FIC: "I Bring Thee Words of Truth" (1/1) (SPN, Nephilim'verse)
I Bring Thee Words of Truth (1/1)
by LJ
Nephilim’verse - sequel to "And Lo, I Saw the Fifth Angel" and "He Said Unto Me"
AU of 4.03 “In the Beginning”
PG-13 for Dean’s mouth
Summary: “Don’t worry about Samuel right now,” Michael said. “It’s time for a little trip. Learn the truth. You can’t stop it.”
“You’re coddling the child.”
Mi’kha’el looked up. “I am preparing him, U’riel,” he countered, his voice as soft as he could manage. E’din’iel still slept after all, and not soundly. He gently touched the boy’s forehead: yes, as he thought. Memories of the pit. He withdrew his touch. “There is a pattern to be followed.”
“A pattern?” U’riel scoffed. “What pattern do you speak of? Mi’kha’el, he’s a strong young man with no reason now to doubt you. Simply tell him. He’s close enough.”
“No,” Mi’kha’el said. “This is different, brother. First, he must see Miri’amel as she was when A’zaz’el first took note of her. I believe this will aid him greatly in understanding what will transpire.”
U’riel tilted his head. “Why now? Why not wait until after he has been told?” He frowned. “What do you know?”
“He did not recognize me in the past,” Mi’kha’el explained. “Therefore, he must travel before any great transitions are made. He is nearing the cusp, U’riel, but still does not truly see, does not really feel. He has heard too many lies in his life to believe what I must tell him unless he is already experiencing the manifestation. He must make this journey first. Any other pattern would disrupt reality too greatly and the war would be lost.”
“Very well,” U’riel said, understanding. “Be quick, brother: the war rages without us.”
Mi’kha’el nodded, his eyes still on E’din’iel’s nightmare-tossed form. He waited for the sound of wings before speaking. “I am sorry, but this has to be done,” he whispered and then dropped a paternal kiss on the boy’s forehead.
Dean woke up.
Disorientation was becoming all too familiar he realized, looking above him and not recognizing the ceiling for a moment. It was the nightmares; he didn’t have any real memories of Hell, but when he slept it seemed to be the only thing on his mind. He had no idea if any of it was real, if they were hidden memories or just his brain’s radical interpretation of a lifetime of horror movies and demon hunting.
Suddenly, as the room was gaining familiarity by the second, he heard the faint, calm sound of breathing. “Michael?” he said, recognizing the man leaning against the half-wall by his bed more quickly than anything else in the room.
“Hello, Dean,” Michael said, looking a little sad. Dean wondered if he’d lost any more kids. “Bad dreams?” the angel continued.
“Kind of,” Dean admitted a little cautiously, that familiar feeling in his blood again. This was supposedly the Archangel Michael, he reminded himself, the guy who invented awesome and bad-ass. The nightmares of one Dean Winchester, recently returned from Hell, weren’t worth mentioning to someone like that. “Here for a reason, or are we just hanging out? There’s some great Chinese down the road. I think they deliver.”
A small smile appeared on the angel’s face but it didn’t entirely replace the sadness. “Another time, perhaps. It’s time for a little trip.”
“A trip?” Dean said, confused. “Where are we going?” He frowned, looking over at Sam’s bed and realizing it was empty. “Hey, where’s Sammy?” He looked back at Michael, only to discover that the angel had moved and was now beside his bed. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about Samuel right now,” Michael said. “Learn the truth.”
Dean’s frown deepened, wondering what the hell was going on, but before he could say anything, Michael reached out and touched two fingers to his forehead, and then -
Everything changed.
Mi’kha’el finds the vessel awkward - a bit older than his usual, and heavier as well. But there must be a reason for his presence here and now, so he ignores the paltry discomforts and maneuvers himself towards the bench. His vessel is a police officer in charge of collecting the drunks from alleys and park benches and soon he comes across a figure stretched over a bench on the main street.
“Move it, buddy,” he says to the young man, who has just woken up. He concentrates on the idiom of the day, drawn from his vessel’s mind: “You can’t sleep here.”
The man is younger than the other fellows he has roused so far, and cleaner. His shirt is barely wrinkled. There isn’t the slightest whiff of intoxication. “Okay,” the young man says, looking confused. “Sleep where?”
Mi’kha’el - and his vessel besides - is now convinced that the young man isn’t simply a drunk, but there are municipal ordinances to be followed: “Anywhere but here,” he tells the young man.
The young man blinks and Mi’kha’el is confused even more: this young man is nephil, clear as day, nearing manifestation - the vessel cannot see it with his mortal eyes, but Mi’kha’el certainly can. Whose child is he, though? His thoughts go to Miri’amel momentarily, but no - this youngling is older than she is now; it is simply that his mind has been drawn to thoughts of her of late, and they are in Lawrence, after all. But what are the chances that a nephil of his maturity would happen to appear in Lawrence at this moment?
His questions go unanswered. He maintains the routine the vessel knows and moves on, glancing back once or twice, seeing the child sit up and gain his bearings. After a moment the boy withdraws a strange device from a pocket of his jacket and Mi’kha’el comes to a realization, knows something he did not know before: someone has bent time to bring the boy here. The knowledge brings more questions: who among his brethren did this, and why?
His duties lie elsewhere, unfortunately, and he does not have time to waste pursuing these questions, so he pushes the thoughts away and concentrates on his mission, walking ever further away from the young nephil. There is work to be done.
Dean had never been more confused, and that was something given his life. So Michael’d sent him back in time? Or was this just a dream? And why on earth was he in Lawrence in 1973, meeting his dad - who was younger than he was, and wasn’t that something to break his brain! Learn the truth, Mike’d said. What truth? Curiosity got the better of him and a minute or two after John Winchester left the diner, Dean followed.
Dean didn’t have too many memories of Lawrence itself - he hadn’t lived there since he was four, and had only visited a few times. The streets were clean, store windows bright with displays, a bell rang from a church down one of the side streets. The sun even shone. It was a far cry from the smoke and despair he normally associated with his hometown. He kept his eye on John - the guy was practically a kid; calling him his dad, even in his own head, was just too weird. John walked a few blocks west and then turned; Dean kept up, a handful of paces behind -
And nearly knocked Michael over.
He took a moment to catch his breath - not from exertion, but from surprise and confusion - and then belted out, “What is this?”
“What does it look like?” Michael asked, giving him an enigmatic look. Castiel had had that look, the one time they’d met. Must have been an angel thing. He didn’t like it. Dean finally managed to ask, “Is it real?”
“Very real, Dean.”
So it was real, not a dream. Great. “Okay, so what? Angels got their hands on some Deloreans?” Dean didn’t remember seeing the first Back to the Future in the theaters - he’s not sure if he ever did - but he sure as hell remembered seeing the second one and damned if that hadn’t made him swear off poking around in Dad’s journal and Bobby’s books for anything that might’ve let him go back and save his mom. Time travel was bad stuff to be messing with, however it had happened. “How did I get here?”
Michael looked away. “I can’t tell you everything, Dean,” he said. “Some things you will have to discover on your own, the exact mechanics of this among them. Suffice it to say that time is fluid. On occasion, it can be bent, redirected. It’s not an easy matter.”
“Not easy, huh?” Dean replied, incredulous. “Then tell me what the hell I’m doing here.”
“I told you,” Michael said. “Learn the truth.”
“That’s it? Learn the truth? The truth about what? Is it about my dad?” Part of him panicked; he’s a hunter so at the first sign of trouble, he assumes it’s supernatural in origin. “Is something nasty after my dad?”
Michael pursed his lips, like he wasn’t allowed to say something. After a moment, he said, “You can’t stop it.”
Down the street, a car horn blared. Dean looked away automatically. When he looked back, Michael was gone. “Aw, jeez,” he muttered. “Come on. What is it with you angels - are all of you allergic to straight answers?”
