than living with a big brother who apparently couldn't bear the sight of him, was living with one who was all sweetness and light and fake-fake-fake.
It being the apocalypse and all, there was plenty to keep Sam busy. He hunted things and saved people. It felt kind of like checking for viruses on a computer, when the computer was in a building that was in the process of being demolished. But at least he didn’t have time to think.
In the oily red dusk, he met a woman stranded on the highway, and he fixed her car and gave away the last bills in his wallet. She'd smiled at him like he wasn't a monster, like he was a sign of something hopeful, and it had been enough to get him back to his motel room.
"Where are you going to sleep tomorrow night?" said Michael, the minute Sam got through the door. "You don't have any money left."
Sam flicked him a glance as he slung his jacket over the back of a chair and toed his boots off. "I'll sleep in the car. Anyway, what's it matter to you? You don't sleep."
He went into the bathroom, tried not to be too pointed about shutting the door behind himself, and shed his clothes. He turned the water on as hot as it would go, which wasn't very, and got in the shower. His muscles were cramped from the instinctual defensive hunch he'd been walking around in recently. With a groan, he rubbed the knotted flesh at the back of his neck.
"I know why your brother sold his soul for you," said Michael, his gaze traveling over Sam's body ingenuously.
Sam managed to keep his shock to an intake of breath, a jump of his heartbeat. He turned to the grimy wall, and didn't feel much better for presenting his ass at Michael for inspection, but at least it was better than the alternative.
It was weird having someone else in his space. Sam wasn't used to it; Dean didn't want to be in his space anymore.
"'Cause he didn't want to be on his own," said Sam.
"You think it was selfish," said Michael. "I guess it was. But the first time he put his needs over yours it was to say that he thought going to Hell was better than leaving you dead at only twenty-four years old."
Sam snorted. "Oh, I see you're not biased at all."
"Of course I'm biased," said Michael. "I like you being alive, Sam."
Sometimes, Sam looked at his brother's face and was amazed at how easily it lent itself to being an angel's. Just having a creature like Michael in it, the shabby motel bathroom became light and fresh and peaceful. It hurt just looking at Michael.
"You know I started it, right?" Sam said, loud even as he choked on the words. "The apocalypse, I started it."
"One person can't start the apocalypse all by themselves. It takes a whole string of people, over more years than you've been alive. You broke one seal out of sixty-six."
"The final one," Sam pointed out.
Michael was quiet for a moment, long enough that Sam turned to look at him. The steam was damp in Michael's hair and shimmering on his skin. His lips were as red as his eyes were dark. Then he smiled one of his sweet, guileless smiles that reminded Sam of Dean when he was eighteen and had the whole world in love with him.
"I forgive you, Sam," he said.
Sam only saw his brother's mouth shaping the words and his heart clenched painfully. He swallowed and his vision blurred. Helpless, he stood under the water as Michael leaned in closer. Rivulets of water rolled down Michael's face, caught in his lashes, plastered his t-shirt to his broad chest.
"Sam," said Michael. His voice was a soft, curious whisper. "Sam," he said. "Do you think my vessel is as pretty as Ruby's was?"
Sam blinked at him, his brain still catching up with the rest of him. Then shaky laughter rushed out of him. He turned back under the water. "Oh god, get the fuck out of my bathroom while you're wearing my brother."
:::
Sam chased Michael into the fight because the visual of his big brother surrounded by twelve demons gave him a small heart attack.
Of course, his big brother was currently an angel accessory, and he wasn't, so the knife he took to the belly was kind of a big deal. Experience told him that it was a significantly different pain than the time he was stabbed in the back, but Sam was too busy wobbling and falling down to pay experience any attention.
There was a strange lull in the fight, where Michael turned to him. In the orange-gold flare of a dying demon, Michael's mouth shone red with blood. He cocked his head at Sam on the ground, blood spreading dark across the front of his flannel shirt. Sam looked back at Michael.
Then Michael gave an enraged cry - more of a squeal, really - planted himself in front of Sam and dispatched the last four demons in a few brutally efficient moves.
When Michael gently helped him to his feet, just ever so briefly Sam tucked his face in the crook of Michael's neck, focused on the amulet on Michael's chest and allowed himself to pretend. Michael cradled his weight easily, as if Sam weren't four inches taller, and made soft, soothing noises.
Abruptly, the blood-loss dizziness and strange pulsing in his belly were gone. Sam straightened up and looked at Michael.
"There, all better," said Michael.
Somehow, with the way Michael was looking at him, Sam dared to reach down and mop the blood from Michael's mouth with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Underneath, Michael's lip had already healed soft and pink.
"You have to be careful," Sam said. "You've got my brother in there with you."
"We're more worried about you," said Michael.
He kept his arm around Sam the whole way back to the car.
:::
It was dark when Sam woke, all aside from the pale glow of the TV screen. It was turned down low but Sam caught the canned laughter of a sitcom.
"Sorry," said Dean. "Didn't mean to wake you."
Dean looked tired, still had those tight lines around his mouth and the deadness in his eyes. It was funny how Michael could be a completely different person sitting behind the same face.
Sam sat up in bed and, slightly uncomfortable, Dean looked away from him, back to the TV. Even with everything as bad as it had been when Dean went away, the same fraught silence settling between them already, Sam couldn't help smiling at him.
"When did you get back?" he said.
"About an hour ago. Michael went to commune with the big chiefs. He'll be back later."
Dean was still looking at the TV, and his eyes were like glass in the flickering, colored light of the screen. It was precious just having Dean back and Sam wasn't going to waste the time by going back to sleep, but once again, he had no idea what he could say to him.
However, while Sam was still sat uselessly in his bed, Dean reached down to the side of his chair and picked up a slim box, which he tossed to Sam.
It was an iPhone, top of the range model and brand new.
Sam looked at it, bewildered, and then looked at Dean.
"I don't understand," he said.
Dean shrugged. "I think Mikey's got a bit of a crush," he said. He wasn't smiling but Sam could hear the tease in his voice. "He wanted to get you something, thought you deserved it."
Sam didn't want to hear that cutting little twist in Dean's voice but he was pretty sure it was there all the same. Sam wetted his lips and nodded, looking down at the iPhone again.
"Tell him thank you," he said.
"Tell him yourself when he gets back," said Dean, and turned the TV up a little louder.
:::
They'd been driving long enough for Michael to finish New Moon and be twisted around in his seat, searching through the bag on the backseat for Eclipse. Sam didn't comment on his choice of reading material because, as weird as it was to see Dean reading teen-vampire slush, it helped preserve the boundaries in Sam's brain between Dean and Michael.
"Does Bella end up with Jacob?" Michael said, slumping back in his seat and thumbing through the next book. Sam caught a brief scent of newness from the fluttering pages, which seemed incongruous in Dean's beat-up, hand-me-down car.
