FIC: "He Said Unto Me" (SPN, sequel to "And Lo, I Saw The Fifth Angel")
He Said Unto Me
(sequel to And Lo, I Saw the Fifth Angel, which is becoming a series)
AU tag to "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester"
PG-13 for language
Biblical reference is KJV Revelation 12: 7-9.
Dean Winchester.
Dean woke up, slightly disoriented. The voice had said his name, but it had sounded like it had been inside his own head. He blinked a few times and shook his head. Sam was still asleep on the couch; maybe he’d just imagined -
Dean Winchester.
This time there was a hint of directionality and he turned to look. There was a figure - a man - in the shadows of the kitchen. It wasn’t Bobby, and Sam was still on the couch - Castiel? Or something worse?
He got up slowly, grabbing a knife - the one with sigils, Ruby’s old knife, that he’d tried plunging into Castiel’s heart, not that it had helped him any - before quietly padding into the kitchen, gripping the hilt. His heartbeat and his footsteps were in his ears.
It wasn’t Castiel, but some part of his brain told him that this guy was something similar. It helped that the guy just looked at him, knife and all, with a bemused smile. “Who the hell are you?” Dean demanded, his voice low. No good waking up Sammy if this was just Castiel in a new meatsuit.
The guy smirked. “You can call me Michael,” he replied. He was dressed like Castiel, too: God’s army was filled with tax accountants and beaurocrats, it seemed, and those were two types of folks Dean had hoped to never have to deal with ever again even before he’d gone to Hell. “Michael, huh?” Dean finally said, unconvinced.
“I’m…a relative of Castiel’s,” Michael said slowly, turning his head, tilting it a little, evaluating him in that almost birdlike way that Castiel had done.
Dean narrowed his eyes, even as his grip on the knife lost its intensity. It was there again: the weird feeling he’d had when Castiel had entered the barn. At the time, he’d thought it was just part of the rest - the rattling of the roof and the whine and hum of the wind - but the feeling was back, a thrumming of strange familiarity in his blood, without all the hoopla of Castiel’s entrance. He had to give this Michael guy points for subtlety. Bobby would be appreciating the lack of destruction in the morning. Hard to fry up his famous eggs if there was sheetrock and insulation everywhere. “So,” Dean finally said, “I guess you’re one of these ‘Angels of the Lord’, too, then?”
Michael smiled a little, the smirk and the evaluating look softening. “An angel, yes. Castiel was being…colorful and a little unresearched when he added the last bit.”
“So, what? There’s no God, then?” Dean asked, equal parts confused and incredulous. What did he mean, Castiel was being colorful and unresearched? Like an angel wouldn’t know if there was a God or not? Or was he missing something?
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Michael said, fiddling with the cuff of his white business-degree dress shirt. “There is a divine entity, a force of good, but it’s probably not anything like what you would imagine as God.” Michael shifted his weight and Dean noted that he - or his vessel - wasn’t much taller than him. He was strangely less intimidating than Castiel had been. “But that’s not what I came to talk to you about,” Michael continued.
“Okay,” Dean said a little curtly. He knew he was sounding surly, but he didn’t particularly care. The guy - angel - whatever - had woken him up from the best sleep he’d had since he’d woken up six feet under. He had good reason to be cranky. “Then what’re you here about, Mike?”
The angel rankled at the nickname but didn’t call him on it; Dean counted that as a point in his favor. “First, I wanted to congratulate you on this business with the Witnesses,” Michael said. “Well done.”
Dean hadn’t expected praise. With his line of work, he rarely got a thank-you let alone a job-well-done: they were too often on the run from the cops or the witnesses were too freaked out. He stood there a moment, stunned into silence, before recovering. “Yeah, well, I didn’t see you there to help us out, or Castiel, or any other angel. Isn’t that what you guys are supposed to do - help people? Protect ‘em from evil?” he demanded heatedly, his anger growing with each word. “I could’ve died last night. I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest, man. I thought angels were supposed to guardians - fluffy wings, halos. You know - Michael Landon, not dicks. Where the hell were you guys? Plus, you know, hell of an investment strategy, going to all the trouble to bust me out of Hell and then throw me to the wolves!”
To his credit, Michael didn’t as much as blink at Dean’s outrage. “Are you finished?” the angel asked calmly.