“Who are you?” Mi’kha’el asks bluntly, walking up to the other angel. His mission is nearly complete, his mind less burdened with details, and so unlike the nephil, he is aware enough to recognize the man’s essence on sight.
The other angel gives him a measured look. “I am you, Mi’kha’el,” he answers.
Mi’kha’el is surprised but simply nods. He has never seen himself in another vessel, from the outside; it is an unexpected experience after such a long life. “I assume we are responsible for the young nephil who arrived here today? Was bending time necessary?”
“Yes,” his older self answers. “Did he recognize you?”
“No. He is not that close to manifestation,” Mi’kha’el answers. “But you should know that.”
The other Mi’kha’el sighs. “I admit to some blindness when it comes to this one.”
“Then I thought correctly: he is a child of our line - of Miri’amel, I would guess.”
“Yes.”
He looks at his older self. “You seem distracted and tired. Is it time, then? The seals?”
“You know I cannot tell you that - and my memory tells me I won’t,” the older Mi’kha’el tells him with a slightly sly smile. There’s a little indulgence there, too, as though he were speaking to Miri’amel, or Cas’tiel, or Nimi’el.
“Very well,” Mi’kha’el says. “I shall continue my duty and you shall continue yours.”
The older Mi’kha’el nods in agreement.
Mi’kha’el begins to leave. “Tell me this,” he says, looking back. “Is she happy that she fell?”
There is no need to explain who he is referring to. The older Mi’kha’el smiles a little. “It is not a perfect life. There is sorrow and pain. But she would do it again.”
Mi’kha’el nods and smiles. “Thank you,” he says, truly glad for that assurance, and walks away.
He kept his eye on John all day: followed him to the used car lot and convinced him - thank you, divine intervention! - to buy the Impala instead of the god-awful VW bus; learned, quite quickly, that John knew nothing about hunting; walked rings around a dozen or so blocks of downtown Lawrence as John put in a half-shift at a small mechanic’s shop; followed John to an older neighborhood, beautiful with mature trees and even vintage street lamps along the sidewalks and well-maintained homes; and nearly had a heart attack realizing that the blonde girl that came running out of one of the houses was Mary - was Mom.
They were both so damn young.
He felt like the worst kind of stalker, like he was really and truly intruding on their privacy to follow them to yet another diner, where they had the most innocent late-afternoon date Dean had ever been witness to (and he still remembered chaperoning - at a distance - Sam and some red-headed chick when Sam was in eighth grade). They shared some French fries. They had milkshakes. They talked. They held hands. It was so saccharine Dean was about to die - if not for the thought of Oh-god-it’s-Mom.
Half an hour later, he felt about ready to die all over again.
His mom was a hunter. And she kicked serious ass.
What. The. Hell?
He’d felt something, that burning in his blood that he’d started associating with Michael showing up, and it hadn’t even crossed his mind that he was about to be attacked. The hairs on the back of his neck had raised the same moment he’d felt the burning hum, a contradictory message if ever there’d been one, and he’d ignored it. And then blonde, little Mary Campbell had jumped out of the dark in that alley and given him her best shot.
Luckily, he had at least fifty pounds and a lifetime of sparring with Sam to save him from the embarrassment of being beat up by a girl. She dropped her shoulder the same stupid way that Sam always did on that move. Sam could usually compensate with his sasquatchean height; Mary, on the other hand, was too short. If she’d been a couple of inches taller -
My mom, ladies and gentlemen, Xena, Warrior Princess of the Seventies. Buffy the Goddamn Vampire Slayer. Didja send me into an alternate universe, Mike, or what?
His question went unanswered, but Michael’d said “Learn the truth,” so he had to guess that it was all real. Time travel, Mom a hunter, Dad a dewy-eyed innocent, and now -
He’d been named after his grandmother? But Mary just stood there and grinned, like it was the bestest, most awesomest thing in the world that her mom was named Deanna. He pushed all thoughts of what Sam’d say when he found out and tried to eat dinner with the only semi-Rockwellian hunting family he’d ever encountered. A free meal was a free meal was a reconnaissance mission and he was going to milk it as hard as he could.
Alas, Grandpa Grumpy was immune to the patented Winchester charm. At least he could take it as good as he gave it.
“John Winchester, mixing it up with spirits,” Deanna was saying, laughing at the idea. “Can you imagine?”
If only you knew, Grandma Dee, Dean thought to himself, holding back any number of retorts. He settled for raising his eyebrows. Across the table, Samuel breathed a sigh of disdain.
“I saw that,” Mary accused.
“What?” Samuel said. Dean recognized the fake look of innocent confusion; the genes really didn’t fall far down the family tree.
“That sour-lemon look.”
“Oh, no - John’s a really, really nice….naive civilian,” Samuel finally replied, though it was obvious it pained him to say something even that fleetingly polite.
“Ugh! So what? You’d rather me be with a guy like this?” Mary countered.
Dean fought back the Marty and Lorraine flashbacks, sputtering in wide-eyed denial.
He could kiss Deanna for her intervention a moment later, if that hadn’t been an even worse image. Sammy, I am truly going to Hell again, I swear.
Dean had been biting his tongue at the Campbells’ barbs at John (it figured that the one normal thing their family had ever done was embrace the hated, underestimating in-laws stereotype) and tried, very hard, not to let anything too futuristic slip out. Smalltalk and information-gathering was all part of the gig, playing characters while investigating a job, but at times it seemed like this was the most awkward, uncomfortable conversation he’d had since Sammy was ten. And now he knew why John Winchester’d never gotten along with other hunters, if Samuel Campbell was the first thing that came to mind every time he tried.
The Whitshire farm, Mary’d said, and so the next morning Dean drove there, having ‘borrowed’ more appropriate clothing from the Catholic church near the university on the other side of town. Mrs. Whitshire let him in without any real suspicion, and part of him (the tiniest sliver that was always there, no matter how many times he did this) worried about being smote by a bolt of lightning as he introduced himself as a man of the cloth. So far, so good, and maybe this was important: he still hadn’t figured out why Michael’d gone to all this trouble to send him back in time. The worst thing after John Winchester was the hatred Samuel Campbell probably directed at any kid who looked twice at his daughter, and as for Mary - well, she was a hunter, right? She’d already proved she could take care of herself, and she had a ready-made team in her folks for anything big.
Investigational techniques were genetic, too, it turned out. He would have killed for a camera to see the look on his grandfather’s face. He held in his laughter as he headed towards Mary, and as she got Charlie Whitshire talking again, he recognized his brother’s gentler, sweeter way of talking to people. He’d always figured Sam was more like Mom than he was - he didn’t need everyone they met telling him he was just like his dad to know it was true - but it was a little uncanny.
“The next thing I know,” Charlie said, “Dad’s dead. Am I going to jail?”
“You didn’t do this, Charlie,” Mary said softly. It was a lie, of course: obviously the kid had made some kind of deal, because ‘strangers’ didn’t just show up and offer to fix things without wanting something in return. Demons were good little salesmen that way: they always got the commission they wanted. “Did the stranger want something in return?” Dean asked.
“He didn’t want anything.”
“Come on, Chuck, he wasn’t just handing out freebies now, was he?” Dean pushed. The Roman collar was starting to chafe. He missed his own back in 2008.
“He did say something about coming to call in ten years from now - maybe he’d want something then.”
Ten years from now - hell. 1983 was a cursed year as far as he was concerned. Demon probably wanted the kid’s soul, but ten years? “Something like what?”
“I don’t know, okay? Look, I told you he was nuts!”
Mary took him aside for a moment, and it was like an alternate universe where Sam was a girl. A few words and it was clear they were on the same page. The next thing was just identifying the son of a bitch and figuring out how to get rid of him. Family business, all right.
“Charlie, do you remember what the stranger looked like?”
