such, such is death [spn][one-shot]
Title: Such, Such is Death
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, OMC
Word Count: 3350
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “It’s not your turn,” Michael says. He’s not sure if it would be right to add, I’m sorry. It usually isn’t.
Notes: This Michael is not the Michael of canon. Title from here.
“I don’t want to fucking see you,” Sam says. He presses the whiskey bottle to his lips again, closes his eyes as his throat works.
He steps closer to the chair Sam’s sitting in. Sam looks away.
“It’s not your turn,” he says. He’s not sure if it would be right to add, I’m sorry. It usually isn’t. He tries to sound apologetic, anyway.
Sam huffs a laugh, his smile sardonic, his eyes dead and cold. He looks away. “Fuck you, Michael,” he says.
Michael leans closer and presses a hand to Sam’s shoulder. It’s funny. It’ll always be funny. He hasn’t been able to touch anyone simply because he wanted to, without any consequences, for a very long time. His cigarette drops ash on Sam’s shirt. Maybe it burns but there’s no brushing away - of the ash or the hand.
When the scream sounds from the next room, Sam doesn’t even flinch.
-
They meet for the first time in 1983.
Well, technically, he meets Sam. Sam doesn’t meet him until much later; after all, how many memories do you have from when you were a baby?
He peers over the edge of the crib and Sam stares up at him, all wide-eyed and innocent and beautiful.
The man smiles and Mary leans down to pick Sam up and offer him over. “Hold him, Matt,” she says. “He won’t bite.”
He shakes his head, waves his hands, looks embarrassed. “No, it’s okay, really.”
Mary gives him a look but concedes and sets Sam down gently. Sam’s eyes drift back to the man.
“He’s such a happy baby,” Mary confides. “Not like John, I’m guessing. Maybe he takes after you?”
He laughs. Tugs at the hem of his shirt a little and manages to look wistful. “Mom never said much to me.” She wasn’t his mom, anyway. “I think she was just glad we grew up eventually,” he adds.
“Well, Sammy’s such a good boy; I’m hoping he stays tiny for a while longer,” Mary coos, tickling Sam’s tummy a little. She looks back up. “He’s six months today. I can hardly believe it. When Dean was six months I was ready to rip my hair out. Sam never acts up at all.”
The man - Matt, “Matt”, whatever, he’s someone new every day - gives her a fond look and takes her hand. Mary smiles and puts an arm around his waist. He wishes he could pull out a cigarette. But Matt doesn’t smoke - it’s the one fact he actually checks up on.
“You need to come around more often,” she reprimands. ‘You’ll miss your nephews growing up.”
He presses his lips to her hair and says, “I’ll be around again. I promise.”
Six hours later, Mary burns to death on the ceiling.
-
John takes the kids to his brother’s a few days after. He and Matt stay up well into the night, drinking. Sometime after three, Matt says, “I was supposed to visit you that day - see the boys, see Mary.”
“Thought you had,” replies John. “Mary said something.”
Matt shakes his head. “Didn’t make it. Work. Damn, wish I had. Wish I could’ve-” He shakes his head again and purses his lips.
Neither of them really remembers the conversation the next morning.
-
“Smoking will kill you,” Sam says to him once.
“Already has,” Michael remarks, taking another drag.
They laugh about that one for hours and pretend his being here doesn’t mean what it means.
-
The first time Sam meets him, he’s five years old and standing in aisle three of a convenience store. Dean’s setting cans of Spaghetti-O’s in a red plastic basket.
He’s there when Sam turns around, and Sam just knows - who he is, what he does and in spite of that, he’s not scared. When he’s older, he’ll wonder what gave it away, if anything. Because it’s not like he’s carrying a scythe or wearing a cloak (though he does, a few times later on, just to amuse Sam). He’s got on ratty jeans and a windbreaker and his hands are stuffed in its pockets and there’s a cigarette hanging from his lips. There’s no color to him, though. He’s made up of washed out grays and browns, almost sepia-toned. So, maybe that’s how Sam knew. He’ll never be sure.
The man just watches him and Sam watches back. The man’s eyebrows rise and his lips twitch a little, and then a woman comes around the end of the aisle and says, “Excuse me,” to the man and he says, “Oh, sorry,” and moves away - just enough, and they brush together a little as she passes.
Then Dean says, “Sammy,” and Sam turns around and grabs his brother’s hand.