Dean’s eyebrows went up for a moment. “Uh, yeah. For now.”
Michael nodded. “Those are legitimate concerns, given your limited knowledge. I am not angry with you, Dean.”
And Dean realized that he was a little worried after that little outburst. This Michael guy was supposed to be an angel, like Castiel, and if nothing else Castiel had made a seriously bad-ass entrance. Dean had seen enough in his life not to underestimate the supernatural: just because Michael had made a more subtle entrance didn’t mean he couldn’t kick serious ass. Part of him was waiting for the smiting to begin: bad-ass angels were probably not too keen on back talk. After Dad and Sam, he really should know better. “Okay.”
“We are not infinite in number, Dean,” Michael continued. “There aren’t enough of us to follow every mortal soul and save it from every misstep and danger. There are battles you cannot see, in a war that you already know rather well. Like a mortal war, we occasionally suffer casualties - I have lost six of my children this week. The war is growing.”
“Six?” Dean said, a little surprised. “I thought angels were invincible. And - jeez, man - six kids? That’s a damn big family.”
Michael smiled, a little sad and a little indulgent. “I have a very large family, Dean, but I do mourn each one. We are more fragile than you think.” He paused, looking away for a moment. “But we are warriors, you and I, Dean. We understand the larger picture. We understand that sacrifices must be made, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Dean said after a moment, not wanting the kitchen to fall into silence. He thought of his sacrifices over the years, mostly to help Sam, it seemed in retrospect. Yeah, maybe this Mike guy would be okay. “So, what else does God-but-not-God think I need to know? Was Bobby right? These witnesses - they’re some kind of a sign of the apocalypse?”
Michael nodded. “Unfortunately, your friend was correct. That’s why I’m here now,” he said, but Dean got the feeling that Michael was holding something back. “Are there other signs?” Dean asked, and then, a little hesitantly: “Do I even want to know what they are?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” Michael said, “but you need to know. There are sixty-six Seals - signs, as you called them. The rising of the Witnesses is one of the earliest ones.”
“Seals?” Dean said. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about SeaWorld.”
“Hardly,” Michael replied, a little sarcastically. Dean was just surprised that the angel knew what SeaWorld was. “The Seals were made a very long time ago. Think of them as locks on a door.”
“Okay, so you open these sixty-six Seals,” Dean said, a little confused. “You unlock all of them. Then what? What’s the point? The apocalypse?”
“You’re very close. When the sixty-sixth Seal is broken, Lucifer walks free.”
“Lucifer? You’re kidding, right?”
Michael gave him a look that could freeze the very fires of Hell - not that Dean remembered there being fire. “I, uh, I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school,” Dean said, backtracking a little, attitude-wise. “There’s no such thing.”
Michael snorted. “Three days ago you thought there was no such thing as Castiel and myself. I trust you’ve remedied yourself of that belief.”
Certainly on my to-do list, Dean said to himself. “So, who’s breaking these seals?” he finally asked.
“A demon. I believe you’ve made her acquaintance. She calls herself Lilith.”
Ah, hell, Dean thought. “Yeah, I’ve met her. Really wish I hadn’t. So, she did the spell - she’s the one who rose the witnesses.”
“Indeed. And not just here, Dean. Twenty other hunters are dead. We tried to stop her, but there will be other battles, other seals. Some we’ll win, some we’ll lose. We lost this one, but we can hope for victory in the future.”
“You lost this one? But we put those spirits back to rest,” Dean reminded him. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Michael replied. “Your efforts were valiant, but ultimately the fact that the spirits came to find their vengeance was sufficient - proof that Lilith had broken the Seal. Our consolation is that you and Samuel, and your friend Robert, were victorious and stand to fight another day. I’m sure Castiel told you we will have work for you to do.”
“Oh, yeah, he was a regular chatty Cathy about it,” Dean said. “So, what now?”
“Rest up,” Michael said. “Take comfort. Seek out evil and vanquish it. Save people. This is your family’s business, isn’t it?”
Dean wasn’t entirely comfortable with the piercing look Michael was giving him. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, trying not to show the angel how much it had bothered him to hear those words, so close to what he’d said to Sam in the past, what Dad had said to them.
Michael nodded. “Any other questions?”