The kid started describing the stranger and Dean fought the urge to throttle him. Average, average, average - how the hell were they going to find the demon if the guy he was possessing fit the description of just about every guy in Lawrence and environs? But then: “It’s just the light hit his eyes in a weird way, and for a moment I could’ve sworn-”
Like this was really going to help. “What, they were black?” Dean asked, exasperated. “Or red, maybe?”
“No,” said Charlie Whitshire, sounding downright scared now. “They were yellow. Pale yellow.”
Goddamn fucking son of a bitch.
Now he knew why he was in 1973. You can’t stop it, Mike’d said. Well, screw that. Obviously Big Mike of the Flaming Sword had never met a Winchester on the heels of Azazel. The yellow-eyed demon wasn’t going to know what hit him.
None of us have heard of a demon with yellow eyes.
Sam’s right, Dean - it could be a demon, a shapeshifter, any number of things.
Yeah, I heard about the Colt. Used to tell it to Mary as a bedtime story.
You seem like a really nice kid, Dean, but yeah, you’re crazy.
He’s sweet, kind. Even after the war, even after everything, he still believes in happily-ever-after, you know? He’s everything a hunter isn’t.
I love John, and - I want to get out. This job, this life - I hate it. I want a family. I want to be safe. You know the worst thing I can think of, the very worst thing, is for my children to be raised into this like I was. I won’t let it happen.
Even if it sounds really weird, will you promise me that you will remember?
As he got into the car, he thought he understood why Michael had said he couldn’t stop it. Mary wasn’t going to remember a stupid warning from some random hunter ten years later. Moms get up in the middle of the night, smelling danger better than any hunter ever could - just a fact of life and human survival - and Mary was both. If he didn’t stop Azazel now, there was nothing he could do to save his mom.
Nothing.
He set out for Colorado.
“Tell me something,” Dean asked when Michael suddenly appeared in the passenger seat. “Sam would’ve wanted in on this. Why not bring him back?”
The angel was quieter than usual. “You had to do this alone, Dean,” he said. “There are patterns, destinies, fates - you have always been here, now, alone. There’s a bigger picture than what you can see right at this moment. This is your time, not Samuel’s.”
“I don’t buy that. There’s always a choice, Mike, big or small, and right now I’m making a goddamned choice. I do this and the family curse breaks, right? No yellow-eyed demon killing Mom, Dad stays bright-eyed and innocent, we all live happily ever after, nice and normal.” He wasn’t sure how demon-hunting grandparents worked into the situation, but he was willing to let that part work itself out on its own.
Michael sighed. “You were never going to be normal, Dean,” he said softly, like he was apologizing for something. “You are Mary’s son. You have been marked for a different life since birth, and your brother as well.”
“What do you mean, marked?” Dean demanded, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you remember,” Michael said slowly, “what Castiel said to you? About being special?”
He did. Castiel’s words were burned into his memory; he would never forget what had happened to Pamela and who had caused it:
“I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice, but you already knew that.”
“In the gas station and the motel? That was you talking? Buddy, next time lower the volume.”
“That was my mistake. Certain people - special people - can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”
Dean pursed his lips and took a breath. “Yeah, I remember all right. Said he thought I was one of the ‘special people’ who could handle seeing what he really looked like. But he was wrong.”
“No,” Michael insisted. “He was right.”
“Uh, no,” Dean countered. “Believe me - I remember the skull-splitting pain of him trying to talk to me in that gas station, and in the motel. I’m just glad I never tried looking at the guy.”
“But you are a special person, as Castiel put it, Dean. It’s simply too soon - your soul, your mind, your body - all must rest and recover and gain strength before those senses allow you to perceive us in our true forms without coming to harm,” Michael said. “Hell can do damage not readily seen on the body, as you well know from your nightmares.”
Dean ignored the bit about Hell. “Well, get it out of me! I never asked to be special. I don’t want it, whatever it is.”
“I can’t do that. The choices others have made have long repercussions, Dean,” Michael said solemnly. “Nothing can change that without removing you from existence entirely. These are choices that are burned into your DNA and cannot be altered. But you have a choice now. If you do manage to alter the future, Dean, there will be price. The world will change, perhaps not for the better. Think of all the people you have saved in your lifetime - many of them will die without your presence.”
“There are other hunters,” Dean said, still reeling from the angel’s insistence that this special business was genetic. It was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. He definitely didn’t come from a family of psychics in any sense of the word, and that was the closest thing to ‘seeing the true forms of angels’ that he could come up with. “Let them deal with it.”
“And the other hunters that you have saved as well? Or the ones who will have to carry the burden of the pains and injuries and losses that you have suffered? Do you care about the effect it will have on others?”
“Oh, I care. I care a lot,” Dean replied honestly. “But these are my parents, Mike. I’m not going to let them die again. I can’t, not if I can stop it. And if you know anything about me at all, you know it’s true.”
He turned his head to look at Michael again, but the angel was gone. On to Colorado, then. If the archangel Michael wasn’t going to stop him from trying, then no one would.
Only later he realized he hadn’t asked Michael what being Mary’s son had to do with being ‘marked’. But now he guessed he knew something of how Sam had felt all this time.
At least his being special appeared to be angelic in nature, rather than demonic.
He arrived back in Lawrence by sunset the next day and quickly made his way to Haleyville. He was exhausted, driving all night to Colorado and all day back in a car he barely knew, and apprehensive. Michael had had a point about the other hunters having to take on what he and Sam and their dad had done for a quarter century if he actually managed to do it - but this was his mom. Azazel killing Mom was what started it all as far as he was concerned, the Campbells being hunters or not, because it sure seemed like Mary’d gotten her wish for normalcy those first four years of his life. Her death started everything, and there was only one way to stop it.
Dean burst into the Walsh house like a gunslinger from an old western, the Colt warm and almost humming in his hand. The demon already had Mary, his arm around her neck, and damn if that Whitshire kid hadn’t been right about the guy looking average and ordinary. A bit ugly, too, if you asked him, but then he was biased. Samuel was plastered to a wall. Looked like he was the only one saving the day. “Let her go!” he shouted.
For a moment the demon smirked but then the expression changed, the unfamiliar look of fear in those yellow eyes, as he must have recognized the Colt. “Where’d you get that gun?”
Dean cocked the hammer and aimed. Mary was still in the way - he couldn’t take the chance of hitting her too, as tired and upset as he was. He waited. Another moment, just another second, if Mary just shifted a little -
He waited too long.
Azazel laughed and flung Mary to the floor. And then, too quick for Dean to realize it was already over, he opened his mouth and escaped.
The dead man fell to the floor.
Dean had failed.
It had all been for nothing.
Michael was right.
He should have known that something was wrong when Samuel apologized in front of the Walsh house, but like what had happened inside the house, Dean was too tired, too upset, too confused to notice until it was too later and he’d spilled his guts to what he’d thought was his grandfather.
“How did I know about the Colt, huh? How did I know about the yellow-eyed demon or where it would be? I’m not making this up, Samuel,” he had said, more serious than he’d been about almost anything in his entire life.
“Every bone in my body is aching to put you six feet under, but there’s something about you. I can’t shake it,” Samuel had said, and that should have clued him in. Sure, Grandpa Doesn’t-Play-Well-With-Others had called him crazy and hadn’t shared and had wanted him out of the house, but six feet under only had one meaning this side of Hell and he was an idiot for not picking up on it.
The only smart thing he did before Azazel revealed himself was set the Colt down away from him, and that didn’t mean much when you were being thrown, chair and all, across the room by demonic telekinesis.
“Future boy, huh? I only know one thing that’s got the juice to swing something like that. You must have friends in high places. So I kill your mommy? That’s why you came all this way, to see little ol’ me?”
“Oh, I came here to kill you,” Dean told him and in that moment it was the god’s honest truth. There was nothing else it could be and no one was going to convince him otherwise. It had never been about saving John - like everything else since he was four years old, this whole damn thing had been about Mary.
“Hey! Wait a minute. If that slug marries your mommy, are you - are you one of my psychic kids?”