They’re leaving when Sam looks back over his shoulder and sees the woman bending over the counter and clutching her left arm, pain lining her face.
-
He’s there when Sam turns away from his window to peer through the other, sitting right next to him.
Sam’s ten. He doesn’t jump or startle or anything.
They sit in silence for a minute and Sam tunes out the sounds of an ambulance, wailing not so far away.
“What’s your name?” he asks eventually.
The cigarette is pulled away from his mouth and he gazes at Sam curiously. “What do you want it to be?”
It’s the first name that comes out of Sam’s mouth; he doesn’t even really think about it.
“Michael,” the man parrots back; he sounds like he’s tasting it. He nods. “All right.”
He’s gone by the time Dad and Dean come out of the free clinic they’re parked outside.
-
He walks back to their motel on his own after school, the winter when’s he fourteen and see’s Michael coming out the glass double doors.
“What kind of motel doesn’t have ashtrays?” he demands as Sam get nearer, and then, perhaps, notices the expression on Sam’s face, because he adds, “No worries, kiddo. Not any of yours.”
Sam runs inside anyway, almost throws up out of relief when he sees Dean and Dad, clear-eyed and standing in the room.
There’s a man splayed out on the floor, still and bloody.
Dean thrusts out an arm when Sam steps forward. “Don’t look, Sammy.”
“Who is he?” Sam whispers.
“Hunter,” says Dad. He looks grim and haunted as he bends over the body and Dean tugs Sam away.
“Did you see him?” Sam hisses at Dean as his brother crowds him into the kitchenette.
“See who?”
“The guy - he’s - he’s tall, light brown hair, like, like straw-?”
Dean looks perplexed and Sam huffs. “Who was just in here?”
“Uh - oh, you mean Travis? We ran into him while looking for the werewolf. He just went out.”
“No, I don’t mean Travis!” says Sam. “I know what Travis looks like!”
“Okay, Jesus. I think you need some air, Sammy.”
Sam shakes his head, tries unsuccessfully to peer around Dean. “What happened?”
Dean’s silent for so long that Sam thinks he’s going to be kept in the dark about it. But then he sighs, rakes a hand through his hair and says, “Werewolf bit him.”
Sam goes cold. “You had to-?”
“No,” says Dean immediately. “Travis - he had something, I dunno. Injected him with it while he was still out and it… did the job. No pain or anything, I guess… I mean, that’s what you ask for, right?” He runs a hand down his face and Sam sees how it shakes.
You don’t ask for anything at all, Sam thinks. “You’re sure it was Travis?” he asks, looking up at Dean.
“I’m sure, kid,” Dean replies, looking concerned.
Sam wonders if he’s going crazy.
-
Sam doesn’t start hunting until he’s sixteen, but he still sees more than enough supernatural things die.
Michael never shows up for them.
Sam waits sometimes (Dean stands next to him and mutters about how he’s a freak and what the hell are they waiting for and you owe me for this, Sammy, the things I do for you-).
Just in case.
-
He’s just come back from the University Coffee Café with a couple of donuts in a bag, when he looks up, and down the hall.
“What’re you doing?”
Michael’s standing there, prepped to knock on a door. Sam knows the guys who live in that room. His stomach clenches.
“I need to meet Ted Crowley,” says Michael. He waves the books he’s holding in his left hand. “I have something for him.”
“No,” Sam says, walking forward. “That’s not fair. He’s just a kid - he’s fourteen, he’s a genius, he’s only just-”
The door Michael’s standing before opens. Someone’s coming out backwards and they crash right into Michael, who doesn’t move an inch.
“Whoa, sorry,” they say. And then, “Oh, hey, Greg - how’d your test go?”
Sam closes his eyes. It’s Ted Crowley.
“I think I aced it,” Michael replies. “All thanks to you, dude. I came to drop your book off.” He smiles a little.
“Great,” says Ted, taking the book. “Any time you need help, man-”
“You should come over to my place, sometime,” Michael interrupts. “We could hang out.”
Ted looks surprised - and pleased. “Sure. I gotta run right now, but how about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s awesome.”
Ted hurries off and Michael walks up to Sam.
“Drunk driver,” he says.
Sam stares.
“He didn’t want to start this year,” Michael continues, as if that’s any consolation. He pauses for a beat and then adds, “I don’t get to decide who lives and who doesn’t. But mine don’t suffer.”
Ted’s roommate finds Sam the next day and tells him the news.
-
They’re at a club in San Jose.