"Uh, I don't know, I didn't read the books," said Sam. "I think she ends up with Edward."
Michael sighed. "I don't think Edward properly respects her."
"No?" Sam said awkwardly, and really hoped he wasn't going to have to have a discussion about teen-vampire slush with an archangel. It had been bad enough accompanying him into Borders to buy them.
"Respect is important in a relationship," Michael said firmly. "Don't you think?"
Sam nodded and kept his gaze square out the front of the windshield. The sky was a stripe of butter yellow under sheets of silver and gray clouds. Only three in the afternoon, it felt like dusk.
"I think respect is important in a relationship," said Michael. "So's a sense of humor. And being smart, and brave. And the ability to speak Latin and shoot a gun."
Sam went very still. Not that there was much point in trying to be stealthy around an archangel - what with the superpowers and telepathy and all - but making an effort not to draw attention to himself, Sam took a look at Michael out of the corner of his eye.
Michael was looking back at him, but coyly, from under his long sooty eyelashes.
Instantly, Sam was focused on the horizon again. His grip on the steering wheel was a little sweaty.
"Do you have a girlfriend, Sam?" Michael said, in a carefully innocent tone of voice.
"Uh… well, it's complicated."
"Is Becky your girlfriend?" said Michael. "She seems to like you very much. Because you're pretty and tall and firm. But she doesn't really know you. I know you, don't I, Sam? Do you have a boyfriend, Sam?"
There was a long silence while Sam thought as fast as he could.
Finally, trying to sound like he wasn't at all making an attempt to change the conversation, Sam said, "Did you know they made Twilight into a movie?"
:::
The first time Michael put his hand in the back pocket of Sam's jeans was during one of Michael's inspirational speeches to the angelic army, so Sam didn't want to make a fuss and ruin the moment. Instead, he patiently waited for Michael to finish before he gently, wordlessly disengaged.
Michael sighed and fluttered his lashes at Sam but didn't push the issue.
At least, he didn't push the issue until later that evening, which showed quite remarkable restraint from an archangel used to getting his own way.
He appeared on the other side of the green plastic diner booth, while Sam was picking at a salad and reading obits. Reading obits might have been a time-consuming task, considering how many people were dying, but Sam was saved trawling through thousands by the inability of the newspapers to keep up.
"Do you like me, Sam?" Michael said without preamble. "Because I like you. Do I need to write you a poem about how much I like you?"
Dean would probably find this hilarious, Sam thought. A small part of him wondered whether, in fact, Dean had put Michael up to this simply in order to mess with Sam. He had to discard the idea though, considering Dean hadn't really been in an exactly playful mood with Sam for some time now.
"When I say I like you, I mean I want to be your boyfriend and kiss you," said Michael. "Just in case I haven't been obvious enough."
"Oh, you've been plenty obvious," Sam said.
He chewed slowly on a mouthful of lettuce while he tried to find the best way to phrase it. Once again though, Michael got there first.
"We don't even have to have sex if that would be too weird for you," said Michael. "But c'mon, I got flesh, it'd be kind of fun to commit a few 'sins of the'."
The look on Sam's face must have made Michael's telepathy completely unnecessary. Before Sam could express his extreme awkwardness at what Michael had just said, Michael swept in again one last time.
"Look, just… think about it. I'd like us to be close," he said, covering Sam's hand with his own, and the way he did it, Sam could see the scar from where Dean cut his fingers smashing the lamp off the nightstand during their first big fight after Dean got out of Hell.
"Please," said Michael. "Just think about it."
Somehow, Sam just didn't have it in himself right then to tell Dean's face an outright 'no'.
:::
It seemed to Sam that they were gradually approaching an end of sorts. He didn't know whether Lucifer would win, or Michael would. Obviously he was hoping for the latter but, bone-deep, he just wanted it to be over. He'd welcome any kind of ending right now. Of course, it was hard to feel that heartless about it when Michael was in the seat beside him, watching him with the usual open adoration while Sam drove.
Thinking tactically, Sam decided it was probably wisest to engage Michael in conversation before he could start on about how much he liked Sam again.
"So, you're going to kill Lucifer," said Sam. It felt suitably removed from the topic of Michael wanting to be Sam's boyfriend. Even Michael would have to take a little time to navigate them from the subject of the Devil back to Sam's love life.
"Yes," said Michael. "And soon."
"He used to be, like, your brother, didn't he?"
"He still is," Michael agreed. "When he started thinking about rebellion, he came to me first. He loved God most of all, but he loved me too. When he fell, he reached out for me, to pull me down with him."
Sam flicked a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. "But you didn't fall."
"Of course I didn't. I knew he was wrong." There wasn't even a trace of doubt in his voice.
Sam adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, knocked a strand of sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. "What if he asked you to forgive him?" he said. His tone was steady but inside, Sam was waiting, sick with anticipation and the knowledge that this could be It. He couldn't hold on to hoping forever, after all.
"I wouldn't," Michael said instantly.
Sam caught his breath before his sob could escape but it roiled inside of him, spreading cold and bleak. It was hard to care about saving the world when there was nothing left for you in it.
Sam tried to hold the hopeless pieces of himself together but Michael wasn't done yet. "I warned him," he said. "I told him to stop but he didn't listen. Now millions of innocent people are dead. He brought it on himself and on them. There can't be any forgiv-"
Dean reached forward, shoved the cassette tape into the player and turned the music up loud. Sam made another small, choked noise, loud to him even over the constant banging of Motorhead, and looked at him. Exhausted and pale, Dean looked back at him. He shook his head.
"He's a himbo," Dean said. "All feathers, no brain. Don't know why you'd waste time talking to him."
Then he hunched down in his seat, rested his cheek against the window and was asleep within minutes.
When Motorhead reached the end of side one, Sam flipped it over to side two.
:::
Michael's taste in TV could arguably be the most heinous part of Dean's whole 'vessel' situation. It was one thing to put Dean's body through experiences so far beyond human understanding as to defy description; it was something else entirely to make him watch Gossip Girl.
Sam would go out, except Michael would go with him, and then they'd only have to eventually find somewhere else to stop in order to watch Gossip Girl. No matter how crappy the TV, it was miraculously always showing something that catered to Michael's viewing habits. Sam knew that there was no escape from Serena and Blair, the Scott brothers, and, on the rare occasion that Michael was in that kind of mood, Dawson and Joey.
While Michael sprawled out on the couch, Sam brought the guns in from the car, laid them out across the table, and began working through cleaning them. It was the kind of task that required just enough attention from Sam that he couldn't start brooding, but not so much that he really had to be present in the same room as Gossip Girl.