All the gay jokes and assumptions he’d suffered the last three years with Sam were nothing to the disturbing experience of being sniffed at by a demon possessing his grandfather’s body. And the bastard looked down right ecstatic at the idea that he might be like Sam and those other kids.
“No,” Azazel finally said, sounding disappointed. “Not you. Maybe you’ve got a sis - or a bro.” The demon brightened. “That’s terrific. Means it all worked out. After all, that’s why I’m here.”
“That’s what this is all about? These deals you’re making? You don’t want these people’s souls.” He had to give Yellow-Eyes credit: at least he was original with his deals.
“No. I just want their children. I’m here to choose the perfect parents, like your mommy.”
“Why? Why any of them?”
“Because they’re strong. They’re pure. They eat their Wheaties. My own little master race. They’re ideal breeders. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter - no one’s breeding with me.” The demon actually looked sick at the idea. “Though Mary? Man, I’d like to make an exception.”
And now Dean felt sick.
“So far,” the demon continued, “she’s my favorite.”
Dean struggled against the power of the demon holding him there - and then he saw Deanna in the kitchen. Azazel already came off like a low-budget villain, explaining his plan to the captured hero - if he got the demon talking again, then maybe - “So why make the deals?”
“I have to have permission. I have to be invited into their houses - I know, I know. The red tape will drive you nuts, but in ten short years it will all be worth it.”
Deanna was creeping through the rooms like a pro. For a moment, Dean felt a glow of pride at being named after her.
“’Cause you know what I’m going to do?” Azazel continued. “To your sibling? I’m going to stand over their crib and I’m gonna bleed into their mouth - demon blood is better than Ovaltine, vitamins, minerals, makes you big and strong!”
The guy should have gone into advertising. Dean’s stomach turned - this was what had happened to Sam? “For what? So they can lead your discount demon army? That your big plan?”
“Please,” Azazel drawled, amused. “My end game is a hell of a lot better than that, kid.”
“End game? What end game?” Dean challenged. The guy must’ve taken lessons from the supervillains on Saturday morning cartoons.
“Like I’m going to tell you. All those angels, sitting on your shoulder? No. I’m going to cover my tracks good.”
“You can cover whatever the hell you want. I’m still going to kill you.”
“Right. Now that I’d like to see.”
And in that moment - in that counter-challenge so long overdue - Dean realized he was screwed. He knew it - the chances of Deanna actually saving him were probably pretty low; Azazel’s powers weren’t run-of-the-mill demon slight-of-hand. He wasn’t going to save Mary, and he was pretty sure he now knew why he had no memories of his mom’s parents. But he knew one thing that was true and he held onto it in his heart, warming away fear and doubt: thirty-odd years from now, he would fire the Colt for real and catch Azazel right between the eyes. Nothing that had happened in the last few days was going to change that. “Maybe not today, but you look into my eyes, you son of a bitch, because I’m the one that kills you.”
Azazel laughed, a little disturbed by his sincerity maybe, but not really believing a word Dean had said. “So you’re going to save everybody, is that it? Well, I know of one person you’re not going to save - your grandpappy,” he said, and then stabbed himself - stabbed Samuel Campbell - in the stomach.
Dean was prepared for Samuel’s demise - couldn’t see any other end to this - but he still couldn’t stop himself from shouting when it happened.
And he couldn’t stop Deanna from crying out as well.
Moments later, she was dead, too, and by the time he’d grabbed the Colt and run into the dining room, Azazel was gone.
He could only think of one person he’d be headed to next.
He wasn’t quite sure how he managed to get there - he had no idea what this place was, he just followed a feeling he had, like the burn and hum in his blood - but sure enough, Azazel was there, with Mary and -
John was lying on the ground.
Was he too late? Had he changed something? Was he about to start fading out of existence?
The demon was kissing Mary and the bottom fell out of his stomach. There was only one reason why Azazel would be kissing her and Dean thought back to his own deal with a crossroads demon. He got out of the car, the Colt in his hand like it had never left, and he cried out - what, he didn’t know - and ran towards them.
He was late again. Always too damn late. The demon left Samuel’s body with an unholy scream. Mary looked at him, all the sorrow of the world, on her face -
And John gasped with the breath of renewed life and said the name that meant the world to him: “Mary?”
“John!”
And then there was nothing but the sound of Mary’s sobs and John’s breath and the river lapping at its banks and the flutter of wings as Michael laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
And then it was over.
He woke up much like he had when it had all started: suddenly, gasping for breath, slightly disoriented. And like before, Michael was there, but there wasn’t even the slightest hint of amusement in his face this time. He stood away from the bed, looking away.
“I couldn’t stop any of it,” Dean said, realizing that Michael had been right all along. “She still made a deal. She still died that night, in Sam’s room, with the fire, didn’t she?”
Michael turned, the look on his face not too different from the one he’d seen on Mary’s just moments - or decades - ago. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dean,” Michael said softly. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
“All that stuff you said about destiny and fate - it was going to happen, no matter what.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “All roads lead to the same destination in this case, I’m afraid. Something would have happened - someone would have made a deal with Azazel eventually. If not that night, then another.”
“Then why send me back? What was the point of it?” Dean asked.
“Like I told you,” Michael said apologetically, “to learn the truth. Now you know more than you did before. You know that your mother was a hunter, that she made a deal with Azazel, that Azazel killed your grandparents - and, briefly, your father. You know how Azazel tainted your brother.”
“What he said - he bled into Sam’s mouth?” Dean asked, disgusted by the idea. “That’s what he did?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, he made it pretty damn clear that the whole psychic kids leading his demon army thing wasn’t all of it - there was more to his plan, Mike. So what was he up to? What’s the point?”
Michael sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What the hell?”
“Dean, we know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don’t know is why. What his end-game is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.”
“Well, crap,” Dean exclaimed.
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Now what?”
Michael was solemn. “Your brother seems to be headed down a dangerous road, Dean,” he said. “No one among our numbers is sure where it may lead. Please help him. Watch over him.”
“Help him? Watch over him? Dude, I’ve been doing that since I was four. What’s the deal here?”
“You did so under your father’s orders, Dean,” Michael explained patiently, sitting down on the bed. “This is not an order; this is a request. You are in for a difficult time in the coming months for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with your brother. There is no shame or sin in refusing the request.”
Dean squinted at him. “That special thing that Castiel talked about, that you said was genetic or whatever. You still think I’ve got it. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Michael nodded. “I can see it in you even now, Dean,” he said softly, touching Dean’s face in a strangely paternal manner. “It will soon begin to manifest. You are beginning to heal.” He stood up and stepped away from the bed. “You are both adults now, Dean, and like you said, there are choices. This is a choice and no one will hold it against you if you decide against it. There are other missions, other jobs, I can offer you. You can refuse them all, in fact. You are under no obligation here.”
Dean frowned. Michael had to be up to something - no way he was supposed to take the angel’s words at face value, no matter how sincere the expression on his face and the tone of his voice. “Watch him and help him, you said?” Dean verified a moment later.
“Watch him and help him, as it is within your power to do so.”
There had to be some kind of catch, but Dean couldn’t find it. “Okay,” he said. “I can do that. No problem.”
“Thank you,” Michael said. There it was again - being thanked for something. Dean shivered a little at it. “You should get your rest,” Michael continued, stepping back towards the bed and gently pushing on his shoulder. “You will need energy and strength in the coming time.” Dean fell back onto the bed, starting to feel strangely sleepy. Damn angel jedi mind tricks. “Watch and help your brother as best you can. I will be back soon.”
The mention of Sam broke through the sleepiness for a moment and Dean glanced over at the other bed. “Hey, speaking of Sam,” he slurred, “know where he is?”
But Michael was already gone, and a moment later, Dean was asleep.