“Okay,” Dean said, shaking off that discomfort. “I’ve got a question. How come I’ve got you here today, and not Castiel? What is this, angelic musical chairs?”
Michael laughed at him.
“I’m serious! Am I gonna have to meet a new guy every time? ‘Cause I gotta say, I ain’t the most trusting of folks. You’re lucky I didn’t stab you like I did Castiel. I’m starting to wonder about those Vessels of yours.”
Michael chuckled lightly. “No, Dean,” he replied. “Barring an early apocalypse, it will be me from now on. Castiel…” He sighed, looking a little embarrassed, to Dean’s surprise. “I did not realize Castiel was so poorly suited to this duty until after I sent him to you. I apologize for the trouble his theatrics caused you and your friend. He was unprepared and a little young for the job. You’ll be seeing me from now on.”
Dean mulled this over a moment. “A little young? What does that mean? I thought angels were all supposed to have been created at the same time, you know, like before God created the world and all of that.”
“Some of us are very old, yes,” Michael told him and Dean wasn’t so dense as to not notice he’d evaded part of the question. “Others are quite young. Castiel is about five hundred of your years - barely out of adolescence, really. We’re rather showy at that age, as you saw. And then there are the nephilim…”
Dean was processing the whole age-thing as Michael trailed off and it took him a moment to realize the angel wasn’t speaking. “Nephilim?” Dean said. “I read something about them in the lore - kids of humans and angels, right? Kind of destructive?”
“Sometimes,” Michael ceded. “They are more susceptible to evil than other angels. They can be dangerous when left untrained when we do not find them before their powers begin to manifest.” He turned his head to look at Dean eye to eye again, his expression strangely thoughtful. “But that has not happened in a very long time.”
“Oh,” Dean said. “All right, then. Anything else I need to know right now or was Lilith’s plan to break Lucifer out of Hell about it?” His voice was filled with bravado; something in Michael’s gaze unsettled him.
“That was about it,” Michael replied, indulgence in his voice again - whatever that was about.
“So now what?” he repeated. “Am I allowed to tell Sam about this, or is it secret for the been-to-Hell-and-back club only? Is there something I should be looking for, like the next Seal or something, or should I - I don’t know - stay at home, read the Bible, and knit?”
Michael smiled. “Like I said, continue as before: hunt evil and save people. Each soul saved from evil is a battle won. I’ll be in touch when there is a specific need for you. As for Samuel, tell him so much as you think he will believe. I leave that to your discretion.” He straightened, no longer leaning against the countertop, and laughed a little. “I suppose there are a few relevant passages you could read, to help you understand me better if you have a chance. So much has been edited out over the millennia…” He shook his head and then reached for thin pad and pen Bobby kept on the fridge, setting aside the magnet. “Try these,” he said, writing on the pad. “I suppose you could call them my greatest hits.” He winked.
Dean woke up.
Dean blinked, feeling disoriented. He heard footsteps behind him and soon Sam was settling down onto the couch, pulling on a shirt over his tee. Okay. Sam was fine. Heck, he was fine, really, just feeling nervous and a little shaky. He was panting as he sat up, like it had been a nightmare.
Talking to some angel in a dream shouldn’t feel like a nightmare, should it?
And then he remembered what Michael had said about the Seals and Lucifer and decided that that counted as one.
“You all right?” Sam asked, frowning a little. “What’s wrong, Dean?”
Dean thought for a moment. Sam was just too eager to believe all this God and angels stuff, he told himself. And what if it’d just been some kind of weird dream? Maybe he should wait and see if Castiel showed up again. But he couldn’t stay completely silent: “So,” he said, “you’ve got no problem believing in God and angels?”
Sam looked a little surprised. “No,” he replied, “not really.”
Dean nodded. “So, I guess that means you believe in the Devil?”
Sam frowned again. “Why are you asking me all this?”
Dean looked away for a moment. “No reason. Just wondering.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked, not convinced.
Dean couldn’t help the gruffness in his voice. “Yeah,” he lied. “I’m fine.”
Sam was still unconvinced but apparently thought he’d pursued it far enough for first thing in the morning. “Okay. Bobby’s going to make eggs. Hurry up and let him know what you want or it’s all going to be scrambled with spam and onions,” he said, wrinkling his nose a little at the last bit.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dean said absentmindedly, his mind back on the dream - or whatever it had been - and Michael.