Unfortunately however, it seemed that whichever episode it was that Michael was watching, it was not sufficiently engaging, because Michael's attention seemed to be more on Sam than it was the TV. Entirely willing to pretend not to notice for as long as possible, Sam shifted slightly away in his seat, and started methodically on the next gun.
"You don't need to do that," said Michael finally. "Dean's not going to be using the guns and I don't need to. It's a waste of your time."
"And what about me, huh?" said Sam, smiling slightly. "I might want to use a gun, y'know, what with it being the End of Days and the gates to Hell being broken open and all."
"You don't need them either. I'm here. So long as I'm around, nothing bad's going to happen to you."
It was nothing short of a punch to the stomach. Everything that he'd had and everything that was lost hit Sam hard. His hands faltered just slightly on the gun as the need to sob and scream and beg for Dean to come back and to be his brother again nearly overwhelmed him. Then he took a breath and went back to work.
"Seriously, leave the guns," Michael said.
"And do what? Are you gonna let me sharpen the knives?"
When Sam looked over at him for an answer, Michael meaningfully patted the couch beside him. He had on Dean's oldest sweats, the pair that used to be black and were now fragilely thin and charcoal gray. The legs of them were a little too long and Michael's bare toes peeped just out from under the hem.
He was adorable and Sam wanted to punch him. Was there a version of cockteasing for brothers? Because Sam was kind of going insane with Michael being all loving and clingy in Dean's body, when Sam knew for a fact that Dean's opinion of Sam was in a whole different zip-code.
"No," Sam said, and went back to the guns.
"Is it Gossip Girl?" Michael said. "'Cause we can find something else to watch if you want. What do you wanna watch, Sam? Just name it and I'll put it on."
Sam ignored him. He was still ignoring him when the TV went off and Michael's shadow slid over the tabletop. Hesitantly, Michael took the chair across from Sam. Watching Sam's hands for just a second, Michael picked up a gun and started to take it to pieces, ready for cleaning.
"What are you doing?" Sam ground out.
"Helping," said Michael. "C'mon, Sam. I just wanna be with you. And if this is what you want to do, then this is what I want to do."
Breathing was hard for a moment or two, then Sam's jaw unclenched. His stomach still balled up with misery and desperate neediness, Sam focused on the gun he was working on.
He listened to Michael breathe, to the click and snap of the gunmetal in the quiet of the motel room, and took glimpses of Dean's face like sips of some too-rich wine.
"Here," he said at last. "You need this cloth for that one."
Michael took the cloth from Sam and their fingers brushed, tip over knuckle, and Sam didn't snatch his hand back straight away. It was just make-believe and Sam hated himself for it, but he gave in. They spent the evening working through the weapons, not talking, not even really acknowledging each other, just being together.
For the first time in a long while, Sam felt just a little less miserable.
:::
"We should celebrate," said Michael.
Sam was bleeding, battered, had a broken ankle and concussion, but he could agree that getting out of that fight alive merited at least a cold beer.
"Sure. What did you have in mind?" he said, and his voice came out in a wheeze because he'd been strangled, again.
Michael's expression went tender as he looked at him. "You did good," he told Sam. "I'm so proud of you." And when he put his hand on Sam's cheek, saying those words, Sam couldn’t help leaning in to the touch a little.
The pain vanished but before Sam could let out a relieved sigh, it came to his attention that he was in a restaurant, his clothes had become a suit and before him on the table was pristine white linen, a glass of red wine and an exquisitely arranged meal.
Michael smiled winsomely at him from across the table. "I hope you didn't mind me ordering for you but you simply must try the beef."
"Where are we?" said Sam, concerned less about Michael choosing off the menu for him than he was their abrupt relocation.
"Oh, just a cute little place I know in Montmartre," Michael said with an airy wave of his hand.
"Montmartre… as in Paris?"
"It's the city of love, you know," Michael said, lowering his eyes demurely to his plate, then angling Sam a look from under his lashes. "Do you think it's romantic here, Sam?"
Glancing helplessly around at the other couples in the restaurant, who were all leaning towards each other through the candlelit shadows, Sam scraped his hair off his face and concentrated on the fact that it was the apocalypse, which was not necessarily a calming thought but one that did give a great deal of focus.
"Yes, but look, I can't be romantic with… It's not that I don't like you. You've been awesome, with the healing and the iPhone and-"
"The iPhone was Dean's idea," Michael cut in. "I wanted to fill your motel room with flowers, scented petals from floor to ceiling, but Dean said you'd prefer an iPhone, because your old cell was a piece of crap and he'd seen you looking at the advertisements."
"Oh," said Sam. He took a moment to digest the idea that Dean had picked him a gift, then ruthlessly stopped himself before he could start reading too much into it.
Michael was still watching, worrying Dean's soft lower lip between his teeth, the white collar of his shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the dip of fair skin at his collarbone.
"Michael," said Sam. "You've got to understand why… why I can’t. You're wearing my brother. You get that?"
"But he'd never know!" Michael said, with the alarming lack of hesitation of someone who'd already given the matter some thought. "I can make him sleep. I do it a lot, for his own good. He has no idea what's going on out here if I keep him asleep. We could… we could make love," Michael finished hopefully. "He wouldn't know, Sam. It'd just be you and me."
Sam stared at him. He took a deep breath, counted to twenty, and was still really angry. "What the hell kind of archangel are you? Jesus, I'm not gonna have sex with my brother's body while he's asleep! You think that's any way for me to win back his trust?"
People in the restaurant were turning to look at them but Sam couldn't stop getting even angrier. The look on Michael's face was wretched, and 'sad angel' would have provoked pretty much anybody to sympathetic contrition, if the anybody weren't Sam. Who was still just really pissed.
"It's not like I'm doing this because I'm horny!" Michael protested. His shoulders slumped miserably. "I'm doing this because I'm in love, Sam. With you."
In one swift gulp, Sam drained his wineglass. He shook his head. "What is wrong with you? This whole mess you're cleaning up? I started it! I drank demon blood and I killed a nurse and I'm a monster, okay? I'm not exactly the kind of guy you can take home to Daddy."
Whatever the wine was, it was pretty potent on an empty - and kicked to hell - stomach. Sam felt the unstable lightness inside that suggested vomiting was something he might want to include in his plans for the very immediate future.
More quietly, Sam said, "I don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm… untouchable. I deserve it. I deserve all of this."
Breathing shakily, Sam stared at the white tablecloth. Behind his eyes, there was the heavy burn of unshed tears, and he could feel the way people were looking at him. It was almost okay, because he was getting used to feeling this isolated and ugly.
"You're not a monster," Dean said.
Sam's head whipped up. Michael was watching him with sad, nervous eyes.
"I'm sorry," said Michael. "It was wrong and thoughtless of me. I won't bring it up again." He managed a little smile. "Try the beef?"