[end]
Sequel: "Thou Art Not Alone"
by LJ
Nephilim’verse - sequel to "And Lo, I Saw the Fifth Angel" and "He Said Unto Me"
AU of 4.03 “In the Beginning”
PG-13 for Dean’s mouth
Summary: “Don’t worry about Samuel right now,” Michael said. “It’s time for a little trip. Learn the truth. You can’t stop it.”
“You’re coddling the child.”
Mi’kha’el looked up. “I am preparing him, U’riel,” he countered, his voice as soft as he could manage. E’din’iel still slept after all, and not soundly. He gently touched the boy’s forehead: yes, as he thought. Memories of the pit. He withdrew his touch. “There is a pattern to be followed.”
“A pattern?” U’riel scoffed. “What pattern do you speak of? Mi’kha’el, he’s a strong young man with no reason now to doubt you. Simply tell him. He’s close enough.”
“No,” Mi’kha’el said. “This is different, brother. First, he must see Miri’amel as she was when A’zaz’el first took note of her. I believe this will aid him greatly in understanding what will transpire.”
U’riel tilted his head. “Why now? Why not wait until after he has been told?” He frowned. “What do you know?”
“He did not recognize me in the past,” Mi’kha’el explained. “Therefore, he must travel before any great transitions are made. He is nearing the cusp, U’riel, but still does not truly see, does not really feel. He has heard too many lies in his life to believe what I must tell him unless he is already experiencing the manifestation. He must make this journey first. Any other pattern would disrupt reality too greatly and the war would be lost.”
“Very well,” U’riel said, understanding. “Be quick, brother: the war rages without us.”
Mi’kha’el nodded, his eyes still on E’din’iel’s nightmare-tossed form. He waited for the sound of wings before speaking. “I am sorry, but this has to be done,” he whispered and then dropped a paternal kiss on the boy’s forehead.
Dean woke up.
Disorientation was becoming all too familiar he realized, looking above him and not recognizing the ceiling for a moment. It was the nightmares; he didn’t have any real memories of Hell, but when he slept it seemed to be the only thing on his mind. He had no idea if any of it was real, if they were hidden memories or just his brain’s radical interpretation of a lifetime of horror movies and demon hunting.
Suddenly, as the room was gaining familiarity by the second, he heard the faint, calm sound of breathing. “Michael?” he said, recognizing the man leaning against the half-wall by his bed more quickly than anything else in the room.
“Hello, Dean,” Michael said, looking a little sad. Dean wondered if he’d lost any more kids. “Bad dreams?” the angel continued.
“Kind of,” Dean admitted a little cautiously, that familiar feeling in his blood again. This was supposedly the Archangel Michael, he reminded himself, the guy who invented awesome and bad-ass. The nightmares of one Dean Winchester, recently returned from Hell, weren’t worth mentioning to someone like that. “Here for a reason, or are we just hanging out? There’s some great Chinese down the road. I think they deliver.”
A small smile appeared on the angel’s face but it didn’t entirely replace the sadness. “Another time, perhaps. It’s time for a little trip.”
“A trip?” Dean said, confused. “Where are we going?” He frowned, looking over at Sam’s bed and realizing it was empty. “Hey, where’s Sammy?” He looked back at Michael, only to discover that the angel had moved and was now beside his bed. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about Samuel right now,” Michael said. “Learn the truth.”
Dean’s frown deepened, wondering what the hell was going on, but before he could say anything, Michael reached out and touched two fingers to his forehead, and then -
Everything changed.
Mi’kha’el finds the vessel awkward - a bit older than his usual, and heavier as well. But there must be a reason for his presence here and now, so he ignores the paltry discomforts and maneuvers himself towards the bench. His vessel is a police officer in charge of collecting the drunks from alleys and park benches and soon he comes across a figure stretched over a bench on the main street.
“Move it, buddy,” he says to the young man, who has just woken up. He concentrates on the idiom of the day, drawn from his vessel’s mind: “You can’t sleep here.”
The man is younger than the other fellows he has roused so far, and cleaner. His shirt is barely wrinkled. There isn’t the slightest whiff of intoxication. “Okay,” the young man says, looking confused. “Sleep where?”
Mi’kha’el - and his vessel besides - is now convinced that the young man isn’t simply a drunk, but there are municipal ordinances to be followed: “Anywhere but here,” he tells the young man.
The young man blinks and Mi’kha’el is confused even more: this young man is nephil, clear as day, nearing manifestation - the vessel cannot see it with his mortal eyes, but Mi’kha’el certainly can. Whose child is he, though? His thoughts go to Miri’amel momentarily, but no - this youngling is older than she is now; it is simply that his mind has been drawn to thoughts of her of late, and they are in Lawrence, after all. But what are the chances that a nephil of his maturity would happen to appear in Lawrence at this moment?
His questions go unanswered. He maintains the routine the vessel knows and moves on, glancing back once or twice, seeing the child sit up and gain his bearings. After a moment the boy withdraws a strange device from a pocket of his jacket and Mi’kha’el comes to a realization, knows something he did not know before: someone has bent time to bring the boy here. The knowledge brings more questions: who among his brethren did this, and why?
His duties lie elsewhere, unfortunately, and he does not have time to waste pursuing these questions, so he pushes the thoughts away and concentrates on his mission, walking ever further away from the young nephil. There is work to be done.
Dean had never been more confused, and that was something given his life. So Michael’d sent him back in time? Or was this just a dream? And why on earth was he in Lawrence in 1973, meeting his dad - who was younger than he was, and wasn’t that something to break his brain! Learn the truth, Mike’d said. What truth? Curiosity got the better of him and a minute or two after John Winchester left the diner, Dean followed.
Dean didn’t have too many memories of Lawrence itself - he hadn’t lived there since he was four, and had only visited a few times. The streets were clean, store windows bright with displays, a bell rang from a church down one of the side streets. The sun even shone. It was a far cry from the smoke and despair he normally associated with his hometown. He kept his eye on John - the guy was practically a kid; calling him his dad, even in his own head, was just too weird. John walked a few blocks west and then turned; Dean kept up, a handful of paces behind -
And nearly knocked Michael over.
He took a moment to catch his breath - not from exertion, but from surprise and confusion - and then belted out, “What is this?”
“What does it look like?” Michael asked, giving him an enigmatic look. Castiel had had that look, the one time they’d met. Must have been an angel thing. He didn’t like it. Dean finally managed to ask, “Is it real?”
“Very real, Dean.”
So it was real, not a dream. Great. “Okay, so what? Angels got their hands on some Deloreans?” Dean didn’t remember seeing the first Back to the Future in the theaters - he’s not sure if he ever did - but he sure as hell remembered seeing the second one and damned if that hadn’t made him swear off poking around in Dad’s journal and Bobby’s books for anything that might’ve let him go back and save his mom. Time travel was bad stuff to be messing with, however it had happened. “How did I get here?”
Michael looked away. “I can’t tell you everything, Dean,” he said. “Some things you will have to discover on your own, the exact mechanics of this among them. Suffice it to say that time is fluid. On occasion, it can be bent, redirected. It’s not an easy matter.”
“Not easy, huh?” Dean replied, incredulous. “Then tell me what the hell I’m doing here.”
“I told you,” Michael said. “Learn the truth.”
“That’s it? Learn the truth? The truth about what? Is it about my dad?” Part of him panicked; he’s a hunter so at the first sign of trouble, he assumes it’s supernatural in origin. “Is something nasty after my dad?”
Michael pursed his lips, like he wasn’t allowed to say something. After a moment, he said, “You can’t stop it.”
Down the street, a car horn blared. Dean looked away automatically. When he looked back, Michael was gone. “Aw, jeez,” he muttered. “Come on. What is it with you angels - are all of you allergic to straight answers?”
“Who are you?” Mi’kha’el asks bluntly, walking up to the other angel. His mission is nearly complete, his mind less burdened with details, and so unlike the nephil, he is aware enough to recognize the man’s essence on sight.
The other angel gives him a measured look. “I am you, Mi’kha’el,” he answers.