“How do you choose?” Sam asks. “You’re not always there.”
Michael spins an empty beer bottle on the table. “If life’s not kind to you, Death will be.”
Sam snorts, cynically.
“I do what I can,” Michael insists. He rummages in his pocket, shakes a cigarette from its pack.
They settle into silence, as they often do. Words don’t work; Sam can’t help feeling some guilt, even if it’s not his fault. He knows, and that seems betrayal enough: Michael can only appear when needed.
There’s not much to say, anyway, when their past is all tangled up in heart attacks and drunk drivers and suicides and their present involves waiting for the next one to come around.
-
Michael sends a card when Sam turns twenty-one. Best Wishes! it says, and Michael’s signed his name at the bottom. Sam can appreciate the irony.
Dean sends a card, has a cake delivered to his room under another name (the way it’s shaped, Sam’s not sure he’ll ever manage to eat it - Jess seems eager enough to help, though) and calls to ask how he’s doing. They talk for an hour and then Sam has to go to class.
At the end of the day, he’s still not sure which one made him feel worse.
-
He puts out his cigarette on Sam’s research and Sam gives him a dirty look.
“That’s what you get for not keeping an ashtray around.”
Sam lifts a book from under his laptop and opens it to the index in the back. Peers at Michael over the binding. “You were human once?”
Michael looks surprised. “How can you tell?”
“You don’t act the same as… other things.”
He looks thoughtful at that. “Buy me some smokes and I’ll tell you.”
“Fuck off,” Sam answers easily. He flips a couple of pages, frowns, and jots down a note. He should have listened to Dean and stayed away from Philosophy.
“I died. A long time ago. And then I woke up and… here I am. So… yes, I was human once,” Michael responds, after a lapse of silence.
Sam twirls a pencil in his hand and then asks, “So how does it work?”
“What?”
“You know what.”
Michael smirks. “Sorry, that’s a secret.”
A girl walks past and gives Sam a look, and he squints at Michael and wonders if everyone in the library thinks he’s talking to himself. Then he wonders if that girl is the one. He avoids asking if he hasn’t already figured it out; it just makes it worse.
“I fucking hate knowing,” Sam says on a breath, surprising himself.
He doesn’t mean to imply the, don’t you at least owe me a full explanation? Or maybe he does.
Michael watches him silently for a moment, then pulls out his pack of Marlboros, sets it down on the table and pats it. “I’ll leave you the rest.”
“You hate those,” Sam remarks, raising his eyes from the book.
“I know.”
“How kind.” Sam rolls his eyes.
“King among men,” Michael replies. Sam’s snort follows him down the book-filled aisles and out the ornate double doors.
-
“You couldn’t have warned me?” he asks, eyes furious, face tear-streaked. “You couldn’t have told me?”
“Somebody tried,” Michael reminds him, and Sam raises his fist. He feels a brush of static and hears Michael saying, “No!” in a horrified voice, just before he connects with skin and bone.
Michael lands on his ass, misses crashing into the bathtub by inches. His cigarette flops to the floor beside him and he stares up at Sam.
Sam swallows hard. His heart’s hammering in his chest and he can’t get a proper breath.
“Was that intentional?” Michael asks, eventually. He stands up and brushes himself off.
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“You didn’t know it wouldn’t work, did you? So either it was intentional or you’ve stopped thinking before swinging - and that’s not like you, is it?”
Sam only catches the first half of that. “It didn’t work?” he asks. His voice is a little strangled. “Are you - how do you know?”
“I always know,” says Michael. “Did you want it to work?”
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Sam turns around, unlocks it.
“I brought you some clothes,” Dean says quietly.
“Oh,” says Sam. He looks down at what he’s wearing. It all stinks of smoke and fire.
“Thanks,” he says to Dean, and then closes the bathroom door again, leans his forehead against it and thinks God, Jess. There’s a scraping on the other side of the door and Sam thinks Dean must be standing right there. He presses his palm to the wood for a moment.
When he turns back, Michael’s vanished. The cigarette’s still smoking on the floor.
“I didn’t want it to work,” he whispers at the air.
He wants someone to be there to believe him.
-
Michael’s nowhere when Sam finds John’s body.
That was his first clue, about what really happened.
-
He doesn’t find Ava, but he almost trips over Michael, who’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road.
Sam looks down at him. “Who does everyone think you are?” he asks.
“A frog, I think,” says Michael, sounding aggrieved. “I’m not always sure.”