:::
Three months after Michael took possession of Dean's body, he announced that it was time for the final confrontation with Lucifer. It was morning and Sam had only just finished breakfast.
"It's time," Michael said. And there was a soft roar as white flames licked over the sword he was suddenly holding. It was so bright it lit up the small puddle of milk at the bottom of Sam's empty bowl of cereal.
Sam picked up a shotgun, shoved a knife down inside his boot, tucked the Colt in the waistband at the back of his jeans, and nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready."
Halfway to the door already, Michael looked back at him. Michael was in all of the sunlight that spilled in around him, huge and powerful and radiant. He shook his head and crossed to where Sam was, with the slow sureness of a star's celestial orbit.
"You're not coming."
"Why not?" Sam said. "You don't trust me?"
Michael studied him unblinkingly. "We're angels, Sam. You'd be burned away just at the sight of us. You're only human." He smiled, a sweet curving of Dean's lips into something Sam nearly recognized as familiar. "I'd trust you beyond the end of the world."
The motel room was disappearing into blinding light all around them. All Sam could take in was Michael, bound to a human shape only by Dean's skin.
"Then what? I'm just supposed to sit here and wait?"
Gently, Michael kissed him on the lips. Sam caught his breath at the touch. His eyes fell shut as everything but the sensation of being so lovingly kissed fell away. He felt heat, the glorious warmth of a summer's day, sweep through him. He was beautiful and whole with Michael's - Dean's - mouth pressing against his.
Everything mattered again.
When he looked again, he saw something move behind the green glass of Michael's eyes. Then Michael brushed the pad of this thumb over Sam's lips.
"Just for luck," Michael said. And then he was gone.
:::
The world ended for four and a half minutes. Something like four and a half minutes, anyway. It was hard to keep proper count of time when the sky was taken away and the air stopped and reality flaked like old paint.
Sam would have grieved for Dean, mourned for Michael and the rest of the world, except he didn't exist right then.
Then the sun came out and Jeopardy started up again on the TV. Sam took another sip of his coffee and waited.
:::
There wasn't even a scratch on Michael, not even a rip in his clothes. He was just standing by the window when Sam got back from the diner, like he'd never been away. He turned to Sam and smiled, and, sure, looking at him, Sam could see he was a little less graceful than before, a little more careful when he moved, but he was still unearthly in the moonlight.
Sam stopped where he was and swallowed hard.
"You did it," he said.
"Not really," said Michael. "I didn't kill him. Just put him back in his cage." He toyed absent-mindedly with Dean's amulet, the gold glinting between his fingers. "When it came time to put the sword through him, I just…" He trailed off, his hand clenched into a loose fist around the amulet. "I couldn't do it."
He was lost in thought for a moment, then he seemed to come aware of Sam's presence again. "Zachariah'll be pissed," he said, "but I outrank him and have a sword that sets itself on fire, so I don't think he'll be complaining too loudly."
Sam smiled shakily. He didn't really know what to do with himself, didn’t have anything meaningful enough for the occasion.
"So that's it then?" he offered.
"Not quite." In the half-light, it was Michael's eyes that were least human. They were too green, too liquid. It was almost too much to be looked at by them, some residual fear of being looked at by something that could take you apart just for fun. "Sam, I can't stay on earth much longer. A few hours, that's all. Sleep with me?" He raised a hand and Sam's protest went silent; he wasn't sure if that was a free-will choice or not. "Just sleep. Not sex. Not even naked. Just… lie down with me. Be with me."
It was unfair to Michael, Sam knew. But he could be selfish and giving all at once. He could let Michael have this, and in return, he could spend a few hours pretending that he still had Dean. They could both have this.
In silence, they stripped down to shorts and undershirts. Michael sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. Barely daring to breathe, Sam sat down on the other side of the bed. Together, they laid down, side by side. A few moments ticked past. Then Sam extended an arm, slowly, inch by inch, and Michael curled in against his side.
Sam fell asleep listening to the thump of Dean's heartbeat against his own skin.
:::
He knew the precise second that Dean came back. There was a hitched gasp below him and then Sam got a knee in the hip. The bed was warm under them and their bodies were still pressed so closely together on the rumpled cover that Sam could feel Dean's eyelashes tickle the bare skin of his shoulder as Dean blinked, could feel the maddeningly delicate brush of Dean's lips, the wetness of the tip of his tongue, as he swallowed.
It wasn't quite morning. Dawn was pale yellow and white outside the window but the grayness of shadows still lingered. Dean was tense and still against him.
Sam closed his eyes again. Michael was gone, and in a minute, Dean would be too. Carefully, Sam kept his limbs loose enough that Dean could untangle himself without having to know that Sam was aware of it. At the very least, Sam could hang on to Dean's presence in his life. They would hunt together, live together, die together. And maybe one day Sam would win Dean's trust again, and maybe he wouldn't. But he'd have Dean around, who was somehow more special to him than a goddamn besotted archangel.
It hurt when Dean rolled away from him. The bed went cold as he left. Dean picked his way silently across the room to the bathroom and the door clicked shut. Sam forced his breathing to stay calm and even. He could learn to live with this, he told himself. He'd have to. He'd live with nothing but the little sliver of light around the bathroom door that said Dean was still close.
The bathroom door opened again and Sam stayed loose and restful, choosing to wait until Dean was settled somewhere before he pretended to wake. But Dean padded back to the bed, climbed back on beside Sam. Sharply conscious of Dean leaning over him, studying him, Sam maintained the level of his breathing, even though he was convinced the shuddering of his heart must have been giving him away.
Then Dean carefully laid his head back down on Sam's shoulder, arranged Sam's arm around his waist and tucked his legs in against Sam's.
He went back to sleep, just like that. And Sam let out a breath, and fell asleep with a smile on his face. Michael, he decided, was a pretty awesome guy for saving the world, saving this.
~end
Basically, it was a silly idea that I started writing at work, and now I've finished it, and I'm posting it.
Smitten
(Sam/Michael, pg, 5900 words)
For all that Michael was the fearsome general of the angelic troops, Sam was finding it a little hard to take him seriously.
Michael was Dean, if Dean were a pretty-pretty princess. Sunshine found previously non-existent gold highlights in Dean's hair, and his eyes were green in a way that would have inspired a whole generation of poets to spend the rest of their lives in search of the perfect simile, because emeralds and jade just didn't cut it.
Within an hour of taking up residence in Dean's skin, Michael was on the couch wearing nothing but shorts and an undershirt - both old and dirty, so he should have been scruffy, but somehow achieved the urban chic of a polished magazine editorial - while he watched a rerun of One Tree Hill.
Wary of saying anything that could be interpreted as asking for a smiting, but more wary of Lucifer doing something irreversibly horrible and world-ending in the meantime, Sam said, "I don't want to interrupt, but do you want to get started on the plan to stop Lucifer some time?"