Part of him still wanted to dismiss it all as just a dream - but what good had that been back in the day when Sam’d had special dreams? If demons could get into your head, why not angels?
He watched Sam saunter back into the kitchen before getting up himself, reaching for his shoes. He’d learned quickly during one of their first visits to Bobby’s not to walk around the house barefoot: you never knew what you were going to step on in a hunter’s house. (This had served him well in a lifetime of crappy motels as well.) He finished tying his right shoe and grabbed the left. Something fluttered as he lifted it; he frowned and bent over further to grab it. A piece of paper, ripped at the top, with some writing in a stiff hand: after a moment he realized most of them were Bible citations.
He set it aside, shaking his head and not quite believing it was really there, and put on his shoe. That done, he grabbed the paper and went over to the bookcases, knowing that Bobby had a Bible or two around here somewhere. Finding one at last, he set it down on the desk, cluttered as it was already with the research and ritual of the last few days, and looked up each passage.
Not all of them mentioned Michael by name - some just said something about an angel, or the hand of God, or something like that - but Mike’d said something about editing. A few of them he couldn’t find. Were they what Pastor Jim had called apocrypha? It was the last one, though, that finally made him think long and hard about this angel named Michael:
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelation. Fitting, Dean supposed, considering the whole 66 seals and Lucifer and war between good and evil and all of that. But the Michael that they were talking about there was (if he remembered anything else from Pastor Jim) the Archangel Michael, a real right-hand of God kind of dude, kick-ass general of the armies of heaven, the number-one guy with a flaming sword and shit like that.
Could there be two Michaels who were angels? Would one of the big guns lower himself to Earth just to talk to him about stuff like this?
Castiel had said that God had a special interest in him. Could’ve sent his go-to guy to take care of things when - apparently - delegating it to Castiel hadn’t worked.
Dean stared into space a moment, letting it sink in.
His new friend Mike was the Archangel Michael, the biggest bad-ass ever known to Heaven.
“Holy crap,” Dean said under his breath. “Holy fucking crap.”
[End]
(sequel to And Lo, I Saw the Fifth Angel, which is becoming a series)
AU tag to "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean Winchester"
PG-13 for language
Biblical reference is KJV Revelation 12: 7-9.
Dean Winchester.
Dean woke up, slightly disoriented. The voice had said his name, but it had sounded like it had been inside his own head. He blinked a few times and shook his head. Sam was still asleep on the couch; maybe he’d just imagined -
Dean Winchester.
This time there was a hint of directionality and he turned to look. There was a figure - a man - in the shadows of the kitchen. It wasn’t Bobby, and Sam was still on the couch - Castiel? Or something worse?
He got up slowly, grabbing a knife - the one with sigils, Ruby’s old knife, that he’d tried plunging into Castiel’s heart, not that it had helped him any - before quietly padding into the kitchen, gripping the hilt. His heartbeat and his footsteps were in his ears.
It wasn’t Castiel, but some part of his brain told him that this guy was something similar. It helped that the guy just looked at him, knife and all, with a bemused smile. “Who the hell are you?” Dean demanded, his voice low. No good waking up Sammy if this was just Castiel in a new meatsuit.
The guy smirked. “You can call me Michael,” he replied. He was dressed like Castiel, too: God’s army was filled with tax accountants and beaurocrats, it seemed, and those were two types of folks Dean had hoped to never have to deal with ever again even before he’d gone to Hell. “Michael, huh?” Dean finally said, unconvinced.
“I’m…a relative of Castiel’s,” Michael said slowly, turning his head, tilting it a little, evaluating him in that almost birdlike way that Castiel had done.
Dean narrowed his eyes, even as his grip on the knife lost its intensity. It was there again: the weird feeling he’d had when Castiel had entered the barn. At the time, he’d thought it was just part of the rest - the rattling of the roof and the whine and hum of the wind - but the feeling was back, a thrumming of strange familiarity in his blood, without all the hoopla of Castiel’s entrance. He had to give this Michael guy points for subtlety. Bobby would be appreciating the lack of destruction in the morning. Hard to fry up his famous eggs if there was sheetrock and insulation everywhere. “So,” Dean finally said, “I guess you’re one of these ‘Angels of the Lord’, too, then?”