Sam blinks and then nods. “Who’s - who’s going to die?”
“All of them.”
Andy, Ava, Jake. Sam clenches his teeth, sweeps his gaze over his surroundings again.
“Is there a way out of here?” he asks.
Michael shrugs. “I don’t even know how I got in, exactly.”
“Great,” mutters Sam.
Michael stands then and takes Sam’s hand. “Be careful, Sam,” he says, squeezing gently.
His palm is muddy and there’s a bit of dirt on his chin and he looks jaded - more than usual.
It’s not until after the pain and the re-awakening and Dean’s confession that Sam realizes he’d asked the wrong question.
He should have asked, “Who are you taking?” and he should have felt the static-sting of Michael’s touch and how it was just different enough from all the other times.
-
Michael finds him sitting in a 24-hour Laundromat.
He’s watching a load spin in the dryer, and Michael takes the seat next to him.
“You’re not gonna be the one who takes him, are you?” Sam says, in a way that implies he already knows the answer.
Michael shakes his head. “No. The demons-”
“Don’t say it,” Sam interjects harshly. A beat, and then, “Is there any way - do you know if I - can I stop it?”
“I don’t know.” He’s being completely honest.
“It was wrong,” Sam seethes. “He shouldn’t have done it.”
Michael “hmm”s and Sam glares at him. “You of all people-”
“But you get why he did it and I get why he did it, so maybe we’re not in the best positions to judge,” he says. Sam looks at him and Michael shrugs. “What can I say? I like you alive, Sam.”
Sam turns back to his laundry. There’s a long moment of silence.
A girl walks into the Laundromat, right over to them, looking livid.
“I thought you said you’d wait outside!” she says.
“Sorry,” Michael answers immediately, as Sam tears his gaze away from the underwear being tossed around across from them. “I was just-” He glances at Sam, but the girl doesn’t seem to care what he was just.
“Oh. My God, Jerry,” she says. “Couldn’t you even iron your shirt? We’re going out with my parents!”
“Sorry,” Michael repeats. “But hey, look - I put on a tie.” He moves his hand to his chest, and Sam’s eyes move there too and then flick back to Michael’s face.
“Congratulations,” the girl mutters. “Well, c’mon, they’re waiting.” She watches him and sighs then, and holds out her hand, like an apology. Michael takes it and stands up. He follows her out, and when he looks over his shoulder, Sam’s gone back to giving the whites an audience.
There are tears dripping from the line of his jaw.
Michael wants to stay, but he can’t. There’s a girl to take care of; she’s not usually this spiteful. She’s just scared because she’s pregnant and her parents don’t know yet. It won’t matter, soon. In two hours and twenty minutes, she’s going to lose the baby, and die from a hemorrhage before the ambulance can make it all the way to the hospital.
He’d like to tell her it isn’t anything personal.
He’d like to tell her he wishes he didn’t have to.
He’d like to tell her that there’s something better on the other side, even if it’s a complete lie; he’s never seen the other side.
It’s a bad day, all around.
-
When the scream sounds from the next room, Sam doesn’t even flinch.
‘Just fucking go away,” Sam whispers, eyes closed and Michael removes his hand.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go.” He walks over to the door and his hand’s on the knob when Sam lets out a sound.
It could be a sob or a moan. It sounds a lot like, “Stop.”
Michael does and turns.
“Look at me,” Sam says with a harsh laugh. The bottle of whiskey shakes in his hand. “What kind of person only feels alive when they’re with Death?”
He laughs again, and again and when Michael finally lets go of the doorknob and moves forwards, he’s crying.
“I can’t do this without him,” Sam chokes out as Michael kneels at his chair.
“I know,” he says. “C’mere.”
He gathers Sam close. It’s all he can think to do. Someday he’s going to leave a room with Sam in it and never come back; he feels a little sick for taking comfort in Sam’s shaking and the wetness on his own neck, but he can’t help it. It’s been a long time since he cherished something alive, for purely selfish reasons, and this is the first time his death has had something more than just a job in it.
He tips his hand closer to his mouth and takes a drag on his cigarette. Smoke rises, blue-gray.
The wailing of ambulances slips in through the window and from the next room, someone’s still screaming for help.
Michael wishes he had the heart to tell them it’s too late, but he doesn’t. He never has and never will.
Sam clutches at his arms, grip painful.
There’s no end in sight. Michael’s gonna take what he can get.