"Later," said Michael, not taking his eyes off the screen. His voice was lighter, breathier than Dean's. It was taking some getting used to. "I wanna see what happens with Brooke's math test."
Peeved enough to be considerably less concerned about the possibility of a smiting, Sam was just about to point out that he didn't appreciate his brother being ridden around for kicks, when Michael looked up at him, really looked at him, and smiled.
"It's okay, Sammy," he said, shining with love and reassurance. "Don't worry. I'm here."
Which, (understandably, when Michael was wearing that face and saying those words), had a pretty profound effect on Sam.
:::
Michael wasn't around much for the first few days, once Sam finally got him off the couch, that is. He was the big rock star of the angelic world and everyone wanted a piece of him. Sam could work with that. Only thing harder than living with a big brother who apparently couldn't bear the sight of him, was living with one who was all sweetness and light and fake-fake-fake.
It being the apocalypse and all, there was plenty to keep Sam busy. He hunted things and saved people. It felt kind of like checking for viruses on a computer, when the computer was in a building that was in the process of being demolished. But at least he didn’t have time to think.
In the oily red dusk, he met a woman stranded on the highway, and he fixed her car and gave away the last bills in his wallet. She'd smiled at him like he wasn't a monster, like he was a sign of something hopeful, and it had been enough to get him back to his motel room.
"Where are you going to sleep tomorrow night?" said Michael, the minute Sam got through the door. "You don't have any money left."
Sam flicked him a glance as he slung his jacket over the back of a chair and toed his boots off. "I'll sleep in the car. Anyway, what's it matter to you? You don't sleep."
He went into the bathroom, tried not to be too pointed about shutting the door behind himself, and shed his clothes. He turned the water on as hot as it would go, which wasn't very, and got in the shower. His muscles were cramped from the instinctual defensive hunch he'd been walking around in recently. With a groan, he rubbed the knotted flesh at the back of his neck.
"I know why your brother sold his soul for you," said Michael, his gaze traveling over Sam's body ingenuously.
Sam managed to keep his shock to an intake of breath, a jump of his heartbeat. He turned to the grimy wall, and didn't feel much better for presenting his ass at Michael for inspection, but at least it was better than the alternative.
It was weird having someone else in his space. Sam wasn't used to it; Dean didn't want to be in his space anymore.
"'Cause he didn't want to be on his own," said Sam.
"You think it was selfish," said Michael. "I guess it was. But the first time he put his needs over yours it was to say that he thought going to Hell was better than leaving you dead at only twenty-four years old."
Sam snorted. "Oh, I see you're not biased at all."
"Of course I'm biased," said Michael. "I like you being alive, Sam."
Sometimes, Sam looked at his brother's face and was amazed at how easily it lent itself to being an angel's. Just having a creature like Michael in it, the shabby motel bathroom became light and fresh and peaceful. It hurt just looking at Michael.
"You know I started it, right?" Sam said, loud even as he choked on the words. "The apocalypse, I started it."
"One person can't start the apocalypse all by themselves. It takes a whole string of people, over more years than you've been alive. You broke one seal out of sixty-six."
"The final one," Sam pointed out.
Michael was quiet for a moment, long enough that Sam turned to look at him. The steam was damp in Michael's hair and shimmering on his skin. His lips were as red as his eyes were dark. Then he smiled one of his sweet, guileless smiles that reminded Sam of Dean when he was eighteen and had the whole world in love with him.
"I forgive you, Sam," he said.
Sam only saw his brother's mouth shaping the words and his heart clenched painfully. He swallowed and his vision blurred. Helpless, he stood under the water as Michael leaned in closer. Rivulets of water rolled down Michael's face, caught in his lashes, plastered his t-shirt to his broad chest.
"Sam," said Michael. His voice was a soft, curious whisper. "Sam," he said. "Do you think my vessel is as pretty as Ruby's was?"
Sam blinked at him, his brain still catching up with the rest of him. Then shaky laughter rushed out of him. He turned back under the water. "Oh god, get the fuck out of my bathroom while you're wearing my brother."
:::
Sam chased Michael into the fight because the visual of his big brother surrounded by twelve demons gave him a small heart attack.
Of course, his big brother was currently an angel accessory, and he wasn't, so the knife he took to the belly was kind of a big deal. Experience told him that it was a significantly different pain than the time he was stabbed in the back, but Sam was too busy wobbling and falling down to pay experience any attention.
There was a strange lull in the fight, where Michael turned to him. In the orange-gold flare of a dying demon, Michael's mouth shone red with blood. He cocked his head at Sam on the ground, blood spreading dark across the front of his flannel shirt. Sam looked back at Michael.
Then Michael gave an enraged cry - more of a squeal, really - planted himself in front of Sam and dispatched the last four demons in a few brutally efficient moves.
When Michael gently helped him to his feet, just ever so briefly Sam tucked his face in the crook of Michael's neck, focused on the amulet on Michael's chest and allowed himself to pretend. Michael cradled his weight easily, as if Sam weren't four inches taller, and made soft, soothing noises.
Abruptly, the blood-loss dizziness and strange pulsing in his belly were gone. Sam straightened up and looked at Michael.
"There, all better," said Michael.
Somehow, with the way Michael was looking at him, Sam dared to reach down and mop the blood from Michael's mouth with the cuff of his shirtsleeve. Underneath, Michael's lip had already healed soft and pink.
"You have to be careful," Sam said. "You've got my brother in there with you."
"We're more worried about you," said Michael.
He kept his arm around Sam the whole way back to the car.
:::
It was dark when Sam woke, all aside from the pale glow of the TV screen. It was turned down low but Sam caught the canned laughter of a sitcom.
"Sorry," said Dean. "Didn't mean to wake you."
Dean looked tired, still had those tight lines around his mouth and the deadness in his eyes. It was funny how Michael could be a completely different person sitting behind the same face.
Sam sat up in bed and, slightly uncomfortable, Dean looked away from him, back to the TV. Even with everything as bad as it had been when Dean went away, the same fraught silence settling between them already, Sam couldn't help smiling at him.
"When did you get back?" he said.
"About an hour ago. Michael went to commune with the big chiefs. He'll be back later."
Dean was still looking at the TV, and his eyes were like glass in the flickering, colored light of the screen. It was precious just having Dean back and Sam wasn't going to waste the time by going back to sleep, but once again, he had no idea what he could say to him.
However, while Sam was still sat uselessly in his bed, Dean reached down to the side of his chair and picked up a slim box, which he tossed to Sam.
It was an iPhone, top of the range model and brand new.
Sam looked at it, bewildered, and then looked at Dean.
"I don't understand," he said.