Mi’kha’el is surprised but simply nods. He has never seen himself in another vessel, from the outside; it is an unexpected experience after such a long life. “I assume we are responsible for the young nephil who arrived here today? Was bending time necessary?”
“Yes,” his older self answers. “Did he recognize you?”
“No. He is not that close to manifestation,” Mi’kha’el answers. “But you should know that.”
The other Mi’kha’el sighs. “I admit to some blindness when it comes to this one.”
“Then I thought correctly: he is a child of our line - of Miri’amel, I would guess.”
“Yes.”
He looks at his older self. “You seem distracted and tired. Is it time, then? The seals?”
“You know I cannot tell you that - and my memory tells me I won’t,” the older Mi’kha’el tells him with a slightly sly smile. There’s a little indulgence there, too, as though he were speaking to Miri’amel, or Cas’tiel, or Nimi’el.
“Very well,” Mi’kha’el says. “I shall continue my duty and you shall continue yours.”
The older Mi’kha’el nods in agreement.
Mi’kha’el begins to leave. “Tell me this,” he says, looking back. “Is she happy that she fell?”
There is no need to explain who he is referring to. The older Mi’kha’el smiles a little. “It is not a perfect life. There is sorrow and pain. But she would do it again.”
Mi’kha’el nods and smiles. “Thank you,” he says, truly glad for that assurance, and walks away.
He kept his eye on John all day: followed him to the used car lot and convinced him - thank you, divine intervention! - to buy the Impala instead of the god-awful VW bus; learned, quite quickly, that John knew nothing about hunting; walked rings around a dozen or so blocks of downtown Lawrence as John put in a half-shift at a small mechanic’s shop; followed John to an older neighborhood, beautiful with mature trees and even vintage street lamps along the sidewalks and well-maintained homes; and nearly had a heart attack realizing that the blonde girl that came running out of one of the houses was Mary - was Mom.
They were both so damn young.
He felt like the worst kind of stalker, like he was really and truly intruding on their privacy to follow them to yet another diner, where they had the most innocent late-afternoon date Dean had ever been witness to (and he still remembered chaperoning - at a distance - Sam and some red-headed chick when Sam was in eighth grade). They shared some French fries. They had milkshakes. They talked. They held hands. It was so saccharine Dean was about to die - if not for the thought of Oh-god-it’s-Mom.
Half an hour later, he felt about ready to die all over again.
His mom was a hunter. And she kicked serious ass.
What. The. Hell?
He’d felt something, that burning in his blood that he’d started associating with Michael showing up, and it hadn’t even crossed his mind that he was about to be attacked. The hairs on the back of his neck had raised the same moment he’d felt the burning hum, a contradictory message if ever there’d been one, and he’d ignored it. And then blonde, little Mary Campbell had jumped out of the dark in that alley and given him her best shot.
Luckily, he had at least fifty pounds and a lifetime of sparring with Sam to save him from the embarrassment of being beat up by a girl. She dropped her shoulder the same stupid way that Sam always did on that move. Sam could usually compensate with his sasquatchean height; Mary, on the other hand, was too short. If she’d been a couple of inches taller -
My mom, ladies and gentlemen, Xena, Warrior Princess of the Seventies. Buffy the Goddamn Vampire Slayer. Didja send me into an alternate universe, Mike, or what?
His question went unanswered, but Michael’d said “Learn the truth,” so he had to guess that it was all real. Time travel, Mom a hunter, Dad a dewy-eyed innocent, and now -
He’d been named after his grandmother? But Mary just stood there and grinned, like it was the bestest, most awesomest thing in the world that her mom was named Deanna. He pushed all thoughts of what Sam’d say when he found out and tried to eat dinner with the only semi-Rockwellian hunting family he’d ever encountered. A free meal was a free meal was a reconnaissance mission and he was going to milk it as hard as he could.
Alas, Grandpa Grumpy was immune to the patented Winchester charm. At least he could take it as good as he gave it.
“John Winchester, mixing it up with spirits,” Deanna was saying, laughing at the idea. “Can you imagine?”
If only you knew, Grandma Dee, Dean thought to himself, holding back any number of retorts. He settled for raising his eyebrows. Across the table, Samuel breathed a sigh of disdain.
“I saw that,” Mary accused.
“What?” Samuel said. Dean recognized the fake look of innocent confusion; the genes really didn’t fall far down the family tree.
“That sour-lemon look.”
“Oh, no - John’s a really, really nice….naive civilian,” Samuel finally replied, though it was obvious it pained him to say something even that fleetingly polite.
“Ugh! So what? You’d rather me be with a guy like this?” Mary countered.
Dean fought back the Marty and Lorraine flashbacks, sputtering in wide-eyed denial.
He could kiss Deanna for her intervention a moment later, if that hadn’t been an even worse image. Sammy, I am truly going to Hell again, I swear.
Dean had been biting his tongue at the Campbells’ barbs at John (it figured that the one normal thing their family had ever done was embrace the hated, underestimating in-laws stereotype) and tried, very hard, not to let anything too futuristic slip out. Smalltalk and information-gathering was all part of the gig, playing characters while investigating a job, but at times it seemed like this was the most awkward, uncomfortable conversation he’d had since Sammy was ten. And now he knew why John Winchester’d never gotten along with other hunters, if Samuel Campbell was the first thing that came to mind every time he tried.
The Whitshire farm, Mary’d said, and so the next morning Dean drove there, having ‘borrowed’ more appropriate clothing from the Catholic church near the university on the other side of town. Mrs. Whitshire let him in without any real suspicion, and part of him (the tiniest sliver that was always there, no matter how many times he did this) worried about being smote by a bolt of lightning as he introduced himself as a man of the cloth. So far, so good, and maybe this was important: he still hadn’t figured out why Michael’d gone to all this trouble to send him back in time. The worst thing after John Winchester was the hatred Samuel Campbell probably directed at any kid who looked twice at his daughter, and as for Mary - well, she was a hunter, right? She’d already proved she could take care of herself, and she had a ready-made team in her folks for anything big.
Investigational techniques were genetic, too, it turned out. He would have killed for a camera to see the look on his grandfather’s face. He held in his laughter as he headed towards Mary, and as she got Charlie Whitshire talking again, he recognized his brother’s gentler, sweeter way of talking to people. He’d always figured Sam was more like Mom than he was - he didn’t need everyone they met telling him he was just like his dad to know it was true - but it was a little uncanny.
“The next thing I know,” Charlie said, “Dad’s dead. Am I going to jail?”
“You didn’t do this, Charlie,” Mary said softly. It was a lie, of course: obviously the kid had made some kind of deal, because ‘strangers’ didn’t just show up and offer to fix things without wanting something in return. Demons were good little salesmen that way: they always got the commission they wanted. “Did the stranger want something in return?” Dean asked.
“He didn’t want anything.”
“Come on, Chuck, he wasn’t just handing out freebies now, was he?” Dean pushed. The Roman collar was starting to chafe. He missed his own back in 2008.
“He did say something about coming to call in ten years from now - maybe he’d want something then.”
Ten years from now - hell. 1983 was a cursed year as far as he was concerned. Demon probably wanted the kid’s soul, but ten years? “Something like what?”
“I don’t know, okay? Look, I told you he was nuts!”
Mary took him aside for a moment, and it was like an alternate universe where Sam was a girl. A few words and it was clear they were on the same page. The next thing was just identifying the son of a bitch and figuring out how to get rid of him. Family business, all right.
“Charlie, do you remember what the stranger looked like?”
The kid started describing the stranger and Dean fought the urge to throttle him. Average, average, average - how the hell were they going to find the demon if the guy he was possessing fit the description of just about every guy in Lawrence and environs? But then: “It’s just the light hit his eyes in a weird way, and for a moment I could’ve sworn-”
Like this was really going to help. “What, they were black?” Dean asked, exasperated. “Or red, maybe?”