Fandom: Supernatural
Characters: Sam, OMC
Word Count: 3350
Rating: PG-13
Summary: “It’s not your turn,” Michael says. He’s not sure if it would be right to add, I’m sorry. It usually isn’t.
Notes: This Michael is not the Michael of canon. Title from here.
“I don’t want to fucking see you,” Sam says. He presses the whiskey bottle to his lips again, closes his eyes as his throat works.
He steps closer to the chair Sam’s sitting in. Sam looks away.
“It’s not your turn,” he says. He’s not sure if it would be right to add, I’m sorry. It usually isn’t. He tries to sound apologetic, anyway.
Sam huffs a laugh, his smile sardonic, his eyes dead and cold. He looks away. “Fuck you, Michael,” he says.
Michael leans closer and presses a hand to Sam’s shoulder. It’s funny. It’ll always be funny. He hasn’t been able to touch anyone simply because he wanted to, without any consequences, for a very long time. His cigarette drops ash on Sam’s shirt. Maybe it burns but there’s no brushing away - of the ash or the hand.
When the scream sounds from the next room, Sam doesn’t even flinch.
-
They meet for the first time in 1983.
Well, technically, he meets Sam. Sam doesn’t meet him until much later; after all, how many memories do you have from when you were a baby?
He peers over the edge of the crib and Sam stares up at him, all wide-eyed and innocent and beautiful.
The man smiles and Mary leans down to pick Sam up and offer him over. “Hold him, Matt,” she says. “He won’t bite.”
He shakes his head, waves his hands, looks embarrassed. “No, it’s okay, really.”
Mary gives him a look but concedes and sets Sam down gently. Sam’s eyes drift back to the man.
“He’s such a happy baby,” Mary confides. “Not like John, I’m guessing. Maybe he takes after you?”
He laughs. Tugs at the hem of his shirt a little and manages to look wistful. “Mom never said much to me.” She wasn’t his mom, anyway. “I think she was just glad we grew up eventually,” he adds.
“Well, Sammy’s such a good boy; I’m hoping he stays tiny for a while longer,” Mary coos, tickling Sam’s tummy a little. She looks back up. “He’s six months today. I can hardly believe it. When Dean was six months I was ready to rip my hair out. Sam never acts up at all.”
The man - Matt, “Matt”, whatever, he’s someone new every day - gives her a fond look and takes her hand. Mary smiles and puts an arm around his waist. He wishes he could pull out a cigarette. But Matt doesn’t smoke - it’s the one fact he actually checks up on.
“You need to come around more often,” she reprimands. ‘You’ll miss your nephews growing up.”
He presses his lips to her hair and says, “I’ll be around again. I promise.”
Six hours later, Mary burns to death on the ceiling.
-
John takes the kids to his brother’s a few days after. He and Matt stay up well into the night, drinking. Sometime after three, Matt says, “I was supposed to visit you that day - see the boys, see Mary.”
“Thought you had,” replies John. “Mary said something.”
Matt shakes his head. “Didn’t make it. Work. Damn, wish I had. Wish I could’ve-” He shakes his head again and purses his lips.
Neither of them really remembers the conversation the next morning.
-
“Smoking will kill you,” Sam says to him once.
“Already has,” Michael remarks, taking another drag.
They laugh about that one for hours and pretend his being here doesn’t mean what it means.
-
The first time Sam meets him, he’s five years old and standing in aisle three of a convenience store. Dean’s setting cans of Spaghetti-O’s in a red plastic basket.
He’s there when Sam turns around, and Sam just knows - who he is, what he does and in spite of that, he’s not scared. When he’s older, he’ll wonder what gave it away, if anything. Because it’s not like he’s carrying a scythe or wearing a cloak (though he does, a few times later on, just to amuse Sam). He’s got on ratty jeans and a windbreaker and his hands are stuffed in its pockets and there’s a cigarette hanging from his lips. There’s no color to him, though. He’s made up of washed out grays and browns, almost sepia-toned. So, maybe that’s how Sam knew. He’ll never be sure.
The man just watches him and Sam watches back. The man’s eyebrows rise and his lips twitch a little, and then a woman comes around the end of the aisle and says, “Excuse me,” to the man and he says, “Oh, sorry,” and moves away - just enough, and they brush together a little as she passes.
Then Dean says, “Sammy,” and Sam turns around and grabs his brother’s hand.
They’re leaving when Sam looks back over his shoulder and sees the woman bending over the counter and clutching her left arm, pain lining her face.