Dean shrugged. "I think Mikey's got a bit of a crush," he said. He wasn't smiling but Sam could hear the tease in his voice. "He wanted to get you something, thought you deserved it."
Sam didn't want to hear that cutting little twist in Dean's voice but he was pretty sure it was there all the same. Sam wetted his lips and nodded, looking down at the iPhone again.
"Tell him thank you," he said.
"Tell him yourself when he gets back," said Dean, and turned the TV up a little louder.
:::
They'd been driving long enough for Michael to finish New Moon and be twisted around in his seat, searching through the bag on the backseat for Eclipse. Sam didn't comment on his choice of reading material because, as weird as it was to see Dean reading teen-vampire slush, it helped preserve the boundaries in Sam's brain between Dean and Michael.
"Does Bella end up with Jacob?" Michael said, slumping back in his seat and thumbing through the next book. Sam caught a brief scent of newness from the fluttering pages, which seemed incongruous in Dean's beat-up, hand-me-down car.
"Uh, I don't know, I didn't read the books," said Sam. "I think she ends up with Edward."
Michael sighed. "I don't think Edward properly respects her."
"No?" Sam said awkwardly, and really hoped he wasn't going to have to have a discussion about teen-vampire slush with an archangel. It had been bad enough accompanying him into Borders to buy them.
"Respect is important in a relationship," Michael said firmly. "Don't you think?"
Sam nodded and kept his gaze square out the front of the windshield. The sky was a stripe of butter yellow under sheets of silver and gray clouds. Only three in the afternoon, it felt like dusk.
"I think respect is important in a relationship," said Michael. "So's a sense of humor. And being smart, and brave. And the ability to speak Latin and shoot a gun."
Sam went very still. Not that there was much point in trying to be stealthy around an archangel - what with the superpowers and telepathy and all - but making an effort not to draw attention to himself, Sam took a look at Michael out of the corner of his eye.
Michael was looking back at him, but coyly, from under his long sooty eyelashes.
Instantly, Sam was focused on the horizon again. His grip on the steering wheel was a little sweaty.
"Do you have a girlfriend, Sam?" Michael said, in a carefully innocent tone of voice.
"Uh… well, it's complicated."
"Is Becky your girlfriend?" said Michael. "She seems to like you very much. Because you're pretty and tall and firm. But she doesn't really know you. I know you, don't I, Sam? Do you have a boyfriend, Sam?"
There was a long silence while Sam thought as fast as he could.
Finally, trying to sound like he wasn't at all making an attempt to change the conversation, Sam said, "Did you know they made Twilight into a movie?"
:::
The first time Michael put his hand in the back pocket of Sam's jeans was during one of Michael's inspirational speeches to the angelic army, so Sam didn't want to make a fuss and ruin the moment. Instead, he patiently waited for Michael to finish before he gently, wordlessly disengaged.
Michael sighed and fluttered his lashes at Sam but didn't push the issue.
At least, he didn't push the issue until later that evening, which showed quite remarkable restraint from an archangel used to getting his own way.
He appeared on the other side of the green plastic diner booth, while Sam was picking at a salad and reading obits. Reading obits might have been a time-consuming task, considering how many people were dying, but Sam was saved trawling through thousands by the inability of the newspapers to keep up.
"Do you like me, Sam?" Michael said without preamble. "Because I like you. Do I need to write you a poem about how much I like you?"
Dean would probably find this hilarious, Sam thought. A small part of him wondered whether, in fact, Dean had put Michael up to this simply in order to mess with Sam. He had to discard the idea though, considering Dean hadn't really been in an exactly playful mood with Sam for some time now.
"When I say I like you, I mean I want to be your boyfriend and kiss you," said Michael. "Just in case I haven't been obvious enough."
"Oh, you've been plenty obvious," Sam said.
He chewed slowly on a mouthful of lettuce while he tried to find the best way to phrase it. Once again though, Michael got there first.
"We don't even have to have sex if that would be too weird for you," said Michael. "But c'mon, I got flesh, it'd be kind of fun to commit a few 'sins of the'."
The look on Sam's face must have made Michael's telepathy completely unnecessary. Before Sam could express his extreme awkwardness at what Michael had just said, Michael swept in again one last time.
"Look, just… think about it. I'd like us to be close," he said, covering Sam's hand with his own, and the way he did it, Sam could see the scar from where Dean cut his fingers smashing the lamp off the nightstand during their first big fight after Dean got out of Hell.
"Please," said Michael. "Just think about it."
Somehow, Sam just didn't have it in himself right then to tell Dean's face an outright 'no'.
:::
It seemed to Sam that they were gradually approaching an end of sorts. He didn't know whether Lucifer would win, or Michael would. Obviously he was hoping for the latter but, bone-deep, he just wanted it to be over. He'd welcome any kind of ending right now. Of course, it was hard to feel that heartless about it when Michael was in the seat beside him, watching him with the usual open adoration while Sam drove.
Thinking tactically, Sam decided it was probably wisest to engage Michael in conversation before he could start on about how much he liked Sam again.
"So, you're going to kill Lucifer," said Sam. It felt suitably removed from the topic of Michael wanting to be Sam's boyfriend. Even Michael would have to take a little time to navigate them from the subject of the Devil back to Sam's love life.
"Yes," said Michael. "And soon."
"He used to be, like, your brother, didn't he?"
"He still is," Michael agreed. "When he started thinking about rebellion, he came to me first. He loved God most of all, but he loved me too. When he fell, he reached out for me, to pull me down with him."
Sam flicked a glance at him out of the corner of his eye. "But you didn't fall."
"Of course I didn't. I knew he was wrong." There wasn't even a trace of doubt in his voice.
Sam adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, knocked a strand of sweat-damp hair out of his eyes. "What if he asked you to forgive him?" he said. His tone was steady but inside, Sam was waiting, sick with anticipation and the knowledge that this could be It. He couldn't hold on to hoping forever, after all.
"I wouldn't," Michael said instantly.
Sam caught his breath before his sob could escape but it roiled inside of him, spreading cold and bleak. It was hard to care about saving the world when there was nothing left for you in it.
Sam tried to hold the hopeless pieces of himself together but Michael wasn't done yet. "I warned him," he said. "I told him to stop but he didn't listen. Now millions of innocent people are dead. He brought it on himself and on them. There can't be any forgiv-"
Dean reached forward, shoved the cassette tape into the player and turned the music up loud. Sam made another small, choked noise, loud to him even over the constant banging of Motorhead, and looked at him. Exhausted and pale, Dean looked back at him. He shook his head.
"He's a himbo," Dean said. "All feathers, no brain. Don't know why you'd waste time talking to him."
Then he hunched down in his seat, rested his cheek against the window and was asleep within minutes.
When Motorhead reached the end of side one, Sam flipped it over to side two.