“No,” said Charlie Whitshire, sounding downright scared now. “They were yellow. Pale yellow.”
Goddamn fucking son of a bitch.
Now he knew why he was in 1973. You can’t stop it, Mike’d said. Well, screw that. Obviously Big Mike of the Flaming Sword had never met a Winchester on the heels of Azazel. The yellow-eyed demon wasn’t going to know what hit him.
None of us have heard of a demon with yellow eyes.
Sam’s right, Dean - it could be a demon, a shapeshifter, any number of things.
Yeah, I heard about the Colt. Used to tell it to Mary as a bedtime story.
You seem like a really nice kid, Dean, but yeah, you’re crazy.
He’s sweet, kind. Even after the war, even after everything, he still believes in happily-ever-after, you know? He’s everything a hunter isn’t.
I love John, and - I want to get out. This job, this life - I hate it. I want a family. I want to be safe. You know the worst thing I can think of, the very worst thing, is for my children to be raised into this like I was. I won’t let it happen.
Even if it sounds really weird, will you promise me that you will remember?
As he got into the car, he thought he understood why Michael had said he couldn’t stop it. Mary wasn’t going to remember a stupid warning from some random hunter ten years later. Moms get up in the middle of the night, smelling danger better than any hunter ever could - just a fact of life and human survival - and Mary was both. If he didn’t stop Azazel now, there was nothing he could do to save his mom.
Nothing.
He set out for Colorado.
“Tell me something,” Dean asked when Michael suddenly appeared in the passenger seat. “Sam would’ve wanted in on this. Why not bring him back?”
The angel was quieter than usual. “You had to do this alone, Dean,” he said. “There are patterns, destinies, fates - you have always been here, now, alone. There’s a bigger picture than what you can see right at this moment. This is your time, not Samuel’s.”
“I don’t buy that. There’s always a choice, Mike, big or small, and right now I’m making a goddamned choice. I do this and the family curse breaks, right? No yellow-eyed demon killing Mom, Dad stays bright-eyed and innocent, we all live happily ever after, nice and normal.” He wasn’t sure how demon-hunting grandparents worked into the situation, but he was willing to let that part work itself out on its own.
Michael sighed. “You were never going to be normal, Dean,” he said softly, like he was apologizing for something. “You are Mary’s son. You have been marked for a different life since birth, and your brother as well.”
“What do you mean, marked?” Dean demanded, taking his eyes off the road for a moment. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Do you remember,” Michael said slowly, “what Castiel said to you? About being special?”
He did. Castiel’s words were burned into his memory; he would never forget what had happened to Pamela and who had caused it:
“I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be overwhelming to humans, and so can my real voice, but you already knew that.”
“In the gas station and the motel? That was you talking? Buddy, next time lower the volume.”
“That was my mistake. Certain people - special people - can perceive my true visage. I thought you would be one of them. I was wrong.”
Dean pursed his lips and took a breath. “Yeah, I remember all right. Said he thought I was one of the ‘special people’ who could handle seeing what he really looked like. But he was wrong.”
“No,” Michael insisted. “He was right.”
“Uh, no,” Dean countered. “Believe me - I remember the skull-splitting pain of him trying to talk to me in that gas station, and in the motel. I’m just glad I never tried looking at the guy.”
“But you are a special person, as Castiel put it, Dean. It’s simply too soon - your soul, your mind, your body - all must rest and recover and gain strength before those senses allow you to perceive us in our true forms without coming to harm,” Michael said. “Hell can do damage not readily seen on the body, as you well know from your nightmares.”
Dean ignored the bit about Hell. “Well, get it out of me! I never asked to be special. I don’t want it, whatever it is.”
“I can’t do that. The choices others have made have long repercussions, Dean,” Michael said solemnly. “Nothing can change that without removing you from existence entirely. These are choices that are burned into your DNA and cannot be altered. But you have a choice now. If you do manage to alter the future, Dean, there will be price. The world will change, perhaps not for the better. Think of all the people you have saved in your lifetime - many of them will die without your presence.”
“There are other hunters,” Dean said, still reeling from the angel’s insistence that this special business was genetic. It was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. He definitely didn’t come from a family of psychics in any sense of the word, and that was the closest thing to ‘seeing the true forms of angels’ that he could come up with. “Let them deal with it.”
“And the other hunters that you have saved as well? Or the ones who will have to carry the burden of the pains and injuries and losses that you have suffered? Do you care about the effect it will have on others?”
“Oh, I care. I care a lot,” Dean replied honestly. “But these are my parents, Mike. I’m not going to let them die again. I can’t, not if I can stop it. And if you know anything about me at all, you know it’s true.”
He turned his head to look at Michael again, but the angel was gone. On to Colorado, then. If the archangel Michael wasn’t going to stop him from trying, then no one would.
Only later he realized he hadn’t asked Michael what being Mary’s son had to do with being ‘marked’. But now he guessed he knew something of how Sam had felt all this time.
At least his being special appeared to be angelic in nature, rather than demonic.
He arrived back in Lawrence by sunset the next day and quickly made his way to Haleyville. He was exhausted, driving all night to Colorado and all day back in a car he barely knew, and apprehensive. Michael had had a point about the other hunters having to take on what he and Sam and their dad had done for a quarter century if he actually managed to do it - but this was his mom. Azazel killing Mom was what started it all as far as he was concerned, the Campbells being hunters or not, because it sure seemed like Mary’d gotten her wish for normalcy those first four years of his life. Her death started everything, and there was only one way to stop it.
Dean burst into the Walsh house like a gunslinger from an old western, the Colt warm and almost humming in his hand. The demon already had Mary, his arm around her neck, and damn if that Whitshire kid hadn’t been right about the guy looking average and ordinary. A bit ugly, too, if you asked him, but then he was biased. Samuel was plastered to a wall. Looked like he was the only one saving the day. “Let her go!” he shouted.
For a moment the demon smirked but then the expression changed, the unfamiliar look of fear in those yellow eyes, as he must have recognized the Colt. “Where’d you get that gun?”
Dean cocked the hammer and aimed. Mary was still in the way - he couldn’t take the chance of hitting her too, as tired and upset as he was. He waited. Another moment, just another second, if Mary just shifted a little -
He waited too long.
Azazel laughed and flung Mary to the floor. And then, too quick for Dean to realize it was already over, he opened his mouth and escaped.
The dead man fell to the floor.
Dean had failed.
It had all been for nothing.
Michael was right.
He should have known that something was wrong when Samuel apologized in front of the Walsh house, but like what had happened inside the house, Dean was too tired, too upset, too confused to notice until it was too later and he’d spilled his guts to what he’d thought was his grandfather.
“How did I know about the Colt, huh? How did I know about the yellow-eyed demon or where it would be? I’m not making this up, Samuel,” he had said, more serious than he’d been about almost anything in his entire life.
“Every bone in my body is aching to put you six feet under, but there’s something about you. I can’t shake it,” Samuel had said, and that should have clued him in. Sure, Grandpa Doesn’t-Play-Well-With-Others had called him crazy and hadn’t shared and had wanted him out of the house, but six feet under only had one meaning this side of Hell and he was an idiot for not picking up on it.
The only smart thing he did before Azazel revealed himself was set the Colt down away from him, and that didn’t mean much when you were being thrown, chair and all, across the room by demonic telekinesis.
“Future boy, huh? I only know one thing that’s got the juice to swing something like that. You must have friends in high places. So I kill your mommy? That’s why you came all this way, to see little ol’ me?”
“Oh, I came here to kill you,” Dean told him and in that moment it was the god’s honest truth. There was nothing else it could be and no one was going to convince him otherwise. It had never been about saving John - like everything else since he was four years old, this whole damn thing had been about Mary.
“Hey! Wait a minute. If that slug marries your mommy, are you - are you one of my psychic kids?”