Michael smiled a little, the smirk and the evaluating look softening. “An angel, yes. Castiel was being…colorful and a little unresearched when he added the last bit.”
“So, what? There’s no God, then?” Dean asked, equal parts confused and incredulous. What did he mean, Castiel was being colorful and unresearched? Like an angel wouldn’t know if there was a God or not? Or was he missing something?
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Michael said, fiddling with the cuff of his white business-degree dress shirt. “There is a divine entity, a force of good, but it’s probably not anything like what you would imagine as God.” Michael shifted his weight and Dean noted that he - or his vessel - wasn’t much taller than him. He was strangely less intimidating than Castiel had been. “But that’s not what I came to talk to you about,” Michael continued.
“Okay,” Dean said a little curtly. He knew he was sounding surly, but he didn’t particularly care. The guy - angel - whatever - had woken him up from the best sleep he’d had since he’d woken up six feet under. He had good reason to be cranky. “Then what’re you here about, Mike?”
The angel rankled at the nickname but didn’t call him on it; Dean counted that as a point in his favor. “First, I wanted to congratulate you on this business with the Witnesses,” Michael said. “Well done.”
Dean hadn’t expected praise. With his line of work, he rarely got a thank-you let alone a job-well-done: they were too often on the run from the cops or the witnesses were too freaked out. He stood there a moment, stunned into silence, before recovering. “Yeah, well, I didn’t see you there to help us out, or Castiel, or any other angel. Isn’t that what you guys are supposed to do - help people? Protect ‘em from evil?” he demanded heatedly, his anger growing with each word. “I could’ve died last night. I almost got my heart ripped out of my chest, man. I thought angels were supposed to guardians - fluffy wings, halos. You know - Michael Landon, not dicks. Where the hell were you guys? Plus, you know, hell of an investment strategy, going to all the trouble to bust me out of Hell and then throw me to the wolves!”
To his credit, Michael didn’t as much as blink at Dean’s outrage. “Are you finished?” the angel asked calmly.
Dean’s eyebrows went up for a moment. “Uh, yeah. For now.”
Michael nodded. “Those are legitimate concerns, given your limited knowledge. I am not angry with you, Dean.”
And Dean realized that he was a little worried after that little outburst. This Michael guy was supposed to be an angel, like Castiel, and if nothing else Castiel had made a seriously bad-ass entrance. Dean had seen enough in his life not to underestimate the supernatural: just because Michael had made a more subtle entrance didn’t mean he couldn’t kick serious ass. Part of him was waiting for the smiting to begin: bad-ass angels were probably not too keen on back talk. After Dad and Sam, he really should know better. “Okay.”
“We are not infinite in number, Dean,” Michael continued. “There aren’t enough of us to follow every mortal soul and save it from every misstep and danger. There are battles you cannot see, in a war that you already know rather well. Like a mortal war, we occasionally suffer casualties - I have lost six of my children this week. The war is growing.”
“Six?” Dean said, a little surprised. “I thought angels were invincible. And - jeez, man - six kids? That’s a damn big family.”
Michael smiled, a little sad and a little indulgent. “I have a very large family, Dean, but I do mourn each one. We are more fragile than you think.” He paused, looking away for a moment. “But we are warriors, you and I, Dean. We understand the larger picture. We understand that sacrifices must be made, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Dean said after a moment, not wanting the kitchen to fall into silence. He thought of his sacrifices over the years, mostly to help Sam, it seemed in retrospect. Yeah, maybe this Mike guy would be okay. “So, what else does God-but-not-God think I need to know? Was Bobby right? These witnesses - they’re some kind of a sign of the apocalypse?”
Michael nodded. “Unfortunately, your friend was correct. That’s why I’m here now,” he said, but Dean got the feeling that Michael was holding something back. “Are there other signs?” Dean asked, and then, a little hesitantly: “Do I even want to know what they are?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” Michael said, “but you need to know. There are sixty-six Seals - signs, as you called them. The rising of the Witnesses is one of the earliest ones.”
“Seals?” Dean said. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about SeaWorld.”