:::
Michael's taste in TV could arguably be the most heinous part of Dean's whole 'vessel' situation. It was one thing to put Dean's body through experiences so far beyond human understanding as to defy description; it was something else entirely to make him watch Gossip Girl.
Sam would go out, except Michael would go with him, and then they'd only have to eventually find somewhere else to stop in order to watch Gossip Girl. No matter how crappy the TV, it was miraculously always showing something that catered to Michael's viewing habits. Sam knew that there was no escape from Serena and Blair, the Scott brothers, and, on the rare occasion that Michael was in that kind of mood, Dawson and Joey.
While Michael sprawled out on the couch, Sam brought the guns in from the car, laid them out across the table, and began working through cleaning them. It was the kind of task that required just enough attention from Sam that he couldn't start brooding, but not so much that he really had to be present in the same room as Gossip Girl.
Unfortunately however, it seemed that whichever episode it was that Michael was watching, it was not sufficiently engaging, because Michael's attention seemed to be more on Sam than it was the TV. Entirely willing to pretend not to notice for as long as possible, Sam shifted slightly away in his seat, and started methodically on the next gun.
"You don't need to do that," said Michael finally. "Dean's not going to be using the guns and I don't need to. It's a waste of your time."
"And what about me, huh?" said Sam, smiling slightly. "I might want to use a gun, y'know, what with it being the End of Days and the gates to Hell being broken open and all."
"You don't need them either. I'm here. So long as I'm around, nothing bad's going to happen to you."
It was nothing short of a punch to the stomach. Everything that he'd had and everything that was lost hit Sam hard. His hands faltered just slightly on the gun as the need to sob and scream and beg for Dean to come back and to be his brother again nearly overwhelmed him. Then he took a breath and went back to work.
"Seriously, leave the guns," Michael said.
"And do what? Are you gonna let me sharpen the knives?"
When Sam looked over at him for an answer, Michael meaningfully patted the couch beside him. He had on Dean's oldest sweats, the pair that used to be black and were now fragilely thin and charcoal gray. The legs of them were a little too long and Michael's bare toes peeped just out from under the hem.
He was adorable and Sam wanted to punch him. Was there a version of cockteasing for brothers? Because Sam was kind of going insane with Michael being all loving and clingy in Dean's body, when Sam knew for a fact that Dean's opinion of Sam was in a whole different zip-code.
"No," Sam said, and went back to the guns.
"Is it Gossip Girl?" Michael said. "'Cause we can find something else to watch if you want. What do you wanna watch, Sam? Just name it and I'll put it on."
Sam ignored him. He was still ignoring him when the TV went off and Michael's shadow slid over the tabletop. Hesitantly, Michael took the chair across from Sam. Watching Sam's hands for just a second, Michael picked up a gun and started to take it to pieces, ready for cleaning.
"What are you doing?" Sam ground out.
"Helping," said Michael. "C'mon, Sam. I just wanna be with you. And if this is what you want to do, then this is what I want to do."
Breathing was hard for a moment or two, then Sam's jaw unclenched. His stomach still balled up with misery and desperate neediness, Sam focused on the gun he was working on.
He listened to Michael breathe, to the click and snap of the gunmetal in the quiet of the motel room, and took glimpses of Dean's face like sips of some too-rich wine.
"Here," he said at last. "You need this cloth for that one."
Michael took the cloth from Sam and their fingers brushed, tip over knuckle, and Sam didn't snatch his hand back straight away. It was just make-believe and Sam hated himself for it, but he gave in. They spent the evening working through the weapons, not talking, not even really acknowledging each other, just being together.
For the first time in a long while, Sam felt just a little less miserable.
:::
"We should celebrate," said Michael.
Sam was bleeding, battered, had a broken ankle and concussion, but he could agree that getting out of that fight alive merited at least a cold beer.
"Sure. What did you have in mind?" he said, and his voice came out in a wheeze because he'd been strangled, again.
Michael's expression went tender as he looked at him. "You did good," he told Sam. "I'm so proud of you." And when he put his hand on Sam's cheek, saying those words, Sam couldn’t help leaning in to the touch a little.
The pain vanished but before Sam could let out a relieved sigh, it came to his attention that he was in a restaurant, his clothes had become a suit and before him on the table was pristine white linen, a glass of red wine and an exquisitely arranged meal.
Michael smiled winsomely at him from across the table. "I hope you didn't mind me ordering for you but you simply must try the beef."
"Where are we?" said Sam, concerned less about Michael choosing off the menu for him than he was their abrupt relocation.
"Oh, just a cute little place I know in Montmartre," Michael said with an airy wave of his hand.
"Montmartre… as in Paris?"
"It's the city of love, you know," Michael said, lowering his eyes demurely to his plate, then angling Sam a look from under his lashes. "Do you think it's romantic here, Sam?"
Glancing helplessly around at the other couples in the restaurant, who were all leaning towards each other through the candlelit shadows, Sam scraped his hair off his face and concentrated on the fact that it was the apocalypse, which was not necessarily a calming thought but one that did give a great deal of focus.
"Yes, but look, I can't be romantic with… It's not that I don't like you. You've been awesome, with the healing and the iPhone and-"
"The iPhone was Dean's idea," Michael cut in. "I wanted to fill your motel room with flowers, scented petals from floor to ceiling, but Dean said you'd prefer an iPhone, because your old cell was a piece of crap and he'd seen you looking at the advertisements."
"Oh," said Sam. He took a moment to digest the idea that Dean had picked him a gift, then ruthlessly stopped himself before he could start reading too much into it.
Michael was still watching, worrying Dean's soft lower lip between his teeth, the white collar of his shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the dip of fair skin at his collarbone.
"Michael," said Sam. "You've got to understand why… why I can’t. You're wearing my brother. You get that?"
"But he'd never know!" Michael said, with the alarming lack of hesitation of someone who'd already given the matter some thought. "I can make him sleep. I do it a lot, for his own good. He has no idea what's going on out here if I keep him asleep. We could… we could make love," Michael finished hopefully. "He wouldn't know, Sam. It'd just be you and me."
Sam stared at him. He took a deep breath, counted to twenty, and was still really angry. "What the hell kind of archangel are you? Jesus, I'm not gonna have sex with my brother's body while he's asleep! You think that's any way for me to win back his trust?"
People in the restaurant were turning to look at them but Sam couldn't stop getting even angrier. The look on Michael's face was wretched, and 'sad angel' would have provoked pretty much anybody to sympathetic contrition, if the anybody weren't Sam. Who was still just really pissed.
"It's not like I'm doing this because I'm horny!" Michael protested. His shoulders slumped miserably. "I'm doing this because I'm in love, Sam. With you."