-
He’s there when Sam turns away from his window to peer through the other, sitting right next to him.
Sam’s ten. He doesn’t jump or startle or anything.
They sit in silence for a minute and Sam tunes out the sounds of an ambulance, wailing not so far away.
“What’s your name?” he asks eventually.
The cigarette is pulled away from his mouth and he gazes at Sam curiously. “What do you want it to be?”
It’s the first name that comes out of Sam’s mouth; he doesn’t even really think about it.
“Michael,” the man parrots back; he sounds like he’s tasting it. He nods. “All right.”
He’s gone by the time Dad and Dean come out of the free clinic they’re parked outside.
-
He walks back to their motel on his own after school, the winter when’s he fourteen and see’s Michael coming out the glass double doors.
“What kind of motel doesn’t have ashtrays?” he demands as Sam get nearer, and then, perhaps, notices the expression on Sam’s face, because he adds, “No worries, kiddo. Not any of yours.”
Sam runs inside anyway, almost throws up out of relief when he sees Dean and Dad, clear-eyed and standing in the room.
There’s a man splayed out on the floor, still and bloody.
Dean thrusts out an arm when Sam steps forward. “Don’t look, Sammy.”
“Who is he?” Sam whispers.
“Hunter,” says Dad. He looks grim and haunted as he bends over the body and Dean tugs Sam away.
“Did you see him?” Sam hisses at Dean as his brother crowds him into the kitchenette.
“See who?”
“The guy - he’s - he’s tall, light brown hair, like, like straw-?”
Dean looks perplexed and Sam huffs. “Who was just in here?”
“Uh - oh, you mean Travis? We ran into him while looking for the werewolf. He just went out.”
“No, I don’t mean Travis!” says Sam. “I know what Travis looks like!”
“Okay, Jesus. I think you need some air, Sammy.”
Sam shakes his head, tries unsuccessfully to peer around Dean. “What happened?”
Dean’s silent for so long that Sam thinks he’s going to be kept in the dark about it. But then he sighs, rakes a hand through his hair and says, “Werewolf bit him.”
Sam goes cold. “You had to-?”
“No,” says Dean immediately. “Travis - he had something, I dunno. Injected him with it while he was still out and it… did the job. No pain or anything, I guess… I mean, that’s what you ask for, right?” He runs a hand down his face and Sam sees how it shakes.
You don’t ask for anything at all, Sam thinks. “You’re sure it was Travis?” he asks, looking up at Dean.
“I’m sure, kid,” Dean replies, looking concerned.
Sam wonders if he’s going crazy.
-
Sam doesn’t start hunting until he’s sixteen, but he still sees more than enough supernatural things die.
Michael never shows up for them.
Sam waits sometimes (Dean stands next to him and mutters about how he’s a freak and what the hell are they waiting for and you owe me for this, Sammy, the things I do for you-).
Just in case.
-
He’s just come back from the University Coffee Café with a couple of donuts in a bag, when he looks up, and down the hall.
“What’re you doing?”
Michael’s standing there, prepped to knock on a door. Sam knows the guys who live in that room. His stomach clenches.
“I need to meet Ted Crowley,” says Michael. He waves the books he’s holding in his left hand. “I have something for him.”
“No,” Sam says, walking forward. “That’s not fair. He’s just a kid - he’s fourteen, he’s a genius, he’s only just-”
The door Michael’s standing before opens. Someone’s coming out backwards and they crash right into Michael, who doesn’t move an inch.
“Whoa, sorry,” they say. And then, “Oh, hey, Greg - how’d your test go?”
Sam closes his eyes. It’s Ted Crowley.
“I think I aced it,” Michael replies. “All thanks to you, dude. I came to drop your book off.” He smiles a little.
“Great,” says Ted, taking the book. “Any time you need help, man-”
“You should come over to my place, sometime,” Michael interrupts. “We could hang out.”
Ted looks surprised - and pleased. “Sure. I gotta run right now, but how about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s awesome.”
Ted hurries off and Michael walks up to Sam.
“Drunk driver,” he says.
Sam stares.
“He didn’t want to start this year,” Michael continues, as if that’s any consolation. He pauses for a beat and then adds, “I don’t get to decide who lives and who doesn’t. But mine don’t suffer.”
Ted’s roommate finds Sam the next day and tells him the news.
-
They’re at a club in San Jose.