“Hardly,” Michael replied, a little sarcastically. Dean was just surprised that the angel knew what SeaWorld was. “The Seals were made a very long time ago. Think of them as locks on a door.”
“Okay, so you open these sixty-six Seals,” Dean said, a little confused. “You unlock all of them. Then what? What’s the point? The apocalypse?”
“You’re very close. When the sixty-sixth Seal is broken, Lucifer walks free.”
“Lucifer? You’re kidding, right?”
Michael gave him a look that could freeze the very fires of Hell - not that Dean remembered there being fire. “I, uh, I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school,” Dean said, backtracking a little, attitude-wise. “There’s no such thing.”
Michael snorted. “Three days ago you thought there was no such thing as Castiel and myself. I trust you’ve remedied yourself of that belief.”
Certainly on my to-do list, Dean said to himself. “So, who’s breaking these seals?” he finally asked.
“A demon. I believe you’ve made her acquaintance. She calls herself Lilith.”
Ah, hell, Dean thought. “Yeah, I’ve met her. Really wish I hadn’t. So, she did the spell - she’s the one who rose the witnesses.”
“Indeed. And not just here, Dean. Twenty other hunters are dead. We tried to stop her, but there will be other battles, other seals. Some we’ll win, some we’ll lose. We lost this one, but we can hope for victory in the future.”
“You lost this one? But we put those spirits back to rest,” Dean reminded him. “Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Michael replied. “Your efforts were valiant, but ultimately the fact that the spirits came to find their vengeance was sufficient - proof that Lilith had broken the Seal. Our consolation is that you and Samuel, and your friend Robert, were victorious and stand to fight another day. I’m sure Castiel told you we will have work for you to do.”
“Oh, yeah, he was a regular chatty Cathy about it,” Dean said. “So, what now?”
“Rest up,” Michael said. “Take comfort. Seek out evil and vanquish it. Save people. This is your family’s business, isn’t it?”
Dean wasn’t entirely comfortable with the piercing look Michael was giving him. “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, trying not to show the angel how much it had bothered him to hear those words, so close to what he’d said to Sam in the past, what Dad had said to them.
Michael nodded. “Any other questions?”
“Okay,” Dean said, shaking off that discomfort. “I’ve got a question. How come I’ve got you here today, and not Castiel? What is this, angelic musical chairs?”
Michael laughed at him.
“I’m serious! Am I gonna have to meet a new guy every time? ‘Cause I gotta say, I ain’t the most trusting of folks. You’re lucky I didn’t stab you like I did Castiel. I’m starting to wonder about those Vessels of yours.”
Michael chuckled lightly. “No, Dean,” he replied. “Barring an early apocalypse, it will be me from now on. Castiel…” He sighed, looking a little embarrassed, to Dean’s surprise. “I did not realize Castiel was so poorly suited to this duty until after I sent him to you. I apologize for the trouble his theatrics caused you and your friend. He was unprepared and a little young for the job. You’ll be seeing me from now on.”
Dean mulled this over a moment. “A little young? What does that mean? I thought angels were all supposed to have been created at the same time, you know, like before God created the world and all of that.”
“Some of us are very old, yes,” Michael told him and Dean wasn’t so dense as to not notice he’d evaded part of the question. “Others are quite young. Castiel is about five hundred of your years - barely out of adolescence, really. We’re rather showy at that age, as you saw. And then there are the nephilim…”
Dean was processing the whole age-thing as Michael trailed off and it took him a moment to realize the angel wasn’t speaking. “Nephilim?” Dean said. “I read something about them in the lore - kids of humans and angels, right? Kind of destructive?”
“Sometimes,” Michael ceded. “They are more susceptible to evil than other angels. They can be dangerous when left untrained when we do not find them before their powers begin to manifest.” He turned his head to look at Dean eye to eye again, his expression strangely thoughtful. “But that has not happened in a very long time.”
“Oh,” Dean said. “All right, then. Anything else I need to know right now or was Lilith’s plan to break Lucifer out of Hell about it?” His voice was filled with bravado; something in Michael’s gaze unsettled him.
“That was about it,” Michael replied, indulgence in his voice again - whatever that was about.
“So now what?” he repeated. “Am I allowed to tell Sam about this, or is it secret for the been-to-Hell-and-back club only? Is there something I should be looking for, like the next Seal or something, or should I - I don’t know - stay at home, read the Bible, and knit?”