In one swift gulp, Sam drained his wineglass. He shook his head. "What is wrong with you? This whole mess you're cleaning up? I started it! I drank demon blood and I killed a nurse and I'm a monster, okay? I'm not exactly the kind of guy you can take home to Daddy."
Whatever the wine was, it was pretty potent on an empty - and kicked to hell - stomach. Sam felt the unstable lightness inside that suggested vomiting was something he might want to include in his plans for the very immediate future.
More quietly, Sam said, "I don't care if I have to spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm… untouchable. I deserve it. I deserve all of this."
Breathing shakily, Sam stared at the white tablecloth. Behind his eyes, there was the heavy burn of unshed tears, and he could feel the way people were looking at him. It was almost okay, because he was getting used to feeling this isolated and ugly.
"You're not a monster," Dean said.
Sam's head whipped up. Michael was watching him with sad, nervous eyes.
"I'm sorry," said Michael. "It was wrong and thoughtless of me. I won't bring it up again." He managed a little smile. "Try the beef?"
:::
Three months after Michael took possession of Dean's body, he announced that it was time for the final confrontation with Lucifer. It was morning and Sam had only just finished breakfast.
"It's time," Michael said. And there was a soft roar as white flames licked over the sword he was suddenly holding. It was so bright it lit up the small puddle of milk at the bottom of Sam's empty bowl of cereal.
Sam picked up a shotgun, shoved a knife down inside his boot, tucked the Colt in the waistband at the back of his jeans, and nodded. "Okay," he said. "I'm ready."
Halfway to the door already, Michael looked back at him. Michael was in all of the sunlight that spilled in around him, huge and powerful and radiant. He shook his head and crossed to where Sam was, with the slow sureness of a star's celestial orbit.
"You're not coming."
"Why not?" Sam said. "You don't trust me?"
Michael studied him unblinkingly. "We're angels, Sam. You'd be burned away just at the sight of us. You're only human." He smiled, a sweet curving of Dean's lips into something Sam nearly recognized as familiar. "I'd trust you beyond the end of the world."
The motel room was disappearing into blinding light all around them. All Sam could take in was Michael, bound to a human shape only by Dean's skin.
"Then what? I'm just supposed to sit here and wait?"
Gently, Michael kissed him on the lips. Sam caught his breath at the touch. His eyes fell shut as everything but the sensation of being so lovingly kissed fell away. He felt heat, the glorious warmth of a summer's day, sweep through him. He was beautiful and whole with Michael's - Dean's - mouth pressing against his.
Everything mattered again.
When he looked again, he saw something move behind the green glass of Michael's eyes. Then Michael brushed the pad of this thumb over Sam's lips.
"Just for luck," Michael said. And then he was gone.
:::
The world ended for four and a half minutes. Something like four and a half minutes, anyway. It was hard to keep proper count of time when the sky was taken away and the air stopped and reality flaked like old paint.
Sam would have grieved for Dean, mourned for Michael and the rest of the world, except he didn't exist right then.
Then the sun came out and Jeopardy started up again on the TV. Sam took another sip of his coffee and waited.
:::
There wasn't even a scratch on Michael, not even a rip in his clothes. He was just standing by the window when Sam got back from the diner, like he'd never been away. He turned to Sam and smiled, and, sure, looking at him, Sam could see he was a little less graceful than before, a little more careful when he moved, but he was still unearthly in the moonlight.
Sam stopped where he was and swallowed hard.
"You did it," he said.
"Not really," said Michael. "I didn't kill him. Just put him back in his cage." He toyed absent-mindedly with Dean's amulet, the gold glinting between his fingers. "When it came time to put the sword through him, I just…" He trailed off, his hand clenched into a loose fist around the amulet. "I couldn't do it."
He was lost in thought for a moment, then he seemed to come aware of Sam's presence again. "Zachariah'll be pissed," he said, "but I outrank him and have a sword that sets itself on fire, so I don't think he'll be complaining too loudly."
Sam smiled shakily. He didn't really know what to do with himself, didn’t have anything meaningful enough for the occasion.
"So that's it then?" he offered.
"Not quite." In the half-light, it was Michael's eyes that were least human. They were too green, too liquid. It was almost too much to be looked at by them, some residual fear of being looked at by something that could take you apart just for fun. "Sam, I can't stay on earth much longer. A few hours, that's all. Sleep with me?" He raised a hand and Sam's protest went silent; he wasn't sure if that was a free-will choice or not. "Just sleep. Not sex. Not even naked. Just… lie down with me. Be with me."
It was unfair to Michael, Sam knew. But he could be selfish and giving all at once. He could let Michael have this, and in return, he could spend a few hours pretending that he still had Dean. They could both have this.
In silence, they stripped down to shorts and undershirts. Michael sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. Barely daring to breathe, Sam sat down on the other side of the bed. Together, they laid down, side by side. A few moments ticked past. Then Sam extended an arm, slowly, inch by inch, and Michael curled in against his side.
Sam fell asleep listening to the thump of Dean's heartbeat against his own skin.
:::
He knew the precise second that Dean came back. There was a hitched gasp below him and then Sam got a knee in the hip. The bed was warm under them and their bodies were still pressed so closely together on the rumpled cover that Sam could feel Dean's eyelashes tickle the bare skin of his shoulder as Dean blinked, could feel the maddeningly delicate brush of Dean's lips, the wetness of the tip of his tongue, as he swallowed.
It wasn't quite morning. Dawn was pale yellow and white outside the window but the grayness of shadows still lingered. Dean was tense and still against him.
Sam closed his eyes again. Michael was gone, and in a minute, Dean would be too. Carefully, Sam kept his limbs loose enough that Dean could untangle himself without having to know that Sam was aware of it. At the very least, Sam could hang on to Dean's presence in his life. They would hunt together, live together, die together. And maybe one day Sam would win Dean's trust again, and maybe he wouldn't. But he'd have Dean around, who was somehow more special to him than a goddamn besotted archangel.
It hurt when Dean rolled away from him. The bed went cold as he left. Dean picked his way silently across the room to the bathroom and the door clicked shut. Sam forced his breathing to stay calm and even. He could learn to live with this, he told himself. He'd have to. He'd live with nothing but the little sliver of light around the bathroom door that said Dean was still close.
The bathroom door opened again and Sam stayed loose and restful, choosing to wait until Dean was settled somewhere before he pretended to wake. But Dean padded back to the bed, climbed back on beside Sam. Sharply conscious of Dean leaning over him, studying him, Sam maintained the level of his breathing, even though he was convinced the shuddering of his heart must have been giving him away.
Then Dean carefully laid his head back down on Sam's shoulder, arranged Sam's arm around his waist and tucked his legs in against Sam's.
He went back to sleep, just like that. And Sam let out a breath, and fell asleep with a smile on his face. Michael, he decided, was a pretty awesome guy for saving the world, saving this.
~end