“How do you choose?” Sam asks. “You’re not always there.”
Michael spins an empty beer bottle on the table. “If life’s not kind to you, Death will be.”
Sam snorts, cynically.
“I do what I can,” Michael insists. He rummages in his pocket, shakes a cigarette from its pack.
They settle into silence, as they often do. Words don’t work; Sam can’t help feeling some guilt, even if it’s not his fault. He knows, and that seems betrayal enough: Michael can only appear when needed.
There’s not much to say, anyway, when their past is all tangled up in heart attacks and drunk drivers and suicides and their present involves waiting for the next one to come around.
-
Michael sends a card when Sam turns twenty-one. Best Wishes! it says, and Michael’s signed his name at the bottom. Sam can appreciate the irony.
Dean sends a card, has a cake delivered to his room under another name (the way it’s shaped, Sam’s not sure he’ll ever manage to eat it - Jess seems eager enough to help, though) and calls to ask how he’s doing. They talk for an hour and then Sam has to go to class.
At the end of the day, he’s still not sure which one made him feel worse.
-
He puts out his cigarette on Sam’s research and Sam gives him a dirty look.
“That’s what you get for not keeping an ashtray around.”
Sam lifts a book from under his laptop and opens it to the index in the back. Peers at Michael over the binding. “You were human once?”
Michael looks surprised. “How can you tell?”
“You don’t act the same as… other things.”
He looks thoughtful at that. “Buy me some smokes and I’ll tell you.”
“Fuck off,” Sam answers easily. He flips a couple of pages, frowns, and jots down a note. He should have listened to Dean and stayed away from Philosophy.
“I died. A long time ago. And then I woke up and… here I am. So… yes, I was human once,” Michael responds, after a lapse of silence.
Sam twirls a pencil in his hand and then asks, “So how does it work?”
“What?”
“You know what.”
Michael smirks. “Sorry, that’s a secret.”
A girl walks past and gives Sam a look, and he squints at Michael and wonders if everyone in the library thinks he’s talking to himself. Then he wonders if that girl is the one. He avoids asking if he hasn’t already figured it out; it just makes it worse.
“I fucking hate knowing,” Sam says on a breath, surprising himself.
He doesn’t mean to imply the, don’t you at least owe me a full explanation? Or maybe he does.
Michael watches him silently for a moment, then pulls out his pack of Marlboros, sets it down on the table and pats it. “I’ll leave you the rest.”
“You hate those,” Sam remarks, raising his eyes from the book.
“I know.”
“How kind.” Sam rolls his eyes.
“King among men,” Michael replies. Sam’s snort follows him down the book-filled aisles and out the ornate double doors.
-
“You couldn’t have warned me?” he asks, eyes furious, face tear-streaked. “You couldn’t have told me?”
“Somebody tried,” Michael reminds him, and Sam raises his fist. He feels a brush of static and hears Michael saying, “No!” in a horrified voice, just before he connects with skin and bone.
Michael lands on his ass, misses crashing into the bathtub by inches. His cigarette flops to the floor beside him and he stares up at Sam.
Sam swallows hard. His heart’s hammering in his chest and he can’t get a proper breath.
“Was that intentional?” Michael asks, eventually. He stands up and brushes himself off.
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“You didn’t know it wouldn’t work, did you? So either it was intentional or you’ve stopped thinking before swinging - and that’s not like you, is it?”
Sam only catches the first half of that. “It didn’t work?” he asks. His voice is a little strangled. “Are you - how do you know?”
“I always know,” says Michael. “Did you want it to work?”
There’s a quiet knock on the door and Sam turns around, unlocks it.
“I brought you some clothes,” Dean says quietly.
“Oh,” says Sam. He looks down at what he’s wearing. It all stinks of smoke and fire.
“Thanks,” he says to Dean, and then closes the bathroom door again, leans his forehead against it and thinks God, Jess. There’s a scraping on the other side of the door and Sam thinks Dean must be standing right there. He presses his palm to the wood for a moment.
When he turns back, Michael’s vanished. The cigarette’s still smoking on the floor.
“I didn’t want it to work,” he whispers at the air.
He wants someone to be there to believe him.
-
Michael’s nowhere when Sam finds John’s body.
That was his first clue, about what really happened.
-
He doesn’t find Ava, but he almost trips over Michael, who’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the road.
Sam looks down at him. “Who does everyone think you are?” he asks.
“A frog, I think,” says Michael, sounding aggrieved. “I’m not always sure.”