Michael smiled. “Like I said, continue as before: hunt evil and save people. Each soul saved from evil is a battle won. I’ll be in touch when there is a specific need for you. As for Samuel, tell him so much as you think he will believe. I leave that to your discretion.” He straightened, no longer leaning against the countertop, and laughed a little. “I suppose there are a few relevant passages you could read, to help you understand me better if you have a chance. So much has been edited out over the millennia…” He shook his head and then reached for thin pad and pen Bobby kept on the fridge, setting aside the magnet. “Try these,” he said, writing on the pad. “I suppose you could call them my greatest hits.” He winked.
Dean woke up.
Dean blinked, feeling disoriented. He heard footsteps behind him and soon Sam was settling down onto the couch, pulling on a shirt over his tee. Okay. Sam was fine. Heck, he was fine, really, just feeling nervous and a little shaky. He was panting as he sat up, like it had been a nightmare.
Talking to some angel in a dream shouldn’t feel like a nightmare, should it?
And then he remembered what Michael had said about the Seals and Lucifer and decided that that counted as one.
“You all right?” Sam asked, frowning a little. “What’s wrong, Dean?”
Dean thought for a moment. Sam was just too eager to believe all this God and angels stuff, he told himself. And what if it’d just been some kind of weird dream? Maybe he should wait and see if Castiel showed up again. But he couldn’t stay completely silent: “So,” he said, “you’ve got no problem believing in God and angels?”
Sam looked a little surprised. “No,” he replied, “not really.”
Dean nodded. “So, I guess that means you believe in the Devil?”
Sam frowned again. “Why are you asking me all this?”
Dean looked away for a moment. “No reason. Just wondering.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sam asked, not convinced.
Dean couldn’t help the gruffness in his voice. “Yeah,” he lied. “I’m fine.”
Sam was still unconvinced but apparently thought he’d pursued it far enough for first thing in the morning. “Okay. Bobby’s going to make eggs. Hurry up and let him know what you want or it’s all going to be scrambled with spam and onions,” he said, wrinkling his nose a little at the last bit.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dean said absentmindedly, his mind back on the dream - or whatever it had been - and Michael.
Part of him still wanted to dismiss it all as just a dream - but what good had that been back in the day when Sam’d had special dreams? If demons could get into your head, why not angels?
He watched Sam saunter back into the kitchen before getting up himself, reaching for his shoes. He’d learned quickly during one of their first visits to Bobby’s not to walk around the house barefoot: you never knew what you were going to step on in a hunter’s house. (This had served him well in a lifetime of crappy motels as well.) He finished tying his right shoe and grabbed the left. Something fluttered as he lifted it; he frowned and bent over further to grab it. A piece of paper, ripped at the top, with some writing in a stiff hand: after a moment he realized most of them were Bible citations.
He set it aside, shaking his head and not quite believing it was really there, and put on his shoe. That done, he grabbed the paper and went over to the bookcases, knowing that Bobby had a Bible or two around here somewhere. Finding one at last, he set it down on the desk, cluttered as it was already with the research and ritual of the last few days, and looked up each passage.
Not all of them mentioned Michael by name - some just said something about an angel, or the hand of God, or something like that - but Mike’d said something about editing. A few of them he couldn’t find. Were they what Pastor Jim had called apocrypha? It was the last one, though, that finally made him think long and hard about this angel named Michael:
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelation. Fitting, Dean supposed, considering the whole 66 seals and Lucifer and war between good and evil and all of that. But the Michael that they were talking about there was (if he remembered anything else from Pastor Jim) the Archangel Michael, a real right-hand of God kind of dude, kick-ass general of the armies of heaven, the number-one guy with a flaming sword and shit like that.
Could there be two Michaels who were angels? Would one of the big guns lower himself to Earth just to talk to him about stuff like this?
Castiel had said that God had a special interest in him. Could’ve sent his go-to guy to take care of things when - apparently - delegating it to Castiel hadn’t worked.
Dean stared into space a moment, letting it sink in.
His new friend Mike was the Archangel Michael, the biggest bad-ass ever known to Heaven.
“Holy crap,” Dean said under his breath. “Holy fucking crap.”
[End]