All the gay jokes and assumptions he’d suffered the last three years with Sam were nothing to the disturbing experience of being sniffed at by a demon possessing his grandfather’s body. And the bastard looked down right ecstatic at the idea that he might be like Sam and those other kids.
“No,” Azazel finally said, sounding disappointed. “Not you. Maybe you’ve got a sis - or a bro.” The demon brightened. “That’s terrific. Means it all worked out. After all, that’s why I’m here.”
“That’s what this is all about? These deals you’re making? You don’t want these people’s souls.” He had to give Yellow-Eyes credit: at least he was original with his deals.
“No. I just want their children. I’m here to choose the perfect parents, like your mommy.”
“Why? Why any of them?”
“Because they’re strong. They’re pure. They eat their Wheaties. My own little master race. They’re ideal breeders. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter - no one’s breeding with me.” The demon actually looked sick at the idea. “Though Mary? Man, I’d like to make an exception.”
And now Dean felt sick.
“So far,” the demon continued, “she’s my favorite.”
Dean struggled against the power of the demon holding him there - and then he saw Deanna in the kitchen. Azazel already came off like a low-budget villain, explaining his plan to the captured hero - if he got the demon talking again, then maybe - “So why make the deals?”
“I have to have permission. I have to be invited into their houses - I know, I know. The red tape will drive you nuts, but in ten short years it will all be worth it.”
Deanna was creeping through the rooms like a pro. For a moment, Dean felt a glow of pride at being named after her.
“’Cause you know what I’m going to do?” Azazel continued. “To your sibling? I’m going to stand over their crib and I’m gonna bleed into their mouth - demon blood is better than Ovaltine, vitamins, minerals, makes you big and strong!”
The guy should have gone into advertising. Dean’s stomach turned - this was what had happened to Sam? “For what? So they can lead your discount demon army? That your big plan?”
“Please,” Azazel drawled, amused. “My end game is a hell of a lot better than that, kid.”
“End game? What end game?” Dean challenged. The guy must’ve taken lessons from the supervillains on Saturday morning cartoons.
“Like I’m going to tell you. All those angels, sitting on your shoulder? No. I’m going to cover my tracks good.”
“You can cover whatever the hell you want. I’m still going to kill you.”
“Right. Now that I’d like to see.”
And in that moment - in that counter-challenge so long overdue - Dean realized he was screwed. He knew it - the chances of Deanna actually saving him were probably pretty low; Azazel’s powers weren’t run-of-the-mill demon slight-of-hand. He wasn’t going to save Mary, and he was pretty sure he now knew why he had no memories of his mom’s parents. But he knew one thing that was true and he held onto it in his heart, warming away fear and doubt: thirty-odd years from now, he would fire the Colt for real and catch Azazel right between the eyes. Nothing that had happened in the last few days was going to change that. “Maybe not today, but you look into my eyes, you son of a bitch, because I’m the one that kills you.”
Azazel laughed, a little disturbed by his sincerity maybe, but not really believing a word Dean had said. “So you’re going to save everybody, is that it? Well, I know of one person you’re not going to save - your grandpappy,” he said, and then stabbed himself - stabbed Samuel Campbell - in the stomach.
Dean was prepared for Samuel’s demise - couldn’t see any other end to this - but he still couldn’t stop himself from shouting when it happened.
And he couldn’t stop Deanna from crying out as well.
Moments later, she was dead, too, and by the time he’d grabbed the Colt and run into the dining room, Azazel was gone.
He could only think of one person he’d be headed to next.
He wasn’t quite sure how he managed to get there - he had no idea what this place was, he just followed a feeling he had, like the burn and hum in his blood - but sure enough, Azazel was there, with Mary and -
John was lying on the ground.
Was he too late? Had he changed something? Was he about to start fading out of existence?
The demon was kissing Mary and the bottom fell out of his stomach. There was only one reason why Azazel would be kissing her and Dean thought back to his own deal with a crossroads demon. He got out of the car, the Colt in his hand like it had never left, and he cried out - what, he didn’t know - and ran towards them.
He was late again. Always too damn late. The demon left Samuel’s body with an unholy scream. Mary looked at him, all the sorrow of the world, on her face -
And John gasped with the breath of renewed life and said the name that meant the world to him: “Mary?”
“John!”
And then there was nothing but the sound of Mary’s sobs and John’s breath and the river lapping at its banks and the flutter of wings as Michael laid a hand on Dean’s shoulder.
And then it was over.
He woke up much like he had when it had all started: suddenly, gasping for breath, slightly disoriented. And like before, Michael was there, but there wasn’t even the slightest hint of amusement in his face this time. He stood away from the bed, looking away.
“I couldn’t stop any of it,” Dean said, realizing that Michael had been right all along. “She still made a deal. She still died that night, in Sam’s room, with the fire, didn’t she?”
Michael turned, the look on his face not too different from the one he’d seen on Mary’s just moments - or decades - ago. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dean,” Michael said softly. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
“All that stuff you said about destiny and fate - it was going to happen, no matter what.”
“Yes,” Michael said. “All roads lead to the same destination in this case, I’m afraid. Something would have happened - someone would have made a deal with Azazel eventually. If not that night, then another.”
“Then why send me back? What was the point of it?” Dean asked.
“Like I told you,” Michael said apologetically, “to learn the truth. Now you know more than you did before. You know that your mother was a hunter, that she made a deal with Azazel, that Azazel killed your grandparents - and, briefly, your father. You know how Azazel tainted your brother.”
“What he said - he bled into Sam’s mouth?” Dean asked, disgusted by the idea. “That’s what he did?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I mean, he made it pretty damn clear that the whole psychic kids leading his demon army thing wasn’t all of it - there was more to his plan, Mike. So what was he up to? What’s the point?”
Michael sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What the hell?”
“Dean, we know what Azazel did to your brother. What we don’t know is why. What his end-game is. He went to great lengths to cover that up.”
“Well, crap,” Dean exclaimed.
“My sentiments exactly.”
“Now what?”
Michael was solemn. “Your brother seems to be headed down a dangerous road, Dean,” he said. “No one among our numbers is sure where it may lead. Please help him. Watch over him.”
“Help him? Watch over him? Dude, I’ve been doing that since I was four. What’s the deal here?”
“You did so under your father’s orders, Dean,” Michael explained patiently, sitting down on the bed. “This is not an order; this is a request. You are in for a difficult time in the coming months for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with your brother. There is no shame or sin in refusing the request.”
Dean squinted at him. “That special thing that Castiel talked about, that you said was genetic or whatever. You still think I’ve got it. Is that what you’re talking about?”
Michael nodded. “I can see it in you even now, Dean,” he said softly, touching Dean’s face in a strangely paternal manner. “It will soon begin to manifest. You are beginning to heal.” He stood up and stepped away from the bed. “You are both adults now, Dean, and like you said, there are choices. This is a choice and no one will hold it against you if you decide against it. There are other missions, other jobs, I can offer you. You can refuse them all, in fact. You are under no obligation here.”
Dean frowned. Michael had to be up to something - no way he was supposed to take the angel’s words at face value, no matter how sincere the expression on his face and the tone of his voice. “Watch him and help him, you said?” Dean verified a moment later.
“Watch him and help him, as it is within your power to do so.”
There had to be some kind of catch, but Dean couldn’t find it. “Okay,” he said. “I can do that. No problem.”
“Thank you,” Michael said. There it was again - being thanked for something. Dean shivered a little at it. “You should get your rest,” Michael continued, stepping back towards the bed and gently pushing on his shoulder. “You will need energy and strength in the coming time.” Dean fell back onto the bed, starting to feel strangely sleepy. Damn angel jedi mind tricks. “Watch and help your brother as best you can. I will be back soon.”
The mention of Sam broke through the sleepiness for a moment and Dean glanced over at the other bed. “Hey, speaking of Sam,” he slurred, “know where he is?”
But Michael was already gone, and a moment later, Dean was asleep.
[end]
Sequel: "Thou Art Not Alone"