Sam blinks and then nods. “Who’s - who’s going to die?”
“All of them.”
Andy, Ava, Jake. Sam clenches his teeth, sweeps his gaze over his surroundings again.
“Is there a way out of here?” he asks.
Michael shrugs. “I don’t even know how I got in, exactly.”
“Great,” mutters Sam.
Michael stands then and takes Sam’s hand. “Be careful, Sam,” he says, squeezing gently.
His palm is muddy and there’s a bit of dirt on his chin and he looks jaded - more than usual.
It’s not until after the pain and the re-awakening and Dean’s confession that Sam realizes he’d asked the wrong question.
He should have asked, “Who are you taking?” and he should have felt the static-sting of Michael’s touch and how it was just different enough from all the other times.
-
Michael finds him sitting in a 24-hour Laundromat.
He’s watching a load spin in the dryer, and Michael takes the seat next to him.
“You’re not gonna be the one who takes him, are you?” Sam says, in a way that implies he already knows the answer.
Michael shakes his head. “No. The demons-”
“Don’t say it,” Sam interjects harshly. A beat, and then, “Is there any way - do you know if I - can I stop it?”
“I don’t know.” He’s being completely honest.
“It was wrong,” Sam seethes. “He shouldn’t have done it.”
Michael “hmm”s and Sam glares at him. “You of all people-”
“But you get why he did it and I get why he did it, so maybe we’re not in the best positions to judge,” he says. Sam looks at him and Michael shrugs. “What can I say? I like you alive, Sam.”
Sam turns back to his laundry. There’s a long moment of silence.
A girl walks into the Laundromat, right over to them, looking livid.
“I thought you said you’d wait outside!” she says.
“Sorry,” Michael answers immediately, as Sam tears his gaze away from the underwear being tossed around across from them. “I was just-” He glances at Sam, but the girl doesn’t seem to care what he was just.
“Oh. My God, Jerry,” she says. “Couldn’t you even iron your shirt? We’re going out with my parents!”
“Sorry,” Michael repeats. “But hey, look - I put on a tie.” He moves his hand to his chest, and Sam’s eyes move there too and then flick back to Michael’s face.
“Congratulations,” the girl mutters. “Well, c’mon, they’re waiting.” She watches him and sighs then, and holds out her hand, like an apology. Michael takes it and stands up. He follows her out, and when he looks over his shoulder, Sam’s gone back to giving the whites an audience.
There are tears dripping from the line of his jaw.
Michael wants to stay, but he can’t. There’s a girl to take care of; she’s not usually this spiteful. She’s just scared because she’s pregnant and her parents don’t know yet. It won’t matter, soon. In two hours and twenty minutes, she’s going to lose the baby, and die from a hemorrhage before the ambulance can make it all the way to the hospital.
He’d like to tell her it isn’t anything personal.
He’d like to tell her he wishes he didn’t have to.
He’d like to tell her that there’s something better on the other side, even if it’s a complete lie; he’s never seen the other side.
It’s a bad day, all around.
-
When the scream sounds from the next room, Sam doesn’t even flinch.
‘Just fucking go away,” Sam whispers, eyes closed and Michael removes his hand.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go.” He walks over to the door and his hand’s on the knob when Sam lets out a sound.
It could be a sob or a moan. It sounds a lot like, “Stop.”
Michael does and turns.
“Look at me,” Sam says with a harsh laugh. The bottle of whiskey shakes in his hand. “What kind of person only feels alive when they’re with Death?”
He laughs again, and again and when Michael finally lets go of the doorknob and moves forwards, he’s crying.
“I can’t do this without him,” Sam chokes out as Michael kneels at his chair.
“I know,” he says. “C’mere.”
He gathers Sam close. It’s all he can think to do. Someday he’s going to leave a room with Sam in it and never come back; he feels a little sick for taking comfort in Sam’s shaking and the wetness on his own neck, but he can’t help it. It’s been a long time since he cherished something alive, for purely selfish reasons, and this is the first time his death has had something more than just a job in it.
He tips his hand closer to his mouth and takes a drag on his cigarette. Smoke rises, blue-gray.
The wailing of ambulances slips in through the window and from the next room, someone’s still screaming for help.
Michael wishes he had the heart to tell them it’s too late, but he doesn’t. He never has and never will.
Sam clutches at his arms, grip painful.
There’s no end in sight. Michael’s gonna take what he